Examining the Endocrine Question
Each of us, no matter how carefully we watch what we eat and drink, has traces of industrial chemicals and pesticides lodged in our bodies, primarily in our fat tissue. It is an unavoidable outcome of living in today’s world.
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Subject: Examining the Endocrine Question...................................
Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2001 08:18:49 -0400
From: Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State of
California, Department of Pesticide Regulation
cc: Christine Whitman whitman.christine@epa.gov
Dear Mr. Helliker, I thought you might like to read the following article: Examining the Endocrine Question
The following is an inside look at why Discovery Health Channel decided to bring you "Toxic Legacies": the story of one tireless anthropologist’s quest for answers to some disturbing findings in a small Mexican town.
Each of us, no matter how carefully we watch what we eat and drink, has traces of industrial chemicals and pesticides lodged in our bodies, primarily in our fat tissue. It is an unavoidable outcome of living in today’s world.
Until recently, the presence of these ubiquitous chemicals raised little concern among scientists and regulators because their concentration in humans and in the environment is extremely low; well below those known to cause cancer. But a growing group of researchers and scientists now challenge the notion that these chemicals—found in everything from pesticides to plastics—may be causing problems in human beings.
If hormone levels are disrupted during embryonic development, our bones and muscles don’t develop properly. The full force of hormone disruption may not be unleashed until puberty, when boys and girls develop their sexual identity. Scientists are now starting to use the term "signal disruptions" when talking about environmental hormones and refer to the concept of environmental hormones as "the endocrine hypothesis."
Critics of the endocrine hypothesis point out that almost all of the studies thus far are related to animals exposed to high doses of chemicals. But the debate continues to rage, as new findings are made.
One of the people whose discoveries first spurred concerns over the effects of environmental hormones is Louis Guillette (left) of the Department of Zoology at the University of Florida. Guillette has been featured in documentaries on environmental hormones produced by the BBC ("Assault on the Male"), PBS’s "Frontline" and CBC’s "Nature of Things."
Louis began his study with the fact that 75% of the alligator eggs laid in Lake Apopca, Florida were dead. Yet the lake was classified as environmentally clean; the water was supposedly free of any chemical contamination. On closer inspection Guillette discovered that 80% of the male alligators had, as one researcher called them "teeny weenies." In some of the prehistoric creatures, the effects were so pronounced the alligators were actually changing sex. But why?
The solution to the puzzle came largely from Theo Colburn, a pharmacist turned zoologist who now works for the World Wildlife Fund (see "Our Stolen Future"). Beginning with work studying the effect of chemicals on Great Lakes wildlife, Colburn eventually brought together Guillette and a number of other scientists, including Professor John Sumpter and Richard Sharpe.
When Brunel University in London contacted Sharpe at his clinic in Edinburgh, Scotland in the winter of 1993, it would create a breakthrough in the study of environmental hormones. Sumpter explains: "I had been conducting field studies in the River Lea in North London, and we had discovered male fish with odd characteristics, more like females. The males were, in effect changing sex. And the effects were most pronounced near sewage outfalls. But it took me a long time to pluck up the courage to call Richard."
Sumpter was well aware that Sharpe was one of the foremost experts studying declining sperm counts in the human population. His phone call would be a revelation, explains Sharpe: "He put the proposition to me that there might be a connection between estrogens in the environment and male fertility. It was astonishing, because I’d been thinking about nothing else for about the past year. And what really influenced our thinking was when we started examining the effects of DES."
DES is a synthetic estrogen, which was given to women between 1945 and 1971. Administered to prevent miscarriages, the hormone had little adverse effect on those who took it, but their daughters experienced terrible side effects when they reached puberty. The DES daughters suffered from reproductive disorders, such as misshapen uteruses, and many could not bear children.
DES underlined the fact that chemicals taken by the mother can cross the placenta and have toxic effects on the child. And it convinced Richard Sharpe, Theo Colburn, Louis Guillette and many others that the toxins that had polluted Lake Apopca were acting like estrogen on the alligators. But the road to proving similar effects on human beings would be long and winding. (alligator photo: Copyright© 1996, Crocodile Specialist Group)
One person who remains unconvinced that there is a connection to humans is Professor Steve Safe of Texas A & M University (see "Environmental and Dietary Estrogens and Human Health: Is There a Problem?") "We’ve had wildlife problems in many lakes in many regions, " says Safe, "long before the alligators ever suffered. And that’s the reason that many of these chemicals were either banned or restricted in use. But if we’re talking about animals, let’s talk about animals, not humans."
Elizabeth Guillette (left) was disturbed by the findings her husband had made in Lake Apopca. And as an anthropologist, she wanted to find a way to study the effect of endocrine disrupters on children. Louis recalls a conversation they had a few years ago: She said, "we know there are problems with the alligators, but what about the children?" I pointed out that animals are much easier to study because you have a control group that isn’t exposed to the chemicals you’re looking at. With humans there’s all kinds of factors that make studies difficult. Mothers do things like smoke, drink, take drugs and it’s hard to know if these factors are the real cause of the problems, rather than environmental hormones.
Unperturbed by her husband’s doubts, Elizabeth Guillette started looking for just the right situation in which to conduct a study, and she found it in northern Mexico....
Join her on her fascinating journey and discover —as she does—the possibility that those living in the Yaqui Valley could be leaving their children a toxic legacy.
http://health.discovery.com/premiers/toxic/inside.html
Well Mr. Helliker, I hope you watch the show. Your 'registered" POISONS have been "studied" for years, as evidenced by: "....Some of the pesticides...are so long-lasting and so pervasive in the environment that virtually the entire human population of the Nation, and indeed the world, carries some body burden of one or several of them." - Library of Congress study, 1980. Yet with all of the "studies" and all of the resulting environmental and health concerns, you continue to mandate that your "registered" POISONS are the only "legal" way to "control" pest problems - could you please explain why?
Respectfully, Stephen L. Tvedten
From Steve - Quotes to Ponder:
"The first task is population control at home. How do we go about it? Many of my colleagues feel that some sort of compulsory birth regulation would be necessary to achieve such control. One plan often mentioned involves the addition of temporary sterilants to water supplies or staple food. Doses of the antidote would be carefully rationed by the government to produce the desired population size." — Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb, p.135
"A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal." — Ted Turner - CNN founder and UN supporter - quoted in The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor, June '96
"Childbearing [should be] a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license ... All potential parents [should be] required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing." — David Brower - first Executive Director of the Sierra Club; founder of Friends of the Earth; and founder of the Earth Island Institute - quoted by Dixie Lee Ray, Trashing the Planet, p.166
"Truth is not what is; truth is what people perceive it to be." -- Adolf Hitler, Propaganda Maxim
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