How can dioxin contamination in food animals be decreased?
Numerous factors may influence the concentration of dioxins in food animals such as the source of the dioxins (e.g. new emissions vs. recycling in the environment), aerial transport, degree of plant uptake, fate in the soil (half-life), animal uptake via feed and soil ingestion, bioavailability to the animal, and pharmacokinetics. Since ingestion of dioxins in contaminated vegetation and soil is considered the major pathway of exposure for food animals, different feeding practices such as confinement feeding, grazing, and percentage grain fed should have significant effects on actual concentrations of dioxins in animals. While these factors have been theoretically researched and modeled (as described in the previous section), little epidemiological or controlled research has been done to validate these hypotheses (Feil and Ellis, 1998). Concentrations of dioxins in adipose tissue of cattle at slaughter were investigated in two small surveys, one conducted jointly by the USDA Food Safet
