Americans at Risk: EPA MUST Test Chemicals for Endocrine Disruption & Label Products

“It is now becoming evident that the effects of EDC exposure are not necessarily limited to the exposed individual.  Many of these compounds are now recognized to have transgenerational effects and in some cases the effects within subsequent generations are more profound than those seen in the first generation.”—Heather B. Patisaul and Heather B. Adewale, “Long-term effects of environmental endocrine disruptors on reproductive physiology and behavior,” Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience  

I first met Ernst Wynder in the early 1980s at one of the soirées of Qatar’s UN Ambassador, Jassim Jamal.  It was a dozen years after Wynder established the American Health Foundation and his “Know your body” crusade launched to educate children about nutrition. Wynder, who was quite social in his later life, was nevertheless a serious man and serious medical researcher; his landmark study in 1950 with Evarts Graham connected smoking and cancer—even though the tobacco industry’s carcinogenic products would continue to be pushed on teens throughout America via soda-shop vending machines for decades that followed.

Wynder had been aware of the dangers of smoking from his early years growing up in Germany—Hitler and the Nazis were opposed to it. In America as a young researcher, Wynder faced challenges from industry and from within academia in alerting the public to what he already knew about the downside of smoking.

As science and technology historian David F. Noble once advised:  “I make very little distinction between the scientific community and the corporate community.  Those are very close links.”

Ultimately, Wynder would prevail brilliantly.

Ernst Wynder died in 1999.  But I am certain he would now be out in front insisting that the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) test for endocrine disruptor chemicals affecting “reproductive physiology and behavior.”

While EPA defines an endocrine disruptor chemical (“EDC”) as “an exogenous chemical  substance or mixture that alters the structure or function(s) of the endocrine system and causes adverse effects. . . .at the level of the organism, its progeny, and populations or subpopulations of organisms”—it has failed to test for EDCs, leaving us all at risk.

EPA has failed to test for EDCs despite passage of the Food Quality Protection Act (1996) on the heels of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (1947) and Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (1938). And EPA has failed to test EDCs despite creating an Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program, whose budget for 2023 is a miniscule $7.61 million.

Europe has now implemented EDC labeling on its products while US farm workers have had to sue EPA to get action.

Tobacco’s tactics of manufacturing doubt about its carcinogens are the same as those used by various other industries to misinform the public about dangerous chemicals, according to University of Massachusetts, Amherst researchers Rebecca F. Goldberg and Laura N. Vandenberg in their paper, “The science of spin: targeted strategies to manufacture doubt with detrimental effects on environmental and public health.” 

Goldberg & Vandenberg identify 28 strategies employed: (1) Attack Study Design; (2) Gain Support from Reputable Individuals; (3) Misrepresent Data; (4) Suppress Incriminating Information; (5) Contribute Misleading Literature; (6) Host Conferences or Seminars; (7) Avoid/Abuse Peer-Review; (8) Employ Hyperbolic or Absolutist Language; (9) Blame Other Causes; (10) Invoke Liberties/Censorship/Overregulation; (11) Define How to Measure Outcome/Exposure; (12) Take Advantage of Scientific Illiteracy; (13) Pose as a Defender of Health or Truth; (14) Obscure Involvement; (15) Develop a PR Strategy; (16) Appeal to Mass Media; (17) Take Advantage of Victim’s Lack of Money/Influence; (18) Normalize Negative Outcomes; (19) Impede Government Regulation; (20) Alter Product to Seem Healthier; (21) Influence Government/Laws; (22) Attack Opponents; (23) Appeal to Emotion; (24) Inappropriately Question Causality; (25) Make Straw Man Arguments; (26) Abuse Credentials; (27) Abuse Data Access Requests; (28) Claim Slippery Slope.

Perhaps our NATO allies, who are effectively confronting the EDC problem in Europe, can now help rescue America from its failure to defend the health of the nation by sharing Europe’s EDC testing database.

Meanwhile, remember the next time you bite into a juicy grown-in-America cherry that it is probably contaminated with dimethoate, a neurotoxic pesticide.