Here’s the real reason the EPA doesn’t want to test for toxins in East Palestine | Stephen Lester

The agency is familiar with dioxins, having researched its adverse effects, and if they test the soil in East Palestine for it, they will find it

The decision to release and burn five tanker cars of vinyl chloride and other chemicals at the site of a 38-car derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, just over three weeks ago unleashed a gigantic cloud full of particulates that enveloped surrounding neighborhoods and farms in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

It is well documented that burning chlorinated chemicals like vinyl chloride will generate dioxins. Dioxin" is the name given to a group of persistent, very toxic chemicals that share similar chemical structures. The most toxic form of dioxin is 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin or TCDD. TCDD is more commonly recognized as the toxic contaminant found in Agent Orange and at Love Canal, New York and Times Beach, Missouri, both sites of two of the most tragic environmental catastrophes in US history.

Stephen Lester is a toxicologist and the science director of the Center for Health, Environment & Justice, a project of the People's Action Institute