But, everyone should know: symptoms, first aid, what not to do at home and use, so as not to get dioxin poisoning.

Friends bloggers, vermicolleges and just guests, good time of the day!

Each of us should know:

1. What not to use so as not to get dioxin poisoning.
2. What to cook and what to season reduce dioxin content obtained earlier.
3. How to get smart on the street don't take a killing breath smoke poisoned with dioxin.
4. At the end of the article, you can also find out the consequences of dioxins entering the body - irreversible and often fatal.

Symptoms of poisoning

Dioxins enter the body through the digestive tract or inhalation.

The toxic effect manifests itself after a long time from the beginning of the poison entering the body.

Signs of dioxin poisoning:

• a sharp decrease in appetite,
• up to a complete refusal to eat;
• exhaustion; severe muscle weakness;
• specific acne;
• swelling of the face, and later of the whole body.

Like you, we love herring, but only Dutch and Swedish, caught in Norway, since the domestic one can turn into serious consequences for us if we are not picky when choosing it.

Visiting swimming pools where the use of chlorine to disinfect water also leads to the accumulation of dioxins in our body.

What not to eat in order not to get dioxin poisoning

All products grown outdoors in regions with unfavorable technological environment.

1. In areas where chemical and metallurgical enterprises are located.
2. Close to pulp and paper mills.
3. Close to waste processing plants.
4. Smoke from fireworks.
5. In gardens and orchards where any synthetics have ever been burned.

In a 15-minute walk, only one block adjacent to the main street in the resort town of Mineralnye Vody counted five active sources of dioxin poisoning, blown by the wind.
Including next to school number 6 and the hospital.

The half-life of dioxins in the soil is 30 years, less than in Chernobyl, but everywhere around us.

Go around at least one block in your city and you will surely see on the streets - if not smoking, then dioxin-dusting bonfires or garbage cans with the remnants of melted synthetics.

We ourselves create a catastrophic man-made environment around us because of our deep ecological illiteracy.

Summary - if you do not take into account the direction of the wind, then you can walk along Min-Vod Street only in a gas mask and a chemical kit.

What to cook and how to season to reduce the content of dioxin obtained earlier

O cleansing ingredients in our recipes.

For example, one day.

For breakfast.

• Millet porridge - 200 gr.
• Your dried fruits - 50 gr.
• Honey - 1 tsp
• Pomegranate- 1 tbsp. l.
• Dogwood - 1 tsp
• Chips - 2-3 pcs.

For lunch.

• Snack from boiled beets With garlic- 30-50 gr.
• Pumpkin soup with garlic - 250-300 gr.

Afternoon - one thing.

• Apple- 100 gr.
• Mandarin- 100 gr.

For dinner.
Vareniki with strawberries.
An hour before bed.
Ryazhenka - 100 gr.

How to contrive on the street, so as not to take a murderous breath of dioxin-poisoned smoke

I choose a path so that the wind does not carry the overly poisonous sweetish-sugary smell of burning synthetics in my direction.

Or I hold my breath as I pass a dioxin-smoking dumpster like this, and there are hundreds of them in the city.

The sources of dioxin smoke are often:

1. Garbage containers and trash cans with synthetic cigarettes smoldering in them from a discarded cigarette butt;
2. Burning bonfires in the streets in Min Vody;
3. Extinct bonfires blown by the wind with poisonous ashes with dioxins;
4. Even barbecues next to cafes and barbecues.

All of us are not averse, at least occasionally in the courtyard of our estate, at the dacha, to pamper the family with a fragrant shish kebab according to our own recipe on coals burning in the grill or in a cafe.
But if there is even the slightest fraction of any synthetics in the subject to fire, then STOP !!!

Before bringing a match to something, think about whether it is better to give this chemistry without burning it for the benefit of "".
Why tightly stuff all the synthetics into a mesh bag and put it in or store it at a great depth.
And I hope to do this, this information will help us, how easily and quickly you can cut cardboard for septic tank vermi.

And now you can learn the consequences of dioxins entering the body - irreversible and often fatal

Even combustion in special ovens at temperatures above +1,000°C does not give full confidence that hazardous substances are completely destroyed, and therefore consideration should be given to preventing the release of polluting microparticles into the atmosphere, which requires the installation of expensive flue gas filters .
We try not to burn anything, and we put everything in boxes, like this cardboard.

The highest environmental safety when burning any household waste can be achieved using high-temperature pyrolysis reactors with external heating.

Of particular concern are very persistent organic compounds - dioxins, which may be formed during the burning of garbage and can lead to serious consequences for the environment in the immediate vicinity of the burning site.

Dioxins - a trivial name polychlorine derivatives of dibenzo-1,4-dioxin.

The name comes from the abbreviated name of the tetrachlor derivative - 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-1,4-dioxin; compounds with other substituents - halides - also belong to dioxins.

