Woodstock Earth Blog

CHEMISTRY

GONE WILD

How EDCs -- Endocrine Disrupters

Threaten Human & Animal Survival

Photo Courtesy of Google Images

URGENT WARNING:

We prefer to tell the story first, but given the urgency of this subject, this time the warning comes first. If you care about our future generations, or especially if any of you are planning to have babies or know of anyone planning to give birth and parent children, please, it is urgent that you and they read this report.

Babies, from conception and infancy through puberty and beyond, are the most vulnerable to the unhealthful effects of the myriad of chemicals in the Environment, not just because of their size, but because they’re going through critical phases of development. Many of the products you deal with every day expose you and your babies to these chemicals, which are not just toxic at high levels but will alter the hormone balance affecting your children at extremely low levels.

At about seven weeks after conception, deep within the womb, the human baby begins to develop sexual organs responding to the sex hormones in the child’s blood. This is the point at which babies begin the differentiation between male and female, and the point at which every other system in the body, including the nervous system and brain, begins to develop, and will continue to grow and develop certainly through puberty and beyond (the teenage brain). In studies of (umbilical, beyond the placenta) cord blood, as many as 200 chemicals were found, and breast milk has also been found to contain numerous chemicals (as does infant formula). Whatever the mother is exposed to, so is her baby. And there have been numerous human studies and hundreds of animal studies that confirm harmful effects from these chemicals, despite what you might hear from the army of industry scientists, websites, and social networking sites, that dispute claims of harm done at such low levels.

Example: BPA’s in Thermal and Carbonless Paper

We all remember 2008 when baby bottles produced with BPA were found to be hazardous and removed from use by law (the EPA was unable to regulate it). All old plastic baby bottles were to be thrown away, since the BPA chemical within them could leach into the contents and poison babies.

Well, what nobody told you is that this same “poison”, BPA, that mimics estrogen the female hormone, is still everywhere and can be found in all of us. Nobody told you that every multi-sheet business form (i.e. carbonless laundry ticket, sales slip, medical form, etc.) you touch during the day is covered with BPA’s. And nobody told you that most cash register, gas, parking, and ATM bank receipts, lottery tickets, airline boarding passes, luggage tags, some prescription labels and even some concert tickets are printed on thermal paper, and most thermal paper is coated with BPA. (Otherwise, they use BPS, which is just as dangerous, confirmed by the National Institute of Health - NIH. Thermal paper uses heat and BPA or BPS to activate the ink. – If you have any doubt as to whether it’s thermal, expose the paper to a flame for less than a second and you will see the ink activate.)

When you touch a carbonless form or a thermal receipt or lottery ticket with your fingers and then touch your baby’s toy or food, which they then put in their mouths, you are dosing your baby with possibly more BPA than would have leached out of that old baby bottle. (And if you eat or smoke with that stuff on your fingers, you are dosing yourself, and if you’re breast-feeding, that doesn’t just mean you.) In the old outlawed baby bottles and in the lining of every can of canned food or canned drink in your cupboard, even in DVD’s and windshields, BPA can be found, but at least, it is in the form of a polymer (though polymers do leach BPA’s). But in the coating of carbonless and thermal paper, the BPA molecules are looser and freer to migrate.

Developmentally in the womb and beyond, boys are most immediately at risk from BPA, an estrogenic substance. Symptoms include incomplete descent of testicles, reduced length and girth of penis, urethra not at tip of penis, and feminization (distance between penis and anus reduced). All this has been confirmed in studies in which BPA levels in blood and/or urine have been measured. We also have heard anecdotal reports of increased miscarriages of male babies, backed up by worldwide statistics of fewer males than females being born. And female babies are not immune to estrogenic substances like BPA. Though changes are not as evident at birth, girls are developing breast buds as early as 7 or 8 years old and reaching puberty earlier, and there may be a connection to increased breast and ovarian cancers.

