Dioxin Danger?

Environmental Chemicals. We’ve all heard about their dangers to our health and well-being. Today, I took a closer look at Dioxin, a fairly common chemical to everyday life. How is a person exposed to Dioxin? By eating fatty foods, such as meat and milk products, and by working in environments where wastes are burned on a regular basis. Dioxin is not a purposely-made chemical. Dioxin, in low environmental levels, really has no outcome or impact on our lives. It’s when Dioxin occurs in high levels that we run into trouble. High exposures to Dioxin can cause liver problems, elevated blood lipids, reproductive problems, and chloracne, a dermatological disease (follow the link to learn more). A study completed in 2009 in Taiwan showed that people who worshiped in a temple that burned incense (which contains polychlorinated dibenzo p dioxins) were twice as exposed to Dioxin and twice as likely to develop cancer as the average person. In my opinion, Dioxin cannot be completely avoided, and religious customs cannot be changed by scientific findings. I think that we need to accept our low possibility of cancer, and focus on more prominent chemicals, and chemicals that we can potentially remove from our lifestyles.