Dioxins are cumulative poisons and belong to the group of dangerous xenobiotics.

Dioxins are global ecotoxicants with powerful mutagenic, immunosuppressive, carcinogenic, teratogenic and embryotoxic effects.
They weakly split and accumulate both in the human body and in the biosphere of the planet, including air, water, food.
The lethal dose for these substances reaches 10−6 g per 1 kg of live weight, which is significantly less than the similar value for some chemical warfare agents, for example, for soman, sarin and tabun (about 10−3 g/kg).

Mechanism of action of dioxins.

1. dioxins, suppressing immunity and intensively influencing the processes of cell division and specialization, provoke the development oncological diseases.
2. Dioxins also invade the complex well-functioning work of the endocrine glands.
3. They interfere with reproductive function, dramatically slowing down puberty and often leading to female and male infertility.
4. They cause profound disturbances in almost all metabolic processes, suppress and break the work of the immune system, leading to a state of the so-called " chemical AIDS».
5. Recent studies have confirmed that dioxins cause deformities and developmental problems in children.

Ways of penetration of dioxins into our body:

1. 1. • 90 percent - with water and food through the gastrointestinal tract
      • rest 10 percent - with air and dust through the lungs and skin.
      • circulate in the blood deposited in adipose tissue and lipids of all body cells without exception.
      • through the placenta and with breast milk they are transmitted to the fetus and child.

The Seveso disaster is a deplorable example of dioxin poisoning
An explosion on July 11, 1976 in the Italian city of Seveso at the chemical plant of the Swiss company ICMESA released a cloud of dioxin into the atmosphere. The cloud hung over the industrial suburbs, and then the poison began to settle on houses and gardens.
Thousands of people began to have bouts of nausea, vision weakened, an eye disease developed, in which the outlines of objects seemed blurry and unsteady.
The tragic consequences of what happened began to appear after 3-4 days.
By July 14, Seveso's dispensaries were filled with sick people.
Among them were many children suffering from rashes and festering boils.
They complained of back pain, weakness and dull headaches.
Patients told doctors that animals and birds in their yards and gardens began to die suddenly.
The reason for the toxicity of dioxins lies in the ability of these substances to accurately fit into the receptors of living organisms and suppress or alter their vital functions.

Acute toxicity
Dose that irritates the skin - 0.0003 milligrams per kilogram of body weight
Their half-life in the environment is approximately 10 years.
Once in the human or animal body, they accumulate in adipose tissue and very slowly decompose and are excreted from the body (the half-life in the human body is from 7-11 years).
Dioxins are also formed as undesirable impurities as a result of various chemical reactions at high temperatures and in the presence of chlorine.

The main reasons for the emission of dioxins into the biosphere

1. 1. 1. Use of any high temperature technology
      2. Chlorination and processing of organochlorine substances
      3. Burning production waste.
      4. The presence of ubiquitous polyvinyl chloride and other polymers, various chlorine compounds in the destroyed garbage contributes to the formation of dioxins in flue gases.
      5. Up to a temperature of 900 °C, heat treatment does not affect dioxins.

AT hour bike ride on Haapsalu raised the issue bonfires and supervision over them.

Even before putting wood in the fireplace, we carefully check

Is there a piece of polyethylene stuck somewhere?

And you?

From: Galina Chugunova
To: Viktor Dulin
Sent: Friday, March 14, 2014 6:34 PM
Subject: My opinion about the article
Thank you, Victor, for reminding everyone to take care of each other and your loved ones!
In our garden farms, there is often someone "smart" and begins to burn everything in spring and autumn.
He is not stopped by anyone's opinion: "the owner himself is on his site and that's it!"
Probably, amendments are needed in the mouth that it is impossible to burn chemical waste, but how can they be applied if there are only a few people in the common garden, and they are busy with their urgent business?
There are many questions, it would be necessary to place your publications more widely, but how to implement this if those who harm themselves and others will never read all this?
Be healthy! Good luck in the new season!
Sincerely, Galina.

