-Caveat Lector-
"Because hormone-mimicking chemicals are used so widely in
agriculture and industry, restricting their use to protect public health
would threaten the financial survival of many corporations."
No one is going to find a cure for cancer so long as it's much
more profitable to manufacture products that CAUSE cancer.
WHO IS STEALING OUR FUTURE?
In 1994, industry released more than
1.1 billion pounds of toxins
linked to human reproductive disorders.
Only ONE percent of the 70,000 different
synthetic chemicals and metals in commercial use
is monitored.
Despite grave public health threats,
industry is fighting to keep polluting
and keep the public in the dark.
by Pratap Chatterjee
Covert Action Quarterly, #58, Fall 1996
Polar bears in the Arctic circle and albatrosses in the
middle of the Pacific were the last creatures that scientists
expected to be threatened by synthetic chemicals. But the
pristine wilderness and the pure ocean vastness are as extinct as
the dodo and just as much casualties of human activity. When
the albatross population suffered a 3 percent drop in
reproduction rates over the last few years, New Zealand
researchers discovered abnormally high levels of synthetic
chemicals in the birds' bodies. When polar bear reproduction
dropped by more than half, Norwegian researchers documented
levels of toxic chemicals in the animals that are 3 billion times
higher than in the cold waters near which they live.
The recently published book, Our Stolen Future, brings
together mounting scientific evidence that thousands of synthetic
chemicals in common use are accumulating all along the food chain
and are turning up everywhere from remote virgin forest to
supermarket shelf. (See p. 17.) If the authors are right, a group
of chemicals known as endocrine disruptors and hormone mimickers
are undermining the health and genetic viability of hundreds of
species, including humans. And because the implicated chemicals
including PCBs, chlorine, atrazine, DDT, and various plastics
used to manufacture five gallon water containers and
approximately half the canned goods in this country are so widely
used in agriculture and industry, the financial vitality and
survival of many corporations is also at stake. Not surprisingly,
then, in addition to calls for further investigation and
research, the storm of controversy around the new studies
implicating these chemicals has also sparked a counterattack
funded and promoted by the corporations that would be affected by
regulation or a ban.
MUGGING THE MESSENGERS
The way these chemicals work is to "mimic" or "block"
estrogen and progesterone, natural chemicals known as hormones
which instruct the body in how it should develop and reproduce.
"Hormonally active synthetic chemicals are thugs on the
biological information highway that sabotage vital communication.
They mug the messengers or impersonate them. They jam signals.
They scramble messages," write the authors of Our Stolen Future.
For example: "Imagine what would happen if somebody disrupted
communications during the construction of a large building so the
plumbers did not get the message to install the pipes in half the
bathrooms before the carpenters closed the building."
Now imagine that the chemicals that affect communications
in the endocrine system are everywhere "in the finest caviar,
in penguins in Antarctica, in the bluefin tuna served at a
sushi bar in Tokyo, in the monsoon rains that fall on Calcutta,
in the milk of a nursing mother in France, in the blubber of a
sperm whale cruising the South Pacific."
Throw in a couple more alarming facts. Billions of pounds of
these chemicals are pumped annually into the air, land, and
water, but the amount required to disrupt reproduction cycles
could be as low as one part in a trillion equivalent to just one
drop of liquid in the cars of a six-mile-long cargo train.
Humans are particularly vulnerable since the concentration
of many of these chemicals increases in animals high in the food
chain. The reason is two-fold: First, the chemicals are
"persistent," meaning they do not break down, and second, they
are stored permanently in body fat so that when a larger animal
eats smaller animals, the predator incorporates the pollutants of
its prey.
Finally, perhaps the most devastating news of all is that
some of the chemicals with weak endocrine disrupting effects
on their own become far more dangerous when two or more of them
are found together. Research conducted by two scientists from
Tulane University in Louisiana on four pesticides (chlordane,
dieldrin, endosulfan, and toxaphene) and several different kinds
of PCBs showed that two or more such chemicals in combination
could be as much as 1,600 times as powerful as the individual
chemicals alone.
CHEMICAL CATASTROPHE
In the past, scientists looking for the harmful effects of
chemical contamination have tended to focus on cancer. While
there is evidence linking this class of chemicals to the 32
percent rise in breast cancer rates and the 126 percent increase
in prostate cancer in recent years, the situation is more complex
and far more alarming. "Humans in their relentless quest for
dominance over nature may be inadvertently undermining their own
ability to reproduce or to learn and think," warns Our Stolen
Future co-author Theo Colburn. Exposure to estrogen mimicking or
endocrine disrupting chemicals such as dioxin may not kill, but
may, notes an EPA report, lead to "complex and severe effects
including cancer, feminization of males and reduced sperm counts,
endometriosis and reproductive impairment in females, birth
defects, impaired intellectual development in children, and
impaired immune defense against infectious disease."
