Last week, a panel convened by the National Research Council (NRC) released its findings about the health effects of a group of environmental contaminants referred to as endocrine disrupters. Chemicals in this category include pesticides, chlorinated compounds, and heavy metals. The question before this committee was: Is human environmental exposure to trace levels of these compounds a possible cause of cancer and other maladies, such as infertility? After four years of study, the best the committee could come up with was a firm “We don’t know; we need more research.”
Like hobgoblins, these so-called threats should disappear when held to the scrutiny of scientific investigation. But this non-conclusion from a distinguished panel of scientists is a true disservice to American consumers and will only fuel the efforts of those environmentalists who want us to fear the food we eat, the water we drink and the plastic products we use. Indeed, this committee’s “precautionary principle” stance, characterized by uncertainty, will surely lead policy makers to impose regulatory mechanisms to “protect” us from nonexistent threats.
The endocrine disrupter hypothesis traces to at least four notable events:
Reproductive cancers and other effects appeared in the daughters of women who had taken diethylstilbestrol (DES), a drug prescribed in relatively large doses during the l950s and l960s to prevent miscarriage.
In l994 a study reported reproductive and other anomalies — including small penis size — in alligators in Florida. The body of water in which the alligators lived was contaminated by DDT, a pesticide banned from use in the United States in l972.
A Danish study reported a decrease in sperm counts in men from industrial countries during the period l938 to 1990.
In a l996 study, researchers claimed that various combinations of environmental chemicals may act together synergistically — that is, with effects greater than the sum of their individual effects.
A review of the scientific evidence, however, clearly shows that while high doses of certain environmental chemicals can produce toxic effects in wildlife, human exposure to these chemicals is at extremely low levels.
Furthermore, humans are exposed through our diets to estrogenic substances found in many plant foods. Dietary exposures to these plant estrogens (called “phytoestrogens”) are greater than are exposures to suspected synthetic endocrine modulators in the environment. No adverse health effects have been associated with the overwhelming majority of dietary exposures.
Why, then, did the NRC not say this? Why did they not state in consumer-friendly terms that there is no evidence that human exposure to trace levels of estrogen-like chemicals in the environment, in food, and in consumer products poses a health hazard to humans? Why instead did they claim the evidence was insufficient to allow a conclusion?
What would it take for these experts to conclude that the evidence is sufficient?
Most scientists today dread absolute terms like “safe.” They know that nothing in life is completely risk-free. But in the real world, consumers need assessments now — not in the indefinite future. If we were to wait for the ultimate proof of safety, not only would it never come, but we would live in a state of fear, assuming “just in case” that products and byproducts of modern technology are harmful. Scientists who hedge and waffle when asked to report whether a hazard exists or not are not serving the needs of consumers who each and every day need to know if their food, water, plastic wrap, and other products they use are safe or unsafe.
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