In the recent Independent Women s Forum, CEI s Angela Logomasini dissects the hype from the facts about so-called endocrine disrupting chemicals. She points out (as we here at ACSH have been saying for years) that the term itself has no real scientific or medical meaning, outside of its repeated (emphatic) use by those with an anti-chemical agenda and their pals in the media.
She further notes that the pervasive activist campaigns against EDCs (endocrine-disrupting chemicals) are a huge drag on our economy. Furthermore, these result in exposing consumers to second- and third-rate products, if corporations cave in to artificially-generated consumer concern and reformulate their products to eliminate long-used, safe and cheap chemicals with unknown substitutes to ameliorate the loudmouths. BPA, triclosan, phthalates, and various personal care products have all come under junk-science-based attacks.
However, an objective study by several academics with no ties to industry revealed their assessment of EDC risk thusly: Overall, despite of 20 years of research, a human health risk from exposure to low concentrations of exogenous chemical substances with weak hormone-like activities remains an unproven and unlikely hypothesis.
ACSH s Dr. Gil Ross had this comment: Whenever I hear someone, usually in the media, use the term endocrine disrupter, I immediately know that the writer (or speaker) is either uninformed and too lazy to do a little independent research, or is a member of or a sympathizer with some anti-chemical activist group. We in the business of communicating real vs. hypothetical risks owe Angela a debt of gratitude for attempting to put this mythology to rest, although realistically too many people, in and out of government and regulatory agencies, have a vested interest in keeping the endo-disruption bugaboo alive. Also, those interested in sound science should have a peek at Angela s other site, SafeChemicalPolicy.org.