There’s no way you can avoid all the hormone disrupting chemicals, or as we call them EDC’s (Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals), but you do have the ability to limit your intake of certain EDC’s you are exposed to regularly. Every little bit helps. Being careful with receipts (washing your hands before touching the baby), and not eating or feeding your kids canned food or drinks is a good start. Also be aware that the pesticides found in non-organic fruit and vegetables and in all restaurant food are EDC’s and that all fossil fuels and smoke from fossil fuels and all plastics, all made from fossil fuels, contain chemicals that are EDC’s.

Do what you can. It’s not your fault that the environment has been left to you this fraught with dangers. Can’t stress that enough. Just try your best to limit your and your loved ones’, especially your children’s, exposure from this point forward. And it’s so important that you educate your friends and associates to this subject (and to the specifics, like thermal receipts etc.) for their benefit, and so that they and you will get politically involved in the effort to protect yourselves and all the creatures of Mother Earth in every corner of the Earth exposed to these dangerous chemicals.

Illustration Courtesy of Google Images

CHEMISTRY GONE WILD – Core Article

“Better Things for Better Living through Chemistry.” We heard these words from the big screen at the movie theater during the “shorts” before the film preparing us for the onslaught of better things, consumer products and technology, that this modern new world would have to offer. And it wasn’t our parents fault. We believed and our parents taught us to believe the hype that modern was better. And we saw the results. Even the wooden seat chairs at the movie theater were soon replaced with thick comfortable polyurethane cushioned chairs only made possible by chemistry. And so, our parents and we were lulled into a naïve stupor that still prevails today.

The chemical industry began in the mid-1800s, grew steadily and mushroomed during World War II, and has grown more than 25 times since, to the tune of over $763 billion in sales and employing over 3 million people. More than 84,000 chemicals are now in use or in our environment, with close to 1,000 new ones being invented each year. Almost all aspects of modern life depend on the chemical industry.

And all along, in our naïve stupor, we assumed that these chemicals had been tested, that they and the products produced with them were safe and would do us no harm, (but there was no such guarantee). With experimentation by their ever larger R & D departments, whatever chemical DuPont or Dow or Monsanto, or even any small chemical company, wanted to produce, could be marketed, distributed and used with absolutely no oversight. Until 1970, there was not even an Environmental Protection Agency in our government, but even after the EPA was formed, until today, regarding the proliferation of chemicals, it has been totally ineffective and hands-off.

The drumbeat for regulation of the chemical industry from citizens concerned by stories of harm to humans, animals, and the environment was getting louder and louder, and finally a law was passed in 1976, called the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA), and while at first many cheered its ratification, it turned out to be a totally toothless and spineless law. 64,000 chemicals were grandfathered in to be considered safe with absolutely no testing. It was a complete compromise to the interests of the chemical industry, and did nothing and will do nothing to protect us, even though it assigned regulation and enforcement to the EPA.

Did you know that to this day any company can create any new chemical and have it distributed and put to use with absolutely no testing, not even on rats, much less on humans? And did you know that the EPA, which is supposed to be protecting us from hazards, is not even allowed to ask a chemical manufacturer for test results or for any proprietary information, until they’ve proven the chemical harmful? The burden of proof is on the EPA, not on the chemical companies. For that reason, only five chemicals since the law came into effect in 1976 have ever been regulated by the EPA. (They couldn’t even regulate Asbestos, which had to be banned by Congress in 1989.) And the underfunded EPA has only tested another 195 chemicals out of the 84,000 since 1976.

Recognizing how completely ineffectual the TSCA has been, and recognizing the need to protect the populace, a bill was introduced in May 2013 by, amongst others, the now late Senator Lautenberg, called the Chemical Safety Improvement Act, but there are many critics who complain that this bill falls short of actually putting public health ahead of corporate profits. And the powerful chemical lobby, to which the bill was designed to compromise, will, as usual, oppose it. Even if it goes through and the President ratifies it, a big if for this Congress, without major increases in the funding of the EPA, so that they can effectively start testing and regulating these toxic chemicals, this law won’t be much better than the current one.