To: Galina Chugunova
Cc: Eifo
Sent: Saturday, March 15, 2014 4:42 AM
Subject: Re: My opinion on the article:
Galina Isaevna, thank you so much for your feedback!
It is very simple to implement - in order to spread our publications wider and faster, you just need to click on the buttons of social networks and others - under each of our articles, and each of the visitors to these pages.
And our common pain - due to the ruined nature and ourselves, will affect everyone with whom we communicate on the Internet.
I share your opinion about the “smart”, and if you think that there are none in Estonia, then you are deeply mistaken and my answer is a response cry from the heart.
Sorry for the coincidence of names in the text below, but this is a living and very recent unfortunate fact.
Here is our neighbor - "wise guy" - a dozen years older than us, a big fan of burning everything in a barrel behind the fence of the site.
And the wind we have is mostly western, and even when nothing burns in the barrel, microparticles of dioxins mainly carry to its site, which it continuously mows and literally turns the beds inside out with a cultivator 30-40 centimeters deep twice a year, and this lasts over 10 years.
So, in September 2013, he buried his wife, who died of cancer.
She, poor thing, over those black, literally and figuratively, beds soaked through with dioxins, spent whole days on her knees, pulling out every blade of grass with her bare hands.
Under the mesh fence with weeds, the “wise guy” fights by spraying “Roundup”, over cabbage, also conjures with a spray gun and some kind of fetid rubbish in it, bred from ampoules.
Our older neighbors are not friends with a computer, the Internet, but about “chemical” councils of Oktyabrina (“Noyabrievna”- as I joke when we talk about her programs from the BMP) from the TV box, in summer conversations with us, all the neighbors often mention and follow her recommendations, and not our example.
Against frequent and many "chemical" DTV broadcasts with our single and only for Estonia "Angels of the Earth" you can not argue.
Now, when meeting with my girlfriend, the “clever” neighbor Nikolai grieves and sheds tears over his Galechka, which he killed himself, and shares his observation with me - they say, how nature feels everything - not a single carrot has risen that she sowed in the spring Galenka.
We never quarrel with any of the neighbors, and how many times, I begged him and not only him not to burn anything - just give us, if it’s so sorry for the money for garbage collection, and not spray herbicides at least along our fence, and when he fires something again and the wind is in our direction, we hastily abandon everything and leave the dacha, and he knows this very well and still the barrel, which is visible behind his bed, is not empty.
There is only one way out, to make the last Chinese warning with the threat of “snitching” on the environmental protection inspectorate, and there they react instantly and

Dioxin is a synthetic poison. It is formed at temperatures from 250 to 800°C as a by-product of many technological processes using chlorine and carbon. The largest quantities of dioxins are emitted by steel and paper mills, many chemical plants, pesticide factories and all waste incinerators.

It is dangerous not only for its high toxicity, but also for its ability to persist in the environment for an extremely long time, to be effectively transported through food chains, and thus to have a long-term effect on living organisms. In addition, even in relatively harmless amounts, dioxin greatly increases the activity of specific liver enzymes that decompose certain substances of synthetic and natural origin; at the same time, dangerous poisons are released as a by-product of decay. At a low concentration, the body manages to remove them without harm to itself. But even small doses of dioxin dramatically increase the release of toxic substances. This can lead to poisoning by relatively harmless compounds that are always present in small concentrations in food, water and air - pesticides, household chemicals and even drugs.

The data of recent years have shown that the main danger of dioxins lies not so much in acute toxicity, but in the cumulative action and long-term consequences of chronic poisoning in small doses.

They accumulate in the tissues (mainly fatty) of living organisms, accumulating and moving up the food chain. At the very top of this chain is a person, and about 90% of dioxins come to him with animal food. Once dioxin enters the human body, it remains there forever and begins its long-term harmful effects.

The reason for the toxicity of dioxins lies in the ability of these substances to accurately fit into the receptors of living organisms and suppress or alter their vital functions.

About 90-95% of dioxins enter the human body through the consumption of contaminated food (mainly animal) and water through the gastrointestinal tract, the remaining 5-10% - with air and dust through the lungs and skin. Once in the body, these substances circulate in the blood, are deposited in adipose tissue and lipids, without exception, all cells of the body.

Dioxins poorly soluble in water and slightly better in organic solvents, so these substances are extremely chemically resistant compounds. Dioxins practically do not decompose in the environment for tens or even hundreds of years, remaining unchanged under the influence of physical, chemical and biological environmental factors.

A 1998 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report shows that American adults who receive dioxins only through food, mainly meat, fish, and dairy products, already carry an average dose of dioxin close to a critical (disease-causing) dose. It is estimated at 13 nanograms of dioxins per kilogram of body weight (ng/kg; nanogram - billionth of a gram; ng/kg - one part by weight per trillion). It would seem that 13 ng / kg is a completely miserable value, and in absolute terms it is so. However, compared to amounts that cause serious disturbances in the body, 13 ng/kg is a serious threat to health. At the same time, 5% of Americans (2.5 million people) carry a dioxin load that is twice the average.

In the body of warm-blooded animals, dioxins initially enter adipose tissues, and then are redistributed, accumulating mainly in the liver, less in the thymus (an endocrine gland) and other organs, and are excreted with great difficulty.

