Seveso, Italy

In 1976 at Seveso, Italy, the worst exposure of a human population to TCDD occurred as a result of an accident in a nearby plant making 2,4,5-trichlorophenol. It was estimated that approximately 1,000 grams of TCDD was released during the accident and that 300-500 grams was deposited in Zone A, the most contaminated Zone. 147.5 grams of TCDD was found in the soil of Zone A after the accident. No one in the area was killed. The only injuries observed—other than caustic soda skin burns—were the typical acnegenic lesions caused by TCDD on about three percent of the children. There was no indication of excessive abnormalities in the offspring of exposed mothers; there was no excess of spontaneous abortions; examinations of foetuses from both spontaneous and deliberate abortions showed no indication of increased abnormalities.

By comparison, the maximum amount of TCDD applied in any one year to a treated square mile in the Alsea area was approximately 25 mg or 1/20,000th of the amount of TCDD found in the soil of the most contaminated zone at Seveso. Since at the most only one half percent of the Alsea basin sampled for abortions was actually treated with 2,4,5-T the exposure to TCDD at Seveso was at the very least millions of times greater than the exposure at Alsea. It is obvious that the conclusions arrived at by the EPA from the Alsea study are invalid.