Dioxin survey fails to support cancer claims

Early results of an intensive health survey in the wake of the recent dioxin scare in New Plymouth have uncovered no increases in cancers, multiple sclerosis or deaths from birth defects.

The Taranaki District Health Board has been given the preliminary results of the investigation, carried out by Taranaki Health.

It found that between 1993 and 1997 there were 2172 cancer notifications in Taranaki.

Of these, 78 (3.6 per cent) were for people living in the Moturoa/Paritutu area. This was consistent with national cancer rates.

In the 1996 census the population of Moturoa was 3822, which was 3.6 per cent of the Taranaki population of 106,803.

It also found that from 1996-99 there was no difference between birth defect rates for New Zealand and Taranaki. For 1988-98 there was no difference in the local and national rates for deaths associated with birth defects.

From 1988 to 1995, the local admissions for multiple sclerosis were about the same as the national rate. Since then the local rate has been half the national rate.

Health protection officers have met the Dioxin Investigation Network headed by campaigner Andrew Gibbs. The organisation had claimed that dioxin from the former Ivon Watkins-Dow plant in New Plymouth was affecting people's health.

It is compiling a database of people who lived in the area, from questionnaires sent out to past and present residents.

The dioxin report - full text