The effect of dioxins on humans is due to their effect on the receptors of cells responsible for the functioning of hormonal systems. In this case, endocrine and hormonal disorders occur, the content of sex hormones, thyroid and pancreatic hormones changes, which increases the risk of developing diabetes, the processes of puberty and fetal development are disrupted. Children lag behind in development, their education is difficult, young people develop diseases that are characteristic of old age. In general, the likelihood of infertility, spontaneous abortion, congenital malformations and other anomalies increases. The immune response also changes, which means that the body's susceptibility to infections increases, the frequency of allergic reactions and oncological diseases increases.

In acute dioxin poisoning, loss of appetite, weakness, chronic fatigue, depression, and catastrophic weight loss are observed. A lethal outcome can occur in a few days or even several tens of days, depending on the dose of the poison and the rate of its entry into the body. True, all this occurs at a dioxin load of 96 to 3000 ng / kg - 7 times higher than that of the average US citizen. In the blood of male workers exposed to dioxin, a decrease in the level of testosterone and other sex hormones was found. Particularly disturbing is that these people had a dioxin load only 1.3 times the average.

Consequences of dioxin ingestion. Molecular mechanism of action of dioxin. Easily soluble in fats, dioxin freely penetrates into cells through the cytoplasmic membrane. There it accumulates in lipids or binds to various molecular structures of the cell. The resulting complexes are introduced into DNA chains, thereby activating a whole cascade of reactions that lead to metabolic disorders, the functioning of the nervous system, causing hormonal disorders, changes in the skin, and obesity. Activation of the cytochrome P4501A1 gene, an enzyme that indirectly contributes to cell genetic mutations and cancer development, leads to the most severe consequences. Due to the high stability of the dioxin molecule, the process of gene activation can continue for a very long time, causing irreparable harm to the body.

Dioxin enters the body mainly with food. We get 95-97% of dioxin from meat, fish, eggs and dairy products. Dioxin accumulates especially strongly in fish. This is due to the fact that TCDD is a hydrophobic substance, it is "afraid" of water. Once in the aquatic environment, dioxin tries in every possible way to leave it - for example, penetrating into the organisms of the inhabitants of water bodies. As a result, the content of dioxin in fish can be hundreds of thousands of times higher than its content in the environment. Residents of Sweden and Finland receive 63% of dioxins and 42% of furans through fish products.

Without having a genotoxic effect, dioxins do not directly affect the genetic material of organism cells. However, they are particularly effective in affecting the gene pool of aerobic populations, since it is they that destroy the general mechanism of protecting the gene pool from environmental influences. Environmental conditions can dramatically increase the mutagenic, embryotoxic and teratogenic effects.

Another effect of the genetic plan is that dioxins destroy the mechanism of adaptation of aerobic organisms to the external environment. As a result, their sensitivity to various kinds of stresses and to numerous chemicals that are constant companions of organisms in modern civilization increases. The latter aspect is practically bilateral: synergists of dioxins enhance their own toxic effect, and dioxins, in turn, provoke the toxicity of a number of non-toxic substances. The social consequence of this and previous features of dioxin intoxication is a consistent and poorly controlled deterioration in the genetic health of the affected populations.

The toxic effect of dioxins is characterized by a long period of latent action. In addition, the signs of dioxin intoxication are very diverse and are largely determined, at first glance, by their combination, as well as the aggravated predisposition of the body to a particular disease.

Most likely, no one will be able to completely avoid contact with dioxins. The general pollution of the environment and food does not leave anyone such a chance. However, it is still possible to reduce the intake of toxic substances into the body. By observing a certain "hygiene" there is hope to get smaller doses of dioxin.

First of all, you should try to reduce the risk of dioxin ingestion. To do this, you need to lead a healthy lifestyle, eat organic, mostly vegetable (plants accumulate less dioxins than animals and fish), environmentally friendly - grown on clean soils, food. Fatty fish varieties are especially dangerous, often containing large amounts of toxic compounds in their fat. It is also associated with anthropogenic pollution of the environment, and, therefore, even expensive red fish can be dioxin composition.

You can completely switch to predominantly plant foods - there are much less dioxins in it, because there are almost no fats in plants. Do not decompose dioxin and other methods of cooking meat - frying, baking in the oven, and steamers, microwave ovens, pressure cookers will not help in this.

For the same reason, you should not buy euro products that enter the Russian market, where fat, eggs and even milk can be added - these are mayonnaise, pasta, bouillon cubes, ready-made soups, cakes, ice cream, etc.

It is necessary to drink only purified water, in no case should you drink boiled chlorinated water (dioxins can be formed by boiling chlorinated water). When chlorinated water is boiled, organic compounds react with chlorine (more than 240 compounds are found in megacities in tap water) and form organochlorine compounds, such as trichloromethane and dioxin (when phenol enters water, it forms dioxin). Many countries have already abandoned water disinfection by chlorination.

You can purify water with water filters, but you need to change the cartridges in it often so that instead of purified water you don’t get a lot of bacteria from a dirty filter. Today, there is such a modern material - activated carbon fibers, which are superior in quality to activated carbon. Fibers are able to absorb heavy metal ions and inhibit the vital activity of bacteria.

