Trace amounts of dioxin were present in agent orange, a defoliant sprayed on vegetation during the vietnam war. animal tests suggest that dioxin can cause birth defects, cancer, liver and thymus damage, and immune system suppression, sometimes leading to death. but the animal tests are equivocal; a hamster is not affected by a dose that can kill a guinea pig. dioxin acts like a steroid hormone, entering a cell and binding to a cytoplasmic receptor that then binds the cell’s dna. how might this mechanism explain the variety of dioxin’s effects on different body systems and in different animals? how might you determine whether a type of illness is related to dioxin exposure? how might you determine whether a particular individual became ill as a result of exposure to dioxin? which would be more difficult to demonstrate? why?