Our Bodies, Ourselves (157 page)

Endocrine disrupting chemicals, or EDCs, are industrial and pharmaceutical chemicals that mimic naturally occurring hormones. EDCs can block or interfere with the complex hormonal messages that affect many of the body's functions, including thyroid function, sexual development and behavior, metabolism, and nervous and immune system function. Research on EDCs reveals occupational and environmental threats to women's general and reproductive health.
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While there is still much debate as to the full effect of EDCs on human health, scientists have become increasingly concerned, particularly in the past two decades. Low-level exposure still needs to be better understood, but the dangers of high-level exposure have been proved to affect
reproductive health. The most famous, diethylstilbestrol, or DES—a synthetic estrogen—was found to cause long-term health problems for the children of pregnant women who were prescribed DES in the 1950s and 1960s to prevent miscarriages during pregnancy. The effects included higher rates of vaginal cancers among the teenage daughters. DES was banned in the 1970s,
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long before it was determined to be an EDC.

EDCs are present in our food supply and in air and water, as well as in industrial municipal waste and in many synthetic household and personal-care products. They may be associated with increased risk of breast cancer and other cancers in women; breast milk contamination; and other reproductive problems including endometriosis, miscarriage, tubal pregnancy, and reduced fertility. Most scientists agree that breast cancer risk is affected by how much estrogen we have in our bodies and for how long over our lifetime. If the body's estrogen levels are changed by chemicals that act like estrogens, our risk of breast cancer may increase.

EDCs affect fetal, infant, and children's health, often much more than they do adult health, because of children's developing and highly sensitive endocrine systems. Because many important and complex processes take place during fetal development and infancy, EDCs could have lifelong effects.

According to TEDX—the Endocrine Disruption Exchange—EDCs include any chemical or substance that affects development and function. This broad category includes pesticides; materials used in plastics such as bisphenol A (BPA); flame retardants; some cosmetics; glues and sealants; and some cleaning products. Some EDCs are persistent organic pollutants (POPs), which means they stay in the environment for years. Others leave the environment relatively quickly. With hundreds of thousands of products and processes containing or using EDCs, we experience low-level exposure daily.

Diet is a main source: as with other chemicals, EDCs that are fat-soluble (as many are) make their way up the food chain, meaning that they accumulate in the fat of animals and animal products over a period of years, finally being consumed by humans at higher levels than are found in the natural environment. Women are more vulnerable to chemical exposure than men, in part because of their bodies' fat content.

Research suggests that indoor air quality also heavily affects our exposure. The presence of dust and chips of wood that has been sprayed with EDCs such as glues, sealants, and wood polish, combined with the use of chemicals and other substances in the home, may rival diet as a primary route of exposure.

Dioxins are a by-product of industrial processes that use or burn chlorine. They are notorious for causing harmful human exposure at Love Canal, a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, where dioxin-contaminated toxic waste was buried by Hooker Chemical (it later became a Superfund site); and at Times Beach, Missouri, a small town outside St. Louis that was evacuated in 1983 following the largest civilian dioxin exposure in the United States. Dioxins were also present in Agent Orange, an herbicide used during the Vietnam War that resulted in serious birth impairments in the children of some of those exposed.

Major sources include municipal waste facilities, hospital incinerators, chemical and pesticide manufacturing plants, backyard burn barrels, and pulp and paper bleaching plants. Dioxins are one of the most common chemicals affecting Americans today. According to the EPA, the average
level of dioxin found in the population is at or near levels linked to adverse health effects observed in animals and people.
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Any additional exposure above such levels could therefore damage our health. Dioxin exposure occurs primarily through eating contaminated food, particularly fish, meat, and dairy products. Dioxin can cause cancer and reproductive disorders.
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Bisphenol A, or BPA, is an organic compound widely used in hard plastic products, including reusable food containers, baby bottles, sippy cups, and the lining of baby formula containers and canned food. It is also present in a wide range of household items, from children's toys to dental sealant. The chemical industry produces 7 billion pounds of BPA in the United States each year. Exposure occurs when the chemical contaminates food and drink.

The compound is considered an endocrine disrupting chemical (EDC), and more than two hundred studies have produced a long list of serious chronic disorders associated with it—cancers, infertility, heart disease, liver abnormalities, genital abnormalities in male babies, early puberty in girls, cognitive and behavioral impairments, reproductive and cardiovascular system abnormalities, diabetes, asthma, obesity, attention deficit disorder, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
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According to a 2007 study by the CDC, 93 percent of the U.S. population age six and up have been exposed to BPA.
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The Environmental Working Group (EWG) found BPA in more than half of ninety-seven cans of brand name fruit, vegetables, soda, and other common canned goods.
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Of particular concern is its use in toys and plastic containers aimed at young children, who are more vulnerable to side effects than adults, owing to natural differences in metabolism and size. Fetuses are also affected in utero and at the earliest stages of development. According to the Oregon Environmental Council, premature babies are exposed to levels of BPA ten times greater than the general population.
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In 2011, China and Malaysia set bans on BPA, joining Canada and all of the European Union. Some U.S. cities and states have banned baby bottles containing BPA, yet proposed federal legislation banning BPA in all baby products remains stalled.

While BPA-free products are becoming more available across the country, they are often more expensive than products containing the compound, potentially putting lower-income groups at higher risk. Indeed, minority children in the United States may face higher rates of BPA exposure: the presence of BPA was recently found in the umbilical cords of nine out of ten African-American, Asian, and Hispanic women tested by the EWG.
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Polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, are one of the most toxic and hazardous chemicals used in modern manufacturing. Historically, they have been used extensively throughout industry, specifically in transformers, capacitors, and coolants. Concerns about health and environmental effects led to a ban on PCBs for most uses in the United States in 1979. But some uses are still allowed, and PCBs are persistent contaminants (POPs) that can stay in our bodies and environment for decades. Health problems resulting from PCB exposure include thyroid disorders, breast cancer, endometriosis, low birth weight, menstrual disorders, and possibly early puberty, as well as miscarriage and hormonal changes.

Some areas are considered PCB “hot spots.” Along New York's Hudson River, into which the General Electric company released thousands of pounds of PCBs, strict fish advisories remain for women of child-bearing age to help minimize their exposure to PCBs. Two hundred miles of the river, some of which runs through New York City, is considered a Superfund site.
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Lake Erie and Lake Ontario are two other bodies of water marked as potentially hazardous.

Phthalates are chemicals that make plastic more pliable. They can be found in many common products, including pills, wallpaper, adhesives, food containers, vinyl, shower curtains, building materials, cosmetics, medical devices, toys and other children's items, packaging, water bottles and soda cans, paints, textiles, polyvinyl chloride (PVC, commonly used in flooring), pesticides, insecticides, and food. Phthalate use is slowly being phased out in the United States: its use in children's products is in some cases banned and is often restricted, especially in toys and products meant for a baby's mouth, such as pacifiers.
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According to the CDC, nearly all Americans have phthalates in their urine. Eating is the main way the substance enters our bodies, either through leaching from food containers into food and liquids or from the food products themselves.
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Phthalates are easily released into the air when plastics age and break down.