A very important program will soon screen on public television, the FRONTLINE PBS television documentary, FOOLING WITH NATURE. The program concerns environmental toxins which have been found to be endocrine disrupting chemicals. The show will air:
In recent years, lower IQ, reduced fertility, genital deformities, and abnormalities within the immune system have all been suspected of being linked to synthetic chemicals in the environment. Scientists have found growing evidence that these chemicals, stored in our bodies, could threaten human health. "You are now carrying at least 500 measurable chemicals in your body," says World Wildlife Fund scientist Theo Colborn. "They were never in anyone's body before the 1920s."Date: Tuesday, June 2
Time: 9:00pm
Channel: check your local listings.
In "Fooling with Nature," airing Tuesday, June 2, at 9 p.m., on PBS, FRONTLINE and the Center for Investigative Reporting explore an alarming new theory being debated within the scientific community that challenges governments and the multibillion dollar chemical industry. The program includes interviews with scientists, politicians, activists, and business officials, finding a variety of reactions to this theory. The theory, known as "the endocrine disruption hypothesis," was made prominent by the 1996 publication of Our Stolen Future, co-authored by Colborn.
"Reaction to Theo Colborn's book was amazing," former industry insider Dawn Forsythe tells FRONTLINE. Forsythe believes that endocrine disruption has shaken chemical industry executives more than any event since the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. "Everything is at stake for the industry on this one," she claims. "It was a day of reckoning that they didn't want to see, and everything depends on what they find out."
The day of reckoning for the chemical industry may soon arrive. In a controversial move, applauded by many proponents of the endocrine disruption hypothesis and prompted by an alliance between Senator Alfonse D'Amato and Long Island breast cancer activists, Congress took action. Despite the uncertain health threat, it mandated that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency develop a battery of screens and tests to detect endocrine disrupting chemicals by August 1998. Over 75,000 manmade chemicals, some of which have never been tested for safety, will be put through these screens.
"This is the first time since the passage of the Toxic Substances Control Act more than twenty years ago that Congress has spoken on the issue of testing of chemicals," says Lynn Goldman, assistant administrator of the EPA Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances. Goldman calls it a "fundamental change to the kind of legislation we've had in the past."
Not all scientists agree that humans are in danger. Toxicologist Stephen Safe has dubbed the endocrine disruption hypothesis "paparazzi science" in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine and wrote an editorial for the Wall Street Journal entitled "Another Enviro-Scare Debunked."
"Fooling with Nature" brings Safe to Florida to discuss the importance and relevance of animal research to human health with scientist Lou Guillette, a leading proponent of the hypothesis. Guillette found that male alligators born in contaminated lakes have abnormally small phalluses and strikingly low levels of the male sex hormone testosterone.
"Let's not look at alligators," Safe says. "We've got human data...I wouldn't say there's not a problem, but I think the evidence does not show a parallel between what's happening to the alligators [in this] contaminated lake and humans." FRONTLINE explores Safe's criticisms of the endocrine disruption hypothesis and the weakness in the human data, as well as the controversy over Safe's research funding from the chemical industry.
"There has been so much hype about endocrine disruption that it makes it difficult to carry on reasonable scientific discourse on the topic," says Linda Birnbaum, associate director for health at the EPA's labs in North Carolina. "With endocrine disruption, not only will different scientists interpret the same evidence differently, they will campaign for their point of view in the public arena," says producer Doug Hamilton.
Great Lakes scientist Jim Ludwig disagrees with Safe. "We don't have to prove the general case that endocrine disruption is a health threat," he says. "DES did that for us absolutely clearly, cleanly, no questions asked. That was a really nasty experience." The synthetic hormone diethylstilbestrol (DES), prescribed to pregnant women from the 1940s to the 1970s, caused severe reproductive abnormalities in their exposed infants.
Some scientists speculate that there is indeed "another DES" wreaking havoc in our environment. Hormone-related diseases like breast cancer, prostate cancer, and testicular cancer are on the rise. Controversial reports of a fifty percent drop in human sperm counts have grabbed headlines worldwide, and a condition called hypospadias (a malformation of the penis) appears to be increasing in baby boys.
Of great concern are potential effects on the brain. "Fooling with Nature" explores the research of Joe and Sandra Jacobson, who found a permanent IQ deficit of up to six points in children exposed to environmental pollutants through their mothers' diet of fish from the Great Lakes, although they cannot say if endocrine disruption is the cause. But the threat remains. "Once the potential, the IQ potential, is shaved off a child, you can't put it back in," says Ludwig. "That's the key to this. That's why endocrine disruption is so important to understand."
"Fooling with Nature" is a co-production of FRONTLINE and the Center for Investigative Reporting. The film is produced by Doug Hamilton and is directed and edited by Michael Chandler. The executive producer for the Center for Investigative Reporting is Dan Noyes. Sharon Tiller is the senior producer for FRONTLINE.
FRONTLINE is produced by a consortium of public television stations: WGBH Boston, WTVS Detroit, WPBT Miami, WNET New York, KCTS Seattle.
Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers. Additional funding for "Fooling with Nature" is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Deer Creek Foundation, the Fred Gellert Family Foundation, the Streisand Foundation, and the Wallace Genetic Foundation.
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