8/9/2019 Our Stolen Future: Myths vs reality

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Myths... versus reality.
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One of the unfortunate aspects of the public debate about
Newest
endocrine disruption has been a repeating pattern of distortion
Book Basics
of scientific findings by various representatives of chemical Synopsis & excerpts
interests. A core of these have been repeated in many The bottom line
Key points
circumstances--op-eds, articles in venues like the Wall Street The big challenge
Journal and Forbes Magazine or less widely-circulated trade Chemicals implicated
The controversy
magazines. They sound plausible, at first glance, unless you Recommendations
are familiar with the underlying science. New Science
Broad trends
Basic mechanisms
Brain & behavior
Disease resistance
Human impacts
that endocrine disruption is of no concern to human Low dose effects
Myth: Mixtures and synergy
health because the chemicals implicated are weak in Ubiquity of exposure
comparison to natural estrogen Natural vs. synthetic
New exposures
Reproduction
Reality: This myth is wrong for several reasons, but it begins Wildlife impacts
(as do many initially-credible myths) with a grain of Recent Important
truth. Results
Consensus
Estrogenic substances like bisphenol A, DDT, News/Opinion
nonylphenol, etc., are thousands of times weaker Myths vs. Reality
than the human estrogen estradiol at binding with Useful Links
estrogen receptors within the nucleus, the 'nuclear
Important Events
hormone receptors.' That's the grain of truth.
Important Books
But it's misleading for two reasons. First, natural Other Sources
chemicals called 'serum binding proteins' circulate in Other Languages
the bloodstream and bind with estradiol. As a result, About the Authors
only a very small portion of estradiol in serum is
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available for binding with the nuclear hormone
receptors. These serum binding proteins are much
less effecting at soaking up circulating
xenoestrogens like BPA. Hence even if
xenoestrogens are weaker, they are much more
available. Calculations show that if you take into
account both the relative weakness of the
xenoestrogens and their much greater bioavailability,
even at relatively low doses they should have
biological effects. And experiments with animals
prove that they do.

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The second reason is that estrogens also bind with

receptors on the cell membrane surface. When they
do, they initiate signaling pathways that control a
number of important physiological and genetic
pathways. It turns out that some xenoestrogens are
just as powerful as estradiol at binding with these
membrane receptors.

Hence to call them 'weak estrogens' is factually

incorrect. From the perspective of membrane
receptors, they are quite powerful. This research
detects impacts at doses as low as parts per trillion.

The third reason why this myth is misleading is that

estrogenicity is just one part of endocrine disruption.
Contaminants also interfere with thyroid,
testosterone, and many other hormones.
Myth: that DDT hasn't been linked to human harm
Reality: DDT does not appear to cause immediate toxic
effects in people, at least at the levels likely to be
encountered today in malaria vector control
programs.

A study published in July 2001 by scientists from the

US Centers for Disease Control and the National
Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, however,
clearly repudiates any notion that DDT is
without human health risk.

This research, published in The Lancet, reveals a

strong link between DDT exposure and the likelihood
of pre-term birth: the greater a mother's exposure,
the more likely it is that her infant will be born
prematurely. Premature birth itself is linked to a
wide array of health problems later in life. And the
pattern found by the scientists was so strong that
they concluded there had been an epidemic of pre-
term birth in the US due to DDT exposure during the
decades of heavy DDT application. More...

Another study, by scientists at the National Institute

of Environmental Health Sciences, indicates that
DDT's effect on infant mortality, both by increasing
preterm birth and by decreasing the length of time
that mothers breast feed, is very substantial. More...

A gaggle of conservative ideologues nonetheless

pushes for DDT use even in the US. Example... In
fact, the NY Times published an op-ed calling for
DDT use in the US in August 2003.

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8/9/2019 Our Stolen Future: Myths vs reality

Myth:
that studies now prove that compounds like DDT and
PCBs are not risk factors for breast cancer.
Reality: Several recent studies indicate there is no
association between PCBs and DDE (a persistent
break-down product of DDT) levels in adult women
and their risk of breast cancer.

