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,

Products and packing likely to contain disrupters and mimickers.

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,

published by the right wing Hudson Institute, this 1995 volume includes such snappy chapter titles as: "Preventing Cancer with Pesticides," "The Empty Threat of DDT,""There's A Lot Less Hunger Than We've Been Told," and "Drink Up, The Water's Fine."

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.

Toxic pollution affects even remote Lake Laberge in the Yukon and
is poisoning people and wildlife while destroying a way of life.

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

Toxic air pollution pver Mexico City, for example, can be picked up
by winds and rain that can carry it to all parts of the globe.

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