These chemicals could also be a significant factor in the
rapid disappearance of many species around the world, such
as the golden toad in Costa Rica, panthers in the Florida
Everglades, otters in England, and dolphins off the coast of
Turkey. For example, after Tower Chemical spilled large
quantities of dicofol, a pesticide closely related to DDT, into
Lake Apopka in the early 1980s, alligators started appearing
with penises so shrunken they could not reproduce.
For fairly obvious reasons, though, the area which has
galvanized the scientific community and the media is the link
between these chemicals and a well-documented and dramatic drop
in human sperm count around the world. Some 61 studies collected
by Danish researchers have shown that sperm counts in a number of
European countries have fallen by half in the last 30 years,
while those in rapidly industrializing countries in East Asia are
dropping fast. 6
DES, (diethylstilbestrol) provided one of the first
confirmed examples of how these chemicals can affect not only
those who are directly exposed, but also future generations. In
the late 1950s, and '60s this estrogen mimicker was prescribed
to millions of women for a variety of problems. Grant Chemicals,
one of the manufacturers, claimed that DES produced "bigger and
stronger babies," while doctors handed it out to prevent
miscarriages, suppress milk production, and as a "morning-after"
contraceptive. It was not until the 1970s that researchers
discovered that the drug dramatically increases chances of
clear-cell cancer and severe damage to the reproductive tract
that can result in ectopic pregnancies. (Pregnancies that
develop in the fallopian tubes as opposed to the uterus can cause
ruptures leading to severe bleeding and sometimes death.) DES is
now suspected of having affected male offspring, and of possibly
causing brain problems in children of both genders.
INDUSTRY FIGHTS BACK
As they did when faced with evidence of the dangers of DES,
tobacco, global warming, nuclear waste, and pesticides, industry
leaders have denied that there are any problems, and mounted PR
campaigns. Faced with a growing body of evidence on the impact
of chemicals on the endocrine system, they have turned to
industry-sponsored groups and scientists to disprove the studies
available to potential litigants and quoted by environmental
groups pushing for regulation.
One industry scientist with a long history of producing
research that helped establish the safety of his employer's
products was Bill Gaffey, a mathematician who retired in
1989 as director of epidemiology for Monsanto Corp. Gaffey
published studies in 1980, a year after he started working for
the chemical giant, to show that there was no evidence of
unusual cancers among workers exposed to dioxin at a Monsanto
plant in Nitro, West Virginia. The plant manufactured Agent
Orange for chemical warfare in Vietnam. The study was important
to Monsanto because it was facing hundreds of millions, possibly
billions, of dollars in lawsuits by tens of thousands of Vietnam
veterans and by former Monsanto workers, all claiming they had
been harmed by exposure to dioxin-laden Agent Orange.
Peter Montague, editor of Rachel's Environment and Health
Weekly, charges that the Gaffey study gave the Veterans
Administration the "evidence" it wanted to justify denying
medical benefits to the Agent Orange vets. Finally, the research
allowed the EPA "to set generous limits on dioxin exposures for
the American public, thus providing minimal regulation for
politically powerful industries such as paper, oil, and
chemicals," says Montague.
Gaffey's role may have gone beyond sycophant science.
Lawyers involved in a 1984 worker lawsuit against Monsanto
discovered that Gaffey had listed four workers as "unexposed" to
dioxin when the same four workers had been classified as
"exposed" to dioxin in a previous Monsanto study. Gaffey's
co-author, who had worked on both studies, confirmed that the
data had been "cooked." Six years later the EPA acknowledged
that the study was fraudulent and found that dioxin was a
probable carcinogen.
Gaffey's role in countering the studies cited by cancer
victims and environmental groups has been taken up by others.
Among the most quoted scientists on this subject is Stephen
H. Safe of Texas A&M University, who has published papers
contending that the contribution of synthetic chemicals to
disruption of endocrine systems is so "minuscule" that it amounts
to less than one-thousandth of one percent of the amount of
naturally occurring chemicals that have the same effect. He now
tells reporters that the fears of environmentalists could be
dangerous to the economy. "You could be talking about thousands
of jobs and billions of dollars to get rid of some of these
chemicals, all because of something that we have no compelling
reason to believe is really a threat." <bR>
Safe, whose work is partly funded by the Chemical
Manufacturers Association, is not the only industry-backed
scientist to publish studies that dismiss the impact of
endocrine-disrupting chemicals on human health. Last year,
researchers from Dow Chemical and Shell Oil showed that the use
of more complex statistical models could generate the conclusion
that human sperm counts have been increasing, not decreasing,
during the past 20 years.