Also, shungite, no worse than activated carbon, has the ability to purify water from many organic substances, including heavy metals.

Thanks to a specially organized crystal lattice based on carbon, shungite has the ability to purify water and saturate it with a specific mineral composition, giving it unique healing qualities.

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The history of mankind knows many cases of the appearance in the biosphere of large quantities of potentially hazardous substances. Exposure to these xenobiotics (we recall that this is how substances that are unacceptable to living organisms are called) sometimes caused tragic consequences, an example of which is the story of the insecticide DDT. Dioxin has become even more infamous. For a long time, the name of this substance was associated with South Vietnam and the Italian city of Seveso, whose inhabitants fully felt how deadly this compound was. But over time, the geography of dioxins expanded to the size of the entire planet.

Dioxin, or rather - 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-para-dioxin - is a compound containing two benzene rings, in which two hydrogen atoms are replaced by chlorine. The rings are connected by two bridges of oxygen atoms:

Such a simple and elegant formula belongs to the most toxic of all non-protein poisons, the action of which is stronger than cyanides, strychnine, curare, soman, sarin, tabun, VX-gas. Only biological toxins are more toxic than dioxin.

Toxicity of dioxin and some poisons

Substance	Animal	Minimum lethal dose, micromole/kg
Botulinum toxin	mouse	3,3.10 -17
diphtheria toxin	mouse	4,2.10 -12
Dioxin	cavy	3,1.10 -9
Curare	mouse	7,2.10 -7
Strychnine	mouse	1,5.10 -6
Diisopropylfluorophosphate	mouse	1,6.10 -5
sodium cyanide	mouse	3,1.10 -4

____________________________________________
K1 The table is taken from the article:
A.V. Fokin, A.F. Kolomiets Dioxin - a scientific or social problem? - Nature magazine No. 3, 1985 and, probably, contains a typo: judging by the order of magnitude, the unit of measurement should not be micromol / kg, but mol / kg.

But dioxin is just one of a large class of compounds that are just as dangerous. Remove one oxygen atom from a molecule, and almost equally toxic

tetrachlorodibenzofuran. Removing both oxygen atoms will only partially reduce the danger. The number and position of chlorine atoms in the benzene ring does not have to coincide with those for 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin:

Chlorine atoms can be completely or partially replaced by bromine:

It is not so easy to calculate how many highly toxic compounds can be obtained using such simple permutations of atoms. At the moment, thousands of representatives of dioxins are known and their number continues to grow.

Thus, dioxins should be understood not as a specific substance, but as several dozen families, including tricyclic oxygen-containing xenobiotics, as well as a family of biphenyls that do not contain oxygen atoms. These are all 75 polychlorinated dibenzodioxins, 135 polychlorinated dibenzofurans, 210 substances from organobromine families and several thousand mixed chlorine-bromine compounds. We must not forget about isomerism. The classic dioxin we started with is just one (and the most toxic) of 22 possible Cl 4 isomers of dibenzo-p-dioxins.

The dioxin molecule has the shape of a rectangle measuring 3x10 Å. This allows it to fit surprisingly accurately into the receptors of living organisms. Dioxin is one of the most insidious poisons known to mankind. Unlike conventional poisons, the toxicity of which is associated with the suppression of certain body functions, dioxin and similar xenobiotics affect the body due to their ability to greatly increase (induce) the activity of a number of oxidative iron-containing enzymes (monooxygenases), which leads to a violation of the metabolism of many vital substances and suppression functions of a number of body systems.

Dioxin is dangerous for two reasons. Firstly, being the most powerful synthetic poison, it is highly stable, remains in the environment for a long time, is efficiently transported through food chains, and thus affects living organisms for a long time. Secondly, even in amounts that are relatively harmless to the body, dioxin greatly increases the activity of highly specific liver monooxygenases, which turn many substances of synthetic and natural origin into poisons dangerous to the body. Therefore, already small amounts of dioxin pose a risk of damage to living organisms by normally harmless xenobiotics that are present in nature.

Where did dioxin come from? Mass production of chlorophenols and herbicides began in the 1930s and 1940s in the USA and Germany.

But the first mention of dioxins dates back only to 1957. Why? Because they are an unplanned product, a by-product. It is difficult to name a single discoverer of dioxins. Many years of experience of human tragedies and comparisons by analogy led to their discovery. If dioxins had not been so harmful, perhaps they would never have had to be discovered.

In the early 1930s, Dow Chemical (USA) developed a method for the production of polychlorophenols from polychlorobenzenes by alkaline hydrolysis at high temperature under pressure, and it was shown that these preparations, called daucides, are effective means for preserving wood.

