The chemical, beef, and poultry industries are lobbying the U.S. EPA to stall even longer before releasing a final report showing that animal fat and dairy products containing tiny amounts of dioxin can cause cancer in humans. The agency circulated a draft report early last summer that concluded for the first time that at least one form of dioxin is a “human carcinogen,” while other dioxins are “likely” carcinogens. Agency scientists remain confident of their findings and have asked EPA chief Christie Todd Whitman to release the final report this summer. But industry groups and GOPers in Congress are so opposed to the findings that the report, already more than a decade in the making, may be delayed for several more years. Meanwhile, Carol Browner, who ran the EPA under former President Clinton, took a jab at the Bush administration yesterday, saying that “the breadth and speed of some of their anti-environmental actions has been stunning.”
