The Endocrine Society (www.endo-society.org) is this country's foremost authority on endocrine-related medicine and scientific research. Therefore, it is with great expertise that the group recently published a collective scientific statement on endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), available as a free download from: www.endo-society.org/journals/scientificstatements.
The society also hosted a one-day EDC conference recently, bringing together regulators, policy makers, and researchers to discuss a strategy for incorporating EDC data into critical health policy decisions.
Regulation of EDCs falls under the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which runs an Endocrine Disruptors Screening Program to identify endocrine disrupting chemicals in the environment.
Key points from the Society's scientific statement:
- EDCs can be natural or synthetic
- studies should focus on exposure to individual chemicals, as well as combinations of them, in order to determine: critical age of exposure, latency of exposure, and long-term effects
- effects of EDCs may be passed on to future generations due to epigenetic modifications in the germline (ie: modifications to the chemical properties of our DNA that can be passed on in eggs and sperm to our offspring).
-the effects of EDCs on human (and animal) health are many and varied, including but not limited to: obesity, cancers, infertility, and disruptions to the homeostasis of endocrine systems in our body
Endocrine disrupting chemicals are not always written about by the lay, or the scientific press. Despite the calls for action by Rachel Carson, Theo Colborn, Sandra Steingraber, and Devra Davis - many alarming studies highlighting potentially harmful effects of environmental chemicals on human health are not brought to the attention of the public. Partly, this is a political issue - as many companies who are responsible for the presence of high levels of toxic chemicals in places like the water supply (think of the cinematic adaptations of true stories, like Erin Brockovich or A Civil Action) fight very hard for data or scientists to be discredited, at the expense of human health.
But when a highly respected scientific society has reached concensus and with no political agenda or personal motive brings the information to the forefront by citing peer-reviewed studies and strong data, the public will hopefully sit up and take notice.
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Michael Steinberg
doctorwascher
Paul Hinrichs
Mary Elizabeth Williams
Cary Tennis
Dave Cullen
Salon.com
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