When and if EPA regulators ever question a chemical, they do so on the basis of the toxicology of the chemical, mostly relating to cancer. How much is the safe exposure level of this chemical before the subject is poisoned or develops cancer? The higher the exposure, the higher the toxicity or cancer risk. That’s the toxicological approach.

The principles of endocrinology go beyond poisoning and cancer, and ask what the effect is of tiny doses of chemicals on the homeostasis, the balance, of the hormones and enzymes in each cell and in the complete organism, whether animal or human. The inner workings of all vertebrates and including the human body, whether you believe in a Creator or not, are incredibly complex. In order to keep the organism alive each moment, thousands of chemical, biological and neurological reactions have to take place, all coordinated by the endocrine (secretion) system. The hormonal chemicals secreted by the endocrine glands regulate the metabolism and workings of every other system, circulatory, neurological, etc. The fact that they all work together in coordination is truly miraculous, and it’s easy to imagine how tiny doses of interfering chemicals could cause an imbalance that could lead to ill health.

Illustration Courtesy of Google Images

Think of hormones flowing in the blood as if they were radio signals, and think of the receptors on the target cells as antennas for each specific hormone. That hormone as it’s carried in the blood through the entire body will only attach to the receptor for that specific hormone on that specific type of target cell, and will act as a key unlocking a response. The Pituitary Gland in the brain, in coordination with the Hypothalamus, a part of the brain, sends out hormones whose job it is to regulate each other gland and the hormones that they in turn will secrete. The Adrenal Gland produces the hormone Adrenaline, the Thyroid Gland produces Thyroxin, and the Sex Glands, the penis or ovaries produce Testosterone, an Androgen, or male hormone, and Estrogen, the female hormone.

Pointing to the example of sex hormones that are affecting our babies (and the babies of fish, frogs, cows, and alligators, all documented in recent studies), all males have male and female hormones, and all females have both female and male hormones in their blood, measured in parts per billion and parts per trillion. The delicate balance, the homeostasis, of these hormones is critical for sexual health and fertility.

Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDC’s) in tiny amounts (parts per billion or trillion) can easily throw off the balance in sex hormones in four ways. Some EDC’s mimic Estrogen, so they’re Estrogenic, some mimic Androgen, they’re Androgenic, some are Anti-estrogenic, they interfere with female hormone signaling, and some are Anti-androgenic, they interfere with male hormones. The illustration at the very beginning of this post will explain this further. Similarly, other hormones can also be affected by EDC’s in minute quantities in our blood, causing disruptions in every system and organ in the body, resulting in literally thousands of different ill health effects. To complicate this picture further, each one of us, including animals, domestic and in the wild, has hundreds of synthetic chemicals in our blood, many of which are known EDC’s. The combined effect, no matter how small each of the doses of hundreds of chemicals may be, is harder to link to specific exposures in research studies outside the toxilogical approach in the laboratory, but is certainly in play.

Good health depends on maintaining homeostasis, balance, of all your hormones (not only sex hormones, but thyroid, etc.), enzymes, organs, and systems. And if EDC’s, even in tiny amounts, throw off that balance just a little bit, lots can go wrong.

It is indisputable that many more children than were a decade ago are afflicted with some kind of chronic illness. Many experts are concerned that the recent (within the last decade) dramatic rise in childhood-onset and adult-onset allergies, diabetes, and cancer, obesity, autism, Alzheimer’s, and reproductive, developmental, digestive, cardiovascular, neurological and brain development (lower IQ and cognition) problems, etc. may all be connected to the onslaught of more and more EDC’s. Many studies worldwide have indicated this is the case. EDC’s are absorbed daily through eating, drinking, breathing, and through our skin, and there’s no doubt, they’re affecting our children and us.