None overcome severe obstacles that

epidemiology faces when confronting mixtures.
None address the question of whether
developmental exposure (fetal or pubertal)
increases breast cancer risk. More...
None incorporated information about genetic
susceptibility (see below)

These studies, moreover, say nothing about whether

weakly estrogenic contaminants cause breast cancer.

Other studies reveal that a less studied

xenoestrogen—dieldrin—is a risk factor for breast
cancer and another recent study reinforces concerns
about dioxin.

In late 2004, scientists reported that a strong

association between PCBs and breast cancer risk in
women with a specific variant of an allele whose
gene product is important to PCB detoxification. This
discovery is especially insightful because it was the
third study of this population of women. The first
two found no association. Only the third, with
information about genetic type, was able to detect
the strong association. It had been masked by
mixing women with different susceptibilities in the
same analysis.

Myth: that arsenic treated wood becomes safe for children

as it ages.
Reality: New research by the Environmental Working Group
and the University of North Carolina demonstrates
that old arsenic-treated wood structures are as
dangerous as new ones. Arsenic continues to leach
out of this wood for many years. And what had been
thought to be protective—coating it with sealant—
only works for 6 months or less. Some of the soil
around decks and playgrounds where arsenic treated
wood has been used actually is so contaminated that
it qualifies for SuperFund. More...

Myth:

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8/9/2019 Our Stolen Future: Myths vs reality

Chemicals used in products sold to consumers have

been tested and found safe from health effects.
Reality: Wrong. Most chemicals in modern use have simply
not been tested for their impacts on human health,
even very basic effects. If tests have been carried
out, they usually are far too simplistic to anticipate
many important health effects. More...

Our Stolen Future is nothing but hypothesis

Myth: masquerading as fact and it risks generating public
hysteria over exposure to chemicals whose risks
may be uncertain.
Reality: In the book and on this web site we carefully
distinguish between what is known and what is
plausible but uncertain. One of the book's main
conclusions is a call for new scientific research to
answer unresolved questions. And one of the most
gratifying impacts of the book has been to contribute
to interest (and funding) for that new research, the
results of which are building rapidly. These new
results are providing dramatic support for the issues
raised in Our Stolen Future.

that risk assessment standards based upon tests

Myth:
using adult human subjects will provide safe
guidelines for exposure.
Reality: Children are not little adults. Tests on adults give
few insights into the health risks created by
pesticide exposure for the fetus and for children,
who are usually far more sensitive to contamination
than adults. More...

that the final scientific word on frog deformities

Myth:
proves they are a result of natural processes, not
human activity.
Reality: The latest research on frog deformities implicates a
combination of natural and human causes. Parasitic
infections clearly can induce deformities, although
they appear to be absent in some cases. Agricultural
fertilizers create conditions in ponds that allow the
parasites to become more numerous. And pesticides,
undermine the frog's capacity to resist infection.
Thus deformities are more common where both
agricultural chemicals and parasites co-occur.
More...

Myth:

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that the withdrawal of a paper by scientists at

Tulane University on synergistic interactions
among estrogenic pesticides means that there is no
scientific basis for concern about endocrine
disruption.
Reality: There are many other examples of synergistic
interactions in the scientific literature. And health
risks of endocrine disrupting chemicals are of
concern with or without synergistic interactions
among chemicals. This doesn't stop chemical
industry advocates from issuing scientifically
ludicrous claims.
More on synergy and the importance of mixtures...

that humans are exposed to so many natural plant

Myth:
estrogens that we needn't worry about synthetic
hormone disruptors.
Reality: Both phytoestrogens and xenobiotic estrogens can
can cause harm. More...

Myth: that new studies of human sperm count prove there

has been no change.
Reality: Sperm count has clearly fallen in some geographic
areas, and not in others. More...

Myth:
that no one has been affected.
Reality: Studies demonstrate that people have been affected
by endocrine disruption. More...

that industry's failure to replicate work on by Fred

Myth:
vom Saal on low level effects of bisphenol A
invalidate that research.
Reality: Industry's failure here tells more about the
incompetency of their attempts than the value of
vom Saal's research. New analysis goes further,
indicating a strong bias in industry-funded studies
against finding an effect of low-dose bisphenol A.
Moreover, vom Saal's research has now been
confirmed by separate laboratories. More...

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