The EPA concluded its first health assessment of dioxin in 1985.
"The EPA’s estimate in this report of the cancer risk to humans from dioxin exposure was by far the highest defined for any chemical by any government agency anywhere in the world," writes CHEJ (whose founder organized her community around Love Canal in 1978).

Industry - represented by the Chlorine Institute, later the Chlorine Chemistry Council and now a division of the American Chemistry Council - protested and ramped up a campaign to stall the use of this risk assessment in regulation of human exposure to dioxin. However, aach time EPA did a reassessment as demanded by industry, the agency found new evidence that there is NO level of exposure that should be acceptable.

Finally, "The National Academies (NA) released a report on July 11, 2006 confirming what numerous scientific panels have concluded over the past 15 years: dioxin is a potent cancer-causing chemical. Chlorine-based industries have been effectively stalling the release of the EPA’s controversial dioxin reassessment for 15 years."

People in New Johnsonville have been exposed to dioxin (among other harmful chemicals) for about 48 years.

Here's the full story about the release and the stalling to release an important dioxin risk assessment from the people who know because they have been fighting this for almost three decades: http://www.besafenet.com/dioreassessment.htm