The Newark Dioxin Case

In November 1980, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development published a report (Dioxins—EPA-600/2-80-197) that summarized the then-current literature on dioxins, their formation, sources, routes of human exposure, and the like. An appendix listed companies that manufactured products that might form dioxins as byproducts. About 50 of these were classified as I or II—products most likely to produce dioxins—and about 125 as class III—dioxins less likely but still possible. This list subsequently became the basis for EPA’s National Dioxin Strategy.