Already in 1936 there were reports of mass diseases among workers. Mississippi employed in wood preservation using these agents. Most of them suffered from severe skin disease. In 1937, cases of similar diseases were described among factory workers in Midland (Michigan, USA), employed in the production of daucides. An investigation into the causes of damage in these and many similar cases led to the conclusion that the chloracnogenic factor is present only in technical daucides, and pure polychlorophenols do not have such an effect.

The expansion of the scope of destruction of polychlorophenols in the future was due to their use for military purposes. During World War II, the first herbicidal preparations of hormone-like action based on 2,4-dichloro- and 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acids (2,4-D and 2,4,5-T) were obtained in the USA. These drugs were developed to destroy the vegetation of Japan and were adopted by the US Army shortly after the war. At the same time, these acids, their salts and esters began to be used for chemical weeding in cereal crops, and mixtures of esters 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T - for the destruction of unwanted tree and shrub vegetation. This allowed the US military-industrial circles to create large-scale production of 2,4-dichloro-, 2,4,5-trichlorophenols, and 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T acids based on them.

The study of the properties of 2,4-D and its derivatives was a powerful impetus to the development of modern herbicide chemistry. The events associated with the expansion of the scale of production and use of 2,4,5-T developed quite differently.

In 1949, it became known about a mass disease, manifested in the form of many non-healing boils covering the skin, which took place after an explosion at the Nitro plant in the US state of Virginia. The enterprise produced 2,4,5-trichlorophenol. More than two hundred people were affected then, and about half of them showed symptoms of some new disease. However, they immediately remembered that this disease has been known since the end of the last century and even has a name - chloracne (then German doctors considered it purely skin and saw the cause solely in the action of chlorine). 32 people died at the same time. More than half of the survivors could not recover until recent years.

In the 1950s, there were reports of frequent injuries with technical 2,4,5-T and trichlorophenol. 1953 Accident at the BASF plant in Germany. And again, 55 victims had chloracne. 1956 Explosion at the Rone Poulenc factory in France. And again the same strange disease, the causative agent of which is unknown, but now at least everyone understood that it was definitely not chlorine ...

Meanwhile, several groups of scientists were working on the problem of chloracne at that time in Germany and the USA. G. Hoffmann (Germany) isolated the chloracnogenic factor of technical trichlorophenol in its pure form, studied its properties, physiological activity and attributed to it the structure of tetrachlorodibenzofuran. The synthesized sample of this compound really had the same effect on animals as technical trichlorophenol.

At the same time, K. Schulz (Germany), a specialist in the field of skin diseases, drew attention to the fact that the symptomatology of the lesion of his client, working with chlorinated dibenzo-para-dioxins, is identical to the symptoms of the lesion of technical trichlorophenol. His studies showed that the chloracnogenic factor of technical trichlorophenol is indeed 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-para-dioxin (dioxin), an inevitable by-product of alkaline processing of symmetrical tetrachlorobenzene. Later, the information of K. Schultz was confirmed in the works of other scientists.

The high toxicity of dioxin was established in 1957 in the USA. This happened after an accident with the American chemist J. Dietrich, who, while engaged in the synthesis of dioxin and its analogues, received a severe injury, resembling that of technical trichlorophenol, and was hospitalized for a long time. This fact, like many other incidents in the production of trichlorophenol, was hidden from the public, and the halogenated dibenzo-p-dioxins synthesized by an American chemist were seized for study by the military department.

Further, the openings follow on the rise. It is possible, for example, to establish that the cause of the Asian diseases Yusho and Yu-Cheng (they are named in memory of the Japanese and Taiwanese villages, respectively, whose inhabitants suffered from severe poisoning in the 60-70s) was a colleague of classical dioxin - tetrachlorodibenzofuran, the formula of which is already pictured above. The total number of victims in these two disasters was approximately four thousand people.

By this time, despite the high toxicity, 2,4,5-trichlorophenol had penetrated into many areas of production. Its sodium and zinc salts, as well as its processing product, hexachlorophene, have become widely used as biocides in engineering, agriculture, the textile and paper industries, medicine, etc. On the basis of this phenol, insecticides, preparations for the needs of veterinary medicine, technical liquids for various purposes were prepared. However, 2,4,5-trichlorophenol has found the widest application in the production of 2,4,5-T and other herbicides intended not only for peaceful but also for military purposes. As a result, by 1960 the production of trichlorophenol reached an impressive level - many thousands of tons per year.

Biocidal and herbicidal preparations derived from trichlorophenol.

Scheme of dioxin formation during alkaline hydrolysis of tetrachlorobenzene. This reaction is usually carried out in a solution of methanol (CH 3 OH) under pressure at a temperature above 165°C. The resulting sodium trichlorophenolate is always partially converted into predioxin, and then into dioxin. With an increase in temperature to 210°C, the rate of this side reaction increases sharply, and under more severe conditions, dioxin becomes the main reaction product. In this case, the process is uncontrollable and under production conditions ends with an explosion.

