ALMOST a decade ago, I was shaken by my reporting on a class of toxic chemicals called endocrine disruptors. They are linked to cancer and obesity, and also seemed to feminise males, so that male alligators developed stunted genitalia and male smallmouth bass produced eggs.
In humans, endocrine disruptors were linked to two-headed sperm and declining sperm counts. They also were blamed for a birth defect called hypospadias, in which the urethra exits the side or base of the penis rather than the tip.
Believe me, the scariest horror stories are found in urology journals. If you’re a man, you don’t wring your hands as you read; you do more.
So I’ve tried for years now to limit my exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Following the advice of the President’s Cancer Panel, I eat organic to reduce exposure to endocrine disruptors in pesticides.
I try to store leftover meals in glass containers, not plastic. I avoid handling ATM and gas station receipts. I try to avoid flame-retardant furniture.
Those are all common sources of toxic endocrine disruptors, so I figured that my urine would test pristine. Pure as a mountain creek.
Silent Spring Institute near Boston, which studies chemical safety, offers a “Detox Me Action Kit” to help consumers determine what harmful substances are in their bodies. Following instructions, I froze two urine samples (warning my wife and kids that day to be careful what food they grabbed from the freezer) and Fed-Exed them off for analysis.
By the way, the testing is for women, too. Endocrine disruptors have also been linked to breast cancer and gynecological cancers. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists warns women that endocrine disruptors can also cause miscarriages, foetal defects and much more.
As I waited for the lab results, I continued to follow the latest research. Laura Vandenberg of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, sent bizarre video of a mouse exposed to a common endocrine disruptor doing back flips nonstop, as a kind of nervous tick.
Finally, I heard back from Silent Spring Institute. I figured this was a report card I had aced. I avoid all that harmful stuff. In my columns, I had advised readers how to avoid it.
Sure enough, I had a low level of Bisphenol A (BPA), best known because plastic bottles now often boast “BPA Free.”
But even a diligent student like me failed the test. Badly. I had high levels of a BPA substitute called BPF. Ruthann Rudel, a toxicologist who is the head of research at Silent Spring, explained that companies were switching to BPF even though it may actually be yet more harmful (it takes longer for the body to break it down). BPF is similar to that substance that made those mice do back flips.
“These types of regrettable substitutions — when companies remove a chemical that has a widely known bad reputation and substitute a little-known bad actor in its place — are all too common,” Rudel told me. “Sometimes we environmental scientists think we are playing a big game of Whack-A-Mole with the chemical companies.”
Sigh. I thought I was being virtuous by avoiding plastics with BPA, but I may have been causing my body even more damage.
My urine had an average level of an endocrine disruptor called triclosan, possibly from soap or toothpaste. Like most people, I also had chlorinated phenols (perhaps from mothballs in my closet).
I had a high level of a flame retardant called triphenyl phosphate, possibly from a floor finish, which may be “neurotoxic.” Hmm. Whenever you see flaws in my columns, that’s just my neurotoxins at work.
Will these endocrine disruptors give me cancer? Make me obese? Nobody really knows. At least I haven’t started doing random back flips yet.
The steps I took did help, and I recommend that others consult consumer guides at ewg.org to reduce their exposures to toxic chemicals. Likewise, if I had downloaded the Detox Me smartphone app, I would have known to get rid of those mothballs, along with air fresheners and scented candles. (Science lesson: A less fragrant house means cleaner pee.)
Yet my takeaway is also that chemical-industry lobbyists have rigged the system so that we consumers just can’t protect ourselves adequately.
“You should not have to be a PhD toxicologist to be safe from so many of the chemicals in use,” Dr Richard Jackson of UCLA told me.
“So much of what we are exposed to is poorly tested and even less regulated.”
So the saddest lesson is that even if you understand the peril and try to protect yourself and your family — as I strongly suggest you do — your body may still be tainted. The chemical companies spend tens of millions of dollars lobbying and have gotten the lightest regulation that money can buy.
They are running the show, and we consumers are their lab mice. -- NYT
Nicholas Kristof, a winner of two Pulitzer prizes, is a columnist for the ‘New York Times’