The J-shaped dioxin dose response curve

Abstract

This commentary responds to a recent statistical treatment of cancer incidence data in selected workers exposed to dioxin from an earlier NIOSH chemical plant study. Contrary to the NIOSH authors' new findings, the cancer incidence response to increasing dioxin exposure is J-shaped, just as it is in the two major data sets that they failed to reference or explain away. The NIOSH statistical treatment obscured the significant reduction in cancer incidence that occurs at low dioxin exposures. Even though cancer incidence may increase at high dioxin exposures, any such increase is preceded at lower exposures by a significant reduction. © 2002 Elsevier Science.