These industry-funded studies have been given a major boost
by Gina Kolata, a New York Times reporter, who used studies by
Safe and others as background material for three major articles
that throw cold water on Our Stolen Future. Kolata ran into
trouble, however, when she quoted several scientists as skeptical
of the book when the scientists themselves did not feel that way:
"(E)ven in quoting these contrarian scientists, Ms. Kolata
deceives and misleads her readers by selectively distorting their
views," charged Montague. When the New York Times did not
publish protest letters from the misrepresented scientists,
they bought advertising space to set the record straight.
Meanwhile, industry is actively lobbying to redirect the
debate. In January 1991, chief executives of four major US
paper companies John A. Georges of International Paper, T.
Marshall Hahn, Jr. of Georgia-Pacific, Furman C. Moseley
of Simpson Paper, and Andrew C. Sigler of Champion International
went to see William Reilly, then head of EPA, to convince him to
re-assess the impact of dioxin. A memo from the four to Reilly
after the meeting described their satisfaction: "We were
encouraged by what we perceived as your willingness to move
expeditiously to re-examine the potency of dioxin and chloroform
in light of the important new information that has been submitted
with respect to those chemicals" which indicated the "prevailing
view that low-level dioxin exposures do not pose a serious
health threat."
The EPA study, however, backfired on industry. In 1994,
agency scientists concluded that dioxin probably causes cancer in
wildlife and humans; harms the immune and reproductive systems in
fish, birds, and mammals (including humans); and concluded that
"there is no safe level of dioxin exposure and that any dose no
matter how low can result in health damage."
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE
Industry, not satisfied with government studies, is
commissioning its own investigations. The blandly named Endocrine
Issues Coalition put together by the American Crop Protection
Association, the Chemical Manufacturers Association, and the
Society of Plastics Industry recently released a research agenda.
It includes studies on breast cancer, sperm quality, and
endometriosis in humans; estrogen effects in wildlife; a dioxin
mechanistic study; animal and aquatic toxicology studies;
environmental chemistry; testing methods; exposure studies; and
risk assessment. According to Ron Miller of Dow Chemical
Corp., chair of the EIC, the group has a million dollars in
research funding.
Another industry-backed organization, the Chemical Industry
Institute of Toxicology (CIIT) in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina,
has just launched a three-year, $5 million research effort into how
natural and synthetic chemicals affect the human hormone system.
Cancer toxicology research which traditionally took up two-thirds
of its program is now making way for the study of non-cancer
effects such as neurotoxicity and endocrine effects. CIIT is
funded by dues from about 40 member chemical companies including
DuPont, Dow Chemical, Exxon Chemical, General Electric, and
Hoechst Celanese. Not every major company is a member --BASF, Elf
Atochem have never paid dues to CIIT -- while other major players
such as Amoco Chemical, BP America, Dow Corning, ICI Americas,
Olin, and Rhone-Poulenc, have dropped out.
In addition to sponsoring and promoting potentially
sympathetic scientific studies, the affected industries are
investing heavily in public relations campaigns designed to
challenge the growing anti-chemical lobby. In 1993, the Chemical
Manufacturers Association formed the Chlorine Chemistry Council
(CCC) in Washington, DC, which in turn hired the aggressive
public relations firm Mongoven, Biscoe and Duchin to target
environmental groups.
John Mongoven, co-founder of the DC-based firm, has taken up
the issue personally and publishes a monthly briefing for his
clients. His long-term strategy in countering those warning
of the dangers of disrupter chemicals, says Montague of Rachel's
Weekly, is to characterize the "phase out chlorine" position as
"a rejection of accepted scientific method," as a violation of
the chlorine industry's constitutional right to "have the liberty
to do what they choose," and thus a threat to fundamental
American values.
It is not the first time Mongoven has flacked for
potentially deadly products. He began his PR career in 1981 when
he was hired by the Nestle Corp. to organize its response to a
consumer boycott. Activists had charged that the company's
infant formula marketing practices in the Third World encouraged
poor women with no access to clean water to abandon
breast-feeding and switch to expensive infant formula. Using
dossiers that Mongoven compiled on the churches and other groups
leading the boycott, Nestle played on divisions and rivalries
within the activist coalition to talk wavering "moderates" into
abandoning the boycott.
MBD has often used similar strategies to neutralize activist
groups on behalf of a variety of corporate clients. For example,
after analyzing dioxin opposition, MBD picked the New York-based
environmental group INFORM as a "moderate" group worth targeting
for possible cooptation. This kind of tactic is an MBD specialty
according to PR Watch editor John Stauber. He writes:
"The field operatives who gather information for Mongoven,
Biscoe & Duchin are typically polite, low-key and do their best
to sound sympathetic to the people they are interrogating. They
have misrepresented themselves, claiming falsely to be
journalists, friends of friends, or supporters of social change.