Many of us encounter chemical hazards in the places we work. Every factory in every industry uses chemicals, many of which are toxic, to manufacture their products, Factory workers are at Ground Zero on this front every day. OSHA was formed in 1971 to protect workers, and in the HazCom program OSHA requires MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheets) sheets to be kept in binders accessible to the workers, if they ever want to look at them, which is rare. No matter what they see, in order to be paid, they must expose themselves to these chemicals, however dangerous. These sheets include toxicological information on each chemical, as provided by the chemical supplier, with no verification, and with reference to EDC’s rarely mentioned. But, at least, that is better than what we get at home, which is nothing, no information. Perhaps the stores should be made to allow us to access a database with the chemicals in the products that they carry. At very least, we at home should know if a product is toxic or carcinogenic, notification that OSHA requires in the workplace.

In the interest of time, we will now list some of the most major sources of EDC’s in our everyday lives and just a few brief notes on each. This is by no means a complete list, and each of these on its own could be an entire article, so please forgive any omissions. We are also not covering certain environmental toxins, which are all EDC’s – Dioxin, PCB’s, and DDT, heavy metals – Lead and Mercury, Arsenic, Perchlorates (in fireworks), Perfluorinates (non-stick cookware), or Glycol Ether Solvents (in paints and cleaning products). EDC’s can be found in most beauty products, cosmetics, creams, soaps, hair care products, and cleaning products. They are everywhere, and in all of us.

BPA’s

If you haven’t, please read the warning at the very beginning of this article. It includes lots of info on BPA (Bisphenol A) and BPS (Bisphenol S) that we don’t want to repeat. A note on thermal paper. The reason thermal paper is so popular is that it makes it unnecessary to buy or change ink. Even though the paper is much more expensive, the convenience factor of not having to change the ink makes it desirable. The printers are cheap and break down less often, because they have less moving parts, so even if the dealers sell the printers for cost, they can profit on the rolls of thermal paper for years. It’s a win – win for the stores and for the printer dealers, but it’s a lose - lose for the checkout workers who are at Ground Zero changing paper rolls all day, whether pregnant or not, and for us consumers. Also, a note for those that tell you that their thermal or carbonless paper is BPA-free. They may not know it, but the alternative thermal paper uses BPS, which, according to the National Institute of Health (NIH), is an EDC and is just as bad. BPA’s are plasticizers for certain rigid plastics called polycarbonate with the recycle number 7 (though other plastics are also labeled number 7). Over 8,000,000,000 pounds of BPA’s are manufactured and put into products each year. During the 1930’s BPA was considered for use as an estrogen substitute in hormone replacement therapy, before it was decided that it be used as a plasticizer, so its interaction with estrogen receptors has been known for more than 80 years. This is the smoking gun, just like in the tobacco industry, scientists and executives knew of the hazard. Studies have recently linked BPA’s to obesity, early puberty, and miscarriage. The only good news on BPA’s and the next subject, Phthalates, is that your body efficiently removes these chemicals from your blood through liver and kidney function (although some will remain in fat cells, which will be released into your blood when they are burned) so it is possible to detox, as long as you don’t dose yourself anew as fast as you detox.

Phthalates

Phthalates are plasticizer compounds that make the product softer and more flexible. The rubber ducky is the icon for Phthalates, but they are used in soaps, detergents, shampoos, deodorants, nail polish, sunscreens, personal care creams, baby creams, vinyl products (like binders and raincoats), flexible PVC pipes, children’s toys, and even rubbery sex toys (a place where you might not want to use EDC’s). Fragrances, perfumes, air fresheners, and even new-car smell, are carried by phthalates, which provide an excellent delivery system into the air or into your skin through creams. If you apply cream to your hand and check it 10 minutes later you find that it’s gone. It has been absorbed by your skin into your body along with the Phthalates, an EDC. To avoid it, look for the catchword, fragrance, in the ingredients, and you can assume that means Phthalates. Also avoid as much as possible using plastic containers and plastic PVC wrap. Note that microwaved plastic containers or older plastic will leach more Phthalates or BPA’s into your food. All plastics are petroleum products and can be assumed to contain some EDC compounds, which can leach into the product contained, including bottled water.

