Since World War II, U.S. man­u­fac­tur­ers have unleashed an esti­mat­ed 80,000 to 100,000 syn­thet­ic chem­i­cals into our soil, air and water — usu­al­ly with­out first test­ing their effects on humans. Many of these sub­stances are ​“endocrine-dis­rupt­ing chem­i­cals” (EDCs), which inter­fere with hor­mon­al sig­nal­ing and have been linked to breast can­cer, dia­betes, infer­til­i­ty, birth defects and even autism.

And even worse than ignoring the scientists, the EPA ignored the actual science.

How can we pro­tect our­selves from the dan­gers of EDCs? Enter envi­ron­men­tal health researcher Theo Col­born, author of Our Stolen Future and founder of The Endocrine Dis­rup­tion Exchange (TEDX), a non­prof­it based in Pao­nia, Col­orado, which is the only U.S. orga­ni­za­tion that focus­es on health prob­lems caused by low-dose, ambi­ent expo­sure to tox­ic chem­i­cals. A bespec­ta­cled, 87-year-old grand­moth­er sport­ing soft-soled shoes, a shy smile and a PhD in Zool­o­gy from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin, Col­born is a fierce advo­cate for stronger test­ing and reg­u­la­tion of EDCs. A for­mer World Wildlife Fund sci­en­tist and the recip­i­ent of numer­ous awards, Col­born talked to In These Times about her four decades of work in this field — and what the future may hold if we don’t work to clean up EDCs and bet­ter safe­guard our health.

How has the chem­i­cal indus­try respond­ed to your findings?

The chem­i­cal indus­try has been after me since the late 1970s, when I was work­ing on my master’s degree and pub­lished proof that the exoskele­tons of insects liv­ing near molyb­de­num mines had con­cen­tra­tions of molyb­de­num that were a tril­lion times high­er than con­cen­tra­tions found in insects far­ther away from the mines. At that time, a com­pa­ny called Amax was one of the largest pro­duc­ers of molyb­de­num [which, at high expo­sure lev­els, has been linked to repro­duc­tive prob­lems in ani­mals and to gout in humans]. Amax tried to dis­miss and den­i­grate my research. That’s hap­pened again and again over these four decades. Indus­try rep­re­sen­ta­tives try to shrug me off as a busy­body. But they can’t deny that my sci­ence is sol­id. And some­times, their failed attempts to dis­cred­it me wind up help­ing my work.

Can you give an exam­ple of how the industry’s attacks have backfired?

In the late 1980s, I began bring­ing atten­tion to the pol­lu­tion of the Great Lakes with poly­chlo­ri­nat­ed biphenyls [PCBs — chem­i­cals used in sealants, coolants, adhe­sives and paints that are linked to defor­mi­ties in fish and birds, and to can­cer in humans]. The Chem­i­cal Man­u­fac­tur­ers Asso­ci­a­tion found­ed an orga­ni­za­tion called the Chlo­rine Chem­istry Coun­cil (CCC) that seemed to be devot­ed in large part to con­tra­dict­ing my state­ments and stud­ies. For years, the CCC mon­i­tored my move­ments. CCC staff mem­bers would show up at my pub­lic appear­ances and demand equal time at the podi­um. At one point, they even wrote an attack on my integri­ty and sent that let­ter to mem­bers of Con­gress. I respond­ed by writ­ing my own let­ter to Con­gres­sion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tives dis­man­tling the CCC attack, line by line. To my delight, my let­ter opened doors for me on Capi­tol Hill. Rep. Hen­ry Wax­man (D‑Calif.) start­ed reach­ing out to me for guid­ance on envi­ron­men­tal issues. I’m grate­ful to the CCC for help­ing me forge con­nec­tions with Wax­man and oth­er key legislators!

Alliances like that must help when you’re going to bat­tle with chem­i­cal com­pa­nies. Is it dif­fi­cult to fend off their attacks?

With the excep­tion of that rebut­tal let­ter to Con­gress, I don’t both­er respond­ing to what the chem­i­cal indus­try has to say about me. At The Endocrine Dis­rup­tion Exchange, I tell my staff not to pass on infor­ma­tion about any attacks they read or hear about me and my work. Respond­ing to neg­a­tive, false accu­sa­tions could lit­er­al­ly tie me up for years — and that may be just what the chem­i­cal indus­try wants.

You have called for reform of the 1976 Tox­ic Sub­stances Con­trol Act (TSCA) that allows Amer­i­can com­pa­nies to man­u­fac­ture, sell and dis­trib­ute syn­thet­ic chem­i­cals with­out first prov­ing that they are safe.