But dioxin is the cause of much more serious diseases than chloracne. This began to be understood only after the American-Vietnamese war. During the period from 1961 to 1970, the American army, under the pretext of fighting guerrillas, sprayed 57,000 tons of Agent Orange defoliant on the territory of South Vietnam to destroy vegetation. Such operations had to be stopped due to numerous reports of cancer and other diseases of the participants in the events, including the US and Australian military, about the birth of deformed children.

Interestingly, this drug with such a beautiful name (you see, beauty is deceptive again) cannot cause anything like this by itself. But due to the imperfection of its production, the mentioned 57 thousand tons of defoliant contained 170 kg (0.0003 percent!) of dioxin, which caused so many troubles.

U.S. Army Herbicidal Formulations Containing Dioxin

Recipe	Components
Orange I	R=C 4 H 9 *	R=C4H9
Orange II	R=C4H9	R=C 8 H 17
Purple	R=C4H9	R=C 4 H 9 i-C 4 H 9
Pink	R=C4H9	R=C4H9
Green	---	R=C4H9
Dinoxol	R=CH 2 CH 2 OC 4 H 9	R=CH 2 CH 2 OC 4 H 9
Trinoxol	---	R=CH 2 CH 2 OC 4 H 9

*Percentage of this component in the recipe

For comparison, we note that a few kilograms of dioxin caused mass poisoning in the Italian city of Seveso. When eliminating the consequences of this catastrophe, the surface layer of soil had to be removed from a large area.

In the meantime, in our press, both in the scientific and mass media, until 1985, not a single publication was devoted to dioxins at all. In the five-volume "Brief Chemical Encyclopedia" (1961), as well as in the "Chemical Encyclopedic Dictionary" published much later, there is not even such a word! Moreover, leafing through old filings of sanitary magazines and collections, one can find reports that in Ufa from 1964 to 1970 there was a workshop for the production of the same herbicide, which the Americans call "Agent Orange". And 128 people out of 165 service personnel fell ill with an unknown disease, similar in symptoms to chloracne. These data (without geographic reference) migrated to the foreign press. And they disappeared from the domestic press in a strange (or not very strange) way. By the way, that workshop was reconstructed, then closed. But what happened to the waste products - about that silence. You will say: in those days it was not otherwise. But are we repeating the mistakes of the past today? Remember the recent events in Ufa. Phenols got into the chlorinated water - that created excellent conditions for the formation of dioxins. In addition, they could accompany phenols due to the imperfection of the production technology of the latter.

WHAT IS KNOWN ABOUT THE PROPERTIES OF DIOXIN

Structure, physical and chemical properties. The dioxin molecule is flat and highly symmetrical. The distribution of electron density in it is such that the maximum is in the zone of oxygen and chlorine atoms, and the minimum is in the centers of benzene rings. These features of the structure and electronic state determine the observed extreme properties of the dioxin molecule.

Dioxin is a crystalline substance with a high melting point (305°C) and very low volatility, poorly soluble in water (2x10 -8% at 25°C) and better in organic solvents. It is distinguished by high thermal stability: its decomposition is noted only when heated above 750°C, and is effectively carried out at 1000°C.

Dioxin is a chemically inert substance. It does not decompose with acids and alkalis even when boiled. It enters into the chlorination and sulfonation reactions characteristic of aromatic compounds only under very harsh conditions and in the presence of catalysts. The substitution of chlorine atoms of the dioxin molecule for other atoms or groups of atoms is carried out only under conditions of free radical reactions. Some of these transformations, such as interaction with sodium naphthalene and reductive dechlorination with ultraviolet irradiation, are used to destroy small amounts of dioxin. When oxidized under anhydrous conditions, dioxin easily donates one electron and turns into a stable radical cation, which, however, is easily reduced by water to dioxin with the release of a very active radical cation HO + . Characteristic of dioxin is its ability to form strong complexes with many natural and synthetic polycyclic compounds.

toxic properties. Dioxin is a total poison, because even in relatively small doses (concentrations) it affects almost all forms of living matter - from bacteria to warm-blooded ones. The toxicity of dioxin in the case of the simplest organisms is apparently due to a violation of the functions of metalloenzymes, with which it forms strong complexes. Much more difficult is the defeat of higher organisms by dioxin, especially warm-blooded ones. In warm-blooded organisms, dioxin initially enters adipose tissues and then is redistributed, accumulating mainly in the liver, then in the thymus and other organs. Its destruction in the body is insignificant: it is excreted mainly unchanged, in the form of complexes of an unidentified nature. The half-life ranges from several tens of days (mouse) to a year or more (primates) and usually increases with slow intake. With an increase in retention in the body and selective accumulation in the liver, the sensitivity of individuals to dioxin increases.