Flame Retardants Chemicals

PBDE’s and other flame retardants have been required in all polyurethane cushions in furniture, including baby furniture and baby car seats. It is also sometimes used in pajamas and other clothing. California, which has been the standard since they 70s when the regulation went into effect, finally revised the regulation on December 31, 2013, so that it will now no longer be required in new furniture, but still okay for use in new and old furniture. This means some PBDE-free furniture will soon be available for those that who can afford it. The reason they changed the regulation was that it had been proven as an EDC, causing cancer, reproductive problems, and lower IQ and cognition. But still, it has not been banned in the US, and it’s in every house and business and piece of furniture in the country. The PBDE’s attaches to dust and can be breathed in, as well as through the mouth. The other problem with PBDE’s is that it’s very persistent, and won’t break down to safer chemicals, so even if it is ever finally banned in new furniture, it will persist in the environment and will continue to grow within us for many years to come.

Chemicals in Clothing

The clothing industry uses lots of toxic chemicals in the fabrics, including the expensive brands. Two that Greenpeace is highlighting, used in children’s (and adult) clothing, are NPEs (that break down to EDC’s) and PFOA, a perfluorinated chemical (also in nonstick cookware) which is a well known persistent EDC. Also some dyes are EDC’s. The industry has claimed these dangerous chemicals will not transfer to skin from dry clothing, but based on our research, such is not the case. And certainly, vulnerable children should be protected from any possible effects on their developing bodies and brains from exposure to the chemicals in their clothing.

Fossil Fuels and Oil Spill Remediation

Oil, gas and coal and the smoke and gases released from their combustion contain chemicals that are EDC’s. Meanwhile tanker loads of motor oil from everyday leaks and oil changes (not properly recycled) are spilled onto our roads, and wash into our waterways, and eventually into our oceans on an everyday basis. So besides the oil spills you hear about in the news, we are constantly being exposed to oil with all its toxicity, carcinogenicity, and endocrine disrupting ability. Gas flaring from every one of the thousands of fracked oil wells and emissions from power plants, compressor stations, refineries, etc. are literally pouring EDC’s into our air and onto our land, including onto our farmland. Plastics in our oceans are another form of oil spill. When 200,000,000 gallons of light sweet crude oil spilled into the Gulf in 2010, they used 2,000,000 gallons of COREXIT dispersant to “remediate” the spill. This was sprayed from the air and injected into the sea with no regard for human or marine life. Besides the 170,000 cleanup workers who were exposed to oil and COREXIT every day for 90 days, lots of citizens were also exposed, even schools. Many complained of rashes, headaches, and other ailments. A recent study has found that versus a control group that was far inland, the cleanup workers’ blood tested has unhealthy characteristics and has been permanently altered. Many of the chemicals in the dispersant cocktail of chemicals were known at that time to be EDC’s and though this particular dispersant had already been banned by the UK and by many other countries, it was used on Americans.

Agrochemicals

Atrazine is the herbicide (weed killer) most widely used by Agribusiness in the US, though it is has been banned in the EU. The reason it was banned is that it has been proven to alter the hormonal system, causing cancer and mutations in animal studies. It is an EDC, and the second largest chemical, Glyphosate, or Roundup, often associated with GMO, is also a definite EDC, which has been determined in dozens of studies, as have most of the pesticides and herbicides in use. These dangerous EDC’s have been tied to reproductive and thyroid problems, obesity and cancer. Another popular pesticide banned in the EU for threatening the survival of bees is Neonicotinoids. Often seeds are sold in the US and Canada already coated with this EDC, that has been found to interfere with thyroid function. Though Atrazine, Glyphosate and Neonicotinoids can be found in municipal water supplies and in many groundwater wells, you can limit your consumption of these EDC’s by eating organically grown fruits and vegetables and by avoiding all processed foods and restaurant food. The farm workers are at Ground Zero on this front, being exposed to these dangerous, toxic, carcinogenic, and mutagenic EDC chemicals every day they work. Their life expectancy is only about 49 years. Let me also remember the Bhopal, India incident in 1984, where gas from the manufacture of agrochemical neurotoxin pesticide at a Union Carbide chemical plant escaped and killed 2,259 men, women, and children immediately, and thousands more within weeks. Some estimate as many as 20,000 were killed or permanently injured from that one incident.

