Dioxin Bioavailability Research: Future Approaches Pondered

Abstract

At most scientific meetings, researchers focus on what they know or have just discovered. But at a high-powered meeting on dioxin held last month, the spotlight was on what isn't known and what needs to be found out. The meeting, called the Research Planning Workshop on Bioavailability of Dioxins, took place in Raleigh, N.C., and was organized by the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Research & Development (ORD). It brought together some 90 experts in various aspects of dioxin research from industry, academia, and government—the Who's Who of dioxins, in the words of workshop chairman Rizwanul Haque, a senior environmental scientist at ORD. EPA believes that the most rational way to pave the way for accurate hazard assessment of dioxin contamination is to pursue a directed or planned approach to dioxin research. Such an approach is specifically aimed at resolving the uncertainties, and filling in the gaps, in the crucial information that regulators must consider. ...