In acute poisoning of animals, signs of the general toxic effect of dioxin are observed: loss of appetite, physical and sexual weakness, chronic fatigue, depression, and catastrophic weight loss. It leads to death after a few days and even after several tens of days, depending on the dose of the poison and the rate of its entry into the body.

In non-lethal doses, dioxin causes severe specific diseases. In highly sensitive individuals, a skin disease initially appears - chloracne (damage to the sebaceous glands, accompanied by dermatitis and the formation of long-term non-healing ulcers), and in humans, chloracne can occur again and again even many years after treatment. A stronger dioxin damage leads to a violation of the metabolism of porphyrins - important precursors of hemoglobin and prosthetic groups of iron-containing enzymes (cytochromes). Porphyria - this is the name of this disease - manifests itself in increased photosensitivity of the skin: it becomes fragile, covered with numerous microbubbles. In chronic dioxin poisoning, various diseases associated with damage to the liver, immune systems and central nervous system also develop.

All these diseases are manifested against the background of a sharp activation by dioxin (tens and hundreds of times) of an important iron-containing enzyme - cytochrome P-448. This enzyme is especially strongly activated in the placenta and in the fetus, and therefore dioxin, even in negligible amounts, suppresses viability, disrupts the processes of formation and development of a new organism, in other words, it has an embryotoxic and teratogenic effect. In negligible concentrations, dioxin causes genetic changes in the cells of affected individuals and increases the incidence of tumors, i.e. has a mutagenic and carcinogenic effect.

Toxicity of dioxin at a single injection

View	LD * 50, mg/kg
Guinea pig	0,001
Rat	0,050
Mouse	0,112
Cat	0,115
Dog	0,3
chickens	0,5
chicken embryo	0,0005
Guppy	0.1ppm**
Echerichia coli	2-4 ppm**
Salmonella tiphimurium	2-3 ppm**

*LD 50 - the designation adopted in toxicology for a dose that causes a 50% lethal outcome.
** Lethal concentration.

behavior in the environment. In the biosphere, dioxin is quickly absorbed by plants, sorbed by soil and various materials, where it practically does not change under the influence of physical, chemical and biological environmental factors. Due to the ability to form complexes, it binds strongly with soil organic matter, stops in the remains of dead soil microorganisms and dead parts of plants. The half-life of dioxin in nature exceeds 10 years. Thus, various environmental objects are reliable repositories of this poison.

Further behavior of dioxin in the environment is determined by the properties of the objects with which it binds. Its vertical and horizontal migration in soils is possible only for a number of tropical regions, where water-soluble organic substances predominate in soils. In soils of other types containing water-insoluble organic substances, it is firmly bound in the upper layers and gradually accumulates in the remains of dead organisms.

Dioxin is removed from soils mainly mechanically. Low-density complexes of dioxin with organic substances, as well as the remains of dead organisms containing it, are blown out from the soil surface by the wind, washed out by rain streams and, as a result, rush to lowlands and water areas, creating new foci of contamination (places of accumulation of rainwater, lakes, bottom sediments of rivers, canals, coastal zone of seas and oceans).

Recent analyzes of soils in parts of South Vietnam indicate relatively low levels of dioxin in the surface layers and up to 30 parts per trillion (30 ppt) in deep soils. This indicates that physical and mechanical transport under tropical conditions contributes to the effective dispersal of the poison in nature. However, this is not the only route of dioxin migration in the biosphere. There is also the transfer of this poison along food chains, which contributes to its constant accumulation in areas of maximum consumption of food contaminated with it, i.e. concentration in densely populated areas.

According to the Vietnamese scientist and surgeon Professor Ton That Tung, the effective biotransfer of dioxin in nature contributes to its constant accumulation by warm-blooded animals, and the degree of accumulation of dioxin by warm-blooded animals increases with the increase in the content of poison in the environment. This conclusion was the result of many years of studying the effects of the past chemical warfare on the vast contingents of ten million people in Vietnam who lived and (or) live in areas where so-called "harmless to humans and the environment" herbicides are used.

Compiled by V.N. Viter.

The materials of the journals Nature, Chemistry and Life, as well as Wikipedia were used.

Dioxins and furans are terms for polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans. Because 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) is the most extensively studied and most toxic of the 75 dioxin isomers, the term TCDD is used interchangeably for all dioxins.

Some Vietnam War veterans potentially exposed to dioxins that were used in military applications in the defoliant "Agent Orange" [a mixture of 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T) and 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) with the addition of TCDD].

The largest scale pollution dioxin occurred between 1962 and 1970 when 12 million gallons of "Agent Orange", a defoliant containing the most toxic dioxin, was sprayed over the southern and central regions of Vietnam)