Assessment of human health risk of dioxins in Japan

The human health risk of dioxins was evaluated for four Japanese receptor g roups: the general population, local residents living near a municipal soli d waste incinerator, heavy fish consumers, and their infants and fetuses. I n describing the risk for these groups, four endpoints, namely, cancer, rep roductive dysfunction, endometriosis and neurobehavioral effect, were consi dered, and the incremental cancer risk and margin of exposure (MOE) corresp onding to these endpoints were calculated, based on three measures of dosim etry: average daily intake, area under the curve, and body burden. The unce rtainties of these risk descriptors were also evaluated by probabilistic an alysis. Although the estimated risk of cancer and reproductive dysfunction were not exceptionally high in the three adult receptor groups, the MOE val ues for endometriosis were not sufficiently high to guarantee safety agains t this endpoint. Furthermore, the MOE values for neurobehavioral effects on infants and fetuses suggest that dioxins may cause a considerable risk to those of local residents and heavy fish consumers. (C) 1999 Elsevier Scienc e Ltd. All rights reserved.