The term dioxin actually describes a family of 75 related chemical compounds that are extremely toxic. The jungle defoliant Agent Orange, used extensively during the Vietnam War, contained dioxins, and the pollutants in the Love Canal environmental crisis were dioxin compounds. Dioxin-laced waste oil was sprayed on roads to keep dust down in Times Beach, Missouri, in 1971, resulting in a governmental buyout of the town in 1982. Municipal incinerators, burning wood, automobiles, and barbecues are just some of the sources of dioxin.
Humans absorb it through the food chain, particularly through meat, fish, and dairy products.
It's been shown to be extremely toxic to rodents, so we need to know what the long-term effects are if we're going to continue to release this stuff into the air. Dioxin molecules are structurally akin to natural hormones. Many hormones act as chemical messengers within the body, reacting biochemically with genes to trigger changes in the body such as growth control, physical development, and reproduction. At the cellular level, hormones bond with receptor proteins present in the cell. These receptor proteins then bond to a specific site on DNA within the cell's nucleus.