Most of the time, however, they simply give very limited
information, identifying their company only by its initials and
describing MBD euphemistically as a "research group" that helps
"corporate decision makers ... develop a better appreciation of
the public interest movement" in order to "resolve contentious
public policy issues in a balanced and socially responsible
manner."
FLACKING FOR SECRECY
But perhaps the most far-reaching lobbying efforts are those
directed at changing government regulations. In January,
Ciba-Geigy's Crop Protection division met with the EPA's Office
of Water and Office of Pesticide Programs to present its own
studies on the health impact of the pesticide atrazine to counter
evidence of health risks presented by the Washington-based
Environmental Working Group.
Industry lobbying groups have also quietly begun to work
with government to change the way that emissions of toxic
chemicals are reported to the public. Traditionally, all
emissions of chemicals listed as toxic by the government must be
reported in a form that is accessible to the public. In the last
three years, 18 states have voted in various versions of laws
that allow companies to avoid telling authorities about such
emissions if industry conducts systematic environmental audits
internally. The Wall Street Journal says that the new laws
"encourage companies to monitor their own activities rigorously
without fear that what they discover will be used against them."
The newspaper reports that these laws have been promoted by
several industry lobby groups including the Compliance Management
and Policy Group, the Corporate Environmental Enforcement
Council, and the Coalition for Improved Environmental Audits.
One such law in Colorado allows companies to withhold
information about air pollution. Another, under debate in
Arizona, would implement the "broadest secrecy laws in the
nation preventing the public from knowing what has actually
happened at a facility,'' according to Felicia Marcus, regional
administrator for the EPA.
LIFESTYLE CHANGES
Even when health authorities and governments make a
conscientious effort to set safety standards, they face
considerable difficulties. One of the main problems is that
the "safe" levels for chemicals in emissions and in everyday
products such as pesticides have been traditionally based on
their impact on adults, not children, who are at a far greater
risk; the assumption is that it is mostly adults who use these
products. But there is growing worry that the quantity of the
chemical is largely irrelevant; the crucial question is not how
much, but when exposure occurs. Thus one part in a million
of a certain chemical may be perfectly safe during 99.99
percent of the life-cycle of a normal human being, but
exposure to one part in a trillion at a particular time during
pregnancy may cause a life-long tragedy.
Given this danger, some activists say the only way to
prevent widespread sickness and disease is to question the
current course of human "progress."
Montague, who has been tracking the effects of synthetic
chemicals on human health for 10 years, advocates questioning
the use of all such substances. "The studies show that the
strange new chemicals that govern our current patterns of
lifestyle and consumption are killing us and making us sick," he
says. "There is a clear pattern in our history that shows that
every time we discover a dangerous chemical, we substitute it
with a different one that we know very little about. We can't
continue to do this. We have to stop using these chemicals
and start living simpler lives."
Some institutions have already suggested that entire classes
of chemicals be banned. Studies by the International Joint
Commission, a scientific body set up to study water quality
in the Great Lakes in Canada and the US, have shown that
of the toxic substances found in the lakes,half of those that
cause cancer and other health problems contain chlorine. As
a result, the Commission recommended phasing out all
chlorine-based chemicals. This conclusion was endorsed by
the American Public Health Association.
While most scientists and government agencies are taking a
"wait and see" approach, some local communities around the
country are organizing to get answers for themselves. Last
year a grassroots group of women in Marin County, California, a
region that has the highest rate of breast cancer in the nation,
decided to stop waiting for the medical community and
commissioned its own research. The Marin Breast Cancer Watch is
currently preparing a survey of the county to try to determine if
environmental causes can explain the high cancer rates.
In Seattle, groups including the Women's Health Action
Network and the Washington Toxics Coalition meet monthly
to talk about issues of reproductive health and synthetic
chemicals. Major environmental organizations like the
Environmental Defense Fund and Greenpeace have also begun to
lobby government and industry on these matters in national
capitals.
While industry claims we don't know enough to justify
action, many activists and researchers warn that if we wait
for definitive answers, it may be too late. The cost of doing
nothing will be illness and death for individuals, devastation
of the environment, and serious genetic damage for many species,
including humans. Many of the estimated 100,000 chemicals on the
market today have not undergone rigorous testing and about 1,000
new ones are added every year. The burden of proof must shift so
that the individual and combined impact of these chemicals is
assessed and those that are not proven safe are banned. A
phase-out period may be necessary to find natural substitutes and
alternatives for substances already in use, but the ultimate goal
must be a ban on such substances.
In addition, no new chemicals should be introduced until
thorough testing is completed.
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