A panel of scientists, organized by the Institute of Medicine, a national advisory agency within the National Academy of Sciences in the US, has issued the report, Dioxins and Dioxin-like Compounds in the Food Supply: Strategies to Decrease Exposure
The report advises the government to develop an interagency plan to reduce human exposure to dioxin in foods. The expert panel made the lowering of dioxin levels in girls and young women before they have children a high priority, noting that it is too late to make dietary changes just prior to or during pregnancy.
American adults and children are exposed to dioxins and dioxin-like compounds (DLCs) in the food supply primarily through eating animal fats in meats, full-fat dairy products and fatty fish. According to the report, avoiding these foods in large amounts, or completely, is an effective way to reduce dietary dioxin exposure.
Minimizing girls’ and young women’s intake of dioxins during the years before pregnancy is the only practical way to reduce dioxin exposure in fetuses and breast-feeding infants, the report says. Given the health and social benefits of breast-feeding, the committee recommended strategies to reduce accumulated body levels of dioxin, rather than to discourage breast-feeding.
To reduce dioxin exposures in all children — especially girls — government-sponsored food programs should increase the availability of foods low in animal fat. For example, low-fat milk should be made more widely available in the school lunch program. Also, the U.S. Department of Agriculture should analyze the impact of setting limits on the amount of saturated fat that can be present in meals served in the school breakfast and lunch programs. Except for children under age 2, participants in the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children should be encouraged to choose low-fat milk and foods.
The committee also urged the US government to give priority to reducing dioxin contamination of animal feed, and to curtailing the recycling of dioxins that occurs when contaminated grass forage and animal fat are included as ingredients in feed. Federal agencies should work with food producers to develop voluntary guidelines for animal feeding and food-production practices that would minimize animals’ exposure to dioxins.
The report was sponsored by the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, Food and Drug Administration, and agencies within the U. S. Department of Agriculture. The Institute of Medicine is a private, nonprofit institution that provides health policy advice under a congressional charter granted to the National Academy of Sciences.