I find the TSCA prob­lem mad­den­ing. Before doing this type of work, I was a phar­ma­cist. I know that we track pre­scrip­tion-only drugs fair­ly well in this coun­try. We know their effects on the human body, and we work to pre­vent any prob­lems. Why can’t we do the same with syn­thet­ic chem­i­cals and pass stronger leg­is­la­tion? Over the years, instead of being strength­ened, TSCA has only been weak­ened. It’s now work­ing even more in the chem­i­cal industry’s favor than it was when it was orig­i­nal­ly passed.

Most research on this front is com­ing from aca­d­e­m­ic labs and from inde­pen­dent sci­en­tists. What should the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA) be doing?

When Con­gress passed the Food Qual­i­ty Pro­tec­tion Act and the Safe Drink­ing Water Act amend­ments in 1996, the EPA was giv­en a man­date to detect hor­mone-dis­rupt­ing chem­i­cals in the envi­ron­ment. That task was assigned to a pol­i­cy office in D.C. that failed to include input from the pio­neer­ing researchers who had devel­oped sci­en­tif­ic assays to iden­ti­fy endocrine dis­rup­tors. And even worse than ignor­ing the sci­en­tists, the EPA ignored the actu­al sci­ence. There are new endocrine-dis­rupt­ing chem­i­cals out there that have tox­ic effects at every expo­sure lev­el. No expo­sure to these chem­i­cals can be con­sid­ered safe. And the EPA isn’t even tak­ing these new chem­i­cals into account in its revised rules and reg­u­la­tions. The threat of endocrine-dis­rupt­ing chem­i­cals is so over­looked at the EPA that the agency has only one employ­ee on staff at its Endocrine Dis­rup­tor Screen­ing Pro­gram. I con­sid­er that grave­ly irre­spon­si­ble, giv­en the sever­i­ty and scope of this problem.

How bad is the problem?

It’s bad. Even though it’s in many ways invis­i­ble, endocrine dis­rup­tion may be more of a threat to our sur­vival than cli­mate change. They say glob­al warm­ing will reach the point of no return around the year 2060. But with endocrine dis­rup­tion, we may already be at that point. We’ve had these chem­i­cals in our bod­ies for four gen­er­a­tions now. Genet­i­cal­ly, prob­lems asso­ci­at­ed with these chem­i­cals can be passed down through the gen­er­a­tions. And every­day expo­sure is com­ing on top of that. Because these chem­i­cals are wreak­ing hav­oc with our hor­mones, we have devel­oped epi­dem­ic rates of dia­betes, can­cer and oth­er dis­eases that are affect­ed by hor­mon­al fluc­tu­a­tions. At this rate, with­in two more gen­er­a­tions, it’s pos­si­ble that endocrine dis­rupt­ing chem­i­cals are going to make us all ill. Yet, when peo­ple do express any con­cern about the envi­ron­ment, they tend to focus on the issue of cli­mate change.

Why do you think this is so?

You can see tor­na­does and earth­quakes. You can see on graphs that the lev­els of car­bon diox­ide and oth­er green­house gas­es are spik­ing. But with­out indi­vid­u­al­ized test­ing, most of us can’t see the spik­ing lev­els of endocrine dis­rup­tors in our bod­ies. The good news is we’re work­ing to devel­op effec­tive screen­ing and mea­sur­ing tools. On the TEDX web­site, we have cre­at­ed a list of 1,000 endocrine-dis­rupt­ing chem­i­cals and the places where they can be found. And while we’re doing this work, our col­leagues at places like the Envi­ron­men­tal Work­ing Group and the Col­lab­o­ra­tive on Health and the Envi­ron­ment are rais­ing more awareness.

Your work is often uphill, giv­en your lim­it­ed resources and the scope and scale of this prob­lem. What do you con­sid­er to be your proud­est accomplishments?

Teams of tal­ent­ed and accom­plished sci­en­tists are also part of this move­ment, so I nev­er con­sid­er any achieve­ments to be ​“mine” alone. I con­sid­er each to be the suc­cess of our col­lec­tive move­ment — and a suc­cess for human health. Those of us work­ing in this field take heart in the lit­tle efforts and small achieve­ments that add up over time to cumu­la­tive change. We cheered two years ago when the Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion banned BPA from baby bot­tles and sip­py cups. We are cheer­ing now as com­pa­nies are mak­ing prod­ucts with­out phtha­lates, chem­i­cals that have seri­ous impli­ca­tions for the male repro­duc­tive sys­tem — hypospa­dias, unde­scend­ed tes­ti­cles, short­ened anogen­i­tal dis­tance and fem­i­niza­tion. Steps like these, how­ev­er small, keep us mov­ing for­ward. They give us hope.