Fracking Chemicals More than 700 chemicals are used in the fracking process, and many of them disturb hormone function,” Dr. Susan Nagel, one of the study’s lead authors and a professor of gynecology and women’s health at the University of Missouri School of Medicine, said in a press release. “With fracking on the rise, populations may face greater health risks from increased endocrine-disrupting chemical exposure.”

Of the 39 unique water samples taken during the study, 89 percent of the samples exhibited signs of chemicals that are estrogenic, meaning they may mimic female hormones, and 41 percent showed signs of anti-estrogenic chemicals that may disrupt female hormones. About 12 percent of the samples showed signs of androgenic chemicals that may mimic male hormones, and 46 percent showed the presence of anti-androgenic chemicals that may disrupt male hormones.

Above 2 paragraphs courtesy of Aspen Daily News -Hormone Disruptors Found… 12/18/13

This study is about to be published in the peer-reviewed journal Endocrinology. Many of the chemical compounds used in fracking are on the EDC lists, but this study confirms the real dangers presented by the presence of these Fracking chemicals in surface and groundwater, threatening humans and animals alike. The recent spill in West Virginia contaminating the water supply of 300,000 people highlights the urgency of the dangers presented by large quantities of toxic chemicals in storage tanks and transported by truck and rail. The chemical 4-methylcyclohexane was being used in coal processing, but it has also been verified as a fracking chemical. When they finally sound the “All Clear” to drink from the municipal water supply, no one will really know whether it really will be safe, and no one will know the side effects of the exposure that may not arise for many years. With tens of thousands of wells still being drilled and fracked, all of us are at risk of similar toxic chemical spills and the resulting catastrophes arising from exposure, some immediate and some years later, and, according to epigenetics, generations later.

CHEMISTRY GONE WILD – Final Thoughts

Here we sit with our parents in that old wide-screen movie theater, or now in front of our wide-screen TVs, marveling at all the technology before us and all that we see in the slick consumer ads. And so many years later, we’re still living in that stupor of naïveté, believing, as we’ve been taught, that we are safe, and that we are being protected by the brand (the manufacturer), by the store, and also by the government regulators, But, unfortunately, that is far from the truth.

Evidence shows that young college age males have half the sperm count found 20 years ago, and with low motility (swimming ability) of the sperm. We’ve heard anecdotal evidence that, whereas 20 years ago 8 out of 10 young men were found to qualify as sperm donors, now only 3 or 4 out of 10 qualify, and that’s with much reduced standards. Fertility clinics are doing more and more business as young couples are finding it harder and harder to get pregnant and give birth without miscarriage. And we’re finding more evidence that reproductive health in many species of the animal world, both wild and domestic, is also being compromised by the toxic burden of the environment, and that more species are facing extinction.

Now, for the latest and biggest craze since Viagra, the product du jour being pushed through TV and magazine advertising is Testosterone. “Are you low – T?”, asks one of the ads, claiming that synthetic Testosterone will improve our quality of life, but don’t let your wife or girlfriend or kids touch you near your “application spot”! Well, with all the gun violence in this country, I’m not sure the answer to what the world needs is more Testosterone. Perhaps a better answer would be less EDC’s.

Photo Courtesy of TheGuardian.com

Message to our Readers

During research I always tried to imagine myself in the victims’ shoes and to feel what they had experienced. What I discovered was that whether I was researching an oil spill and exposure to oil and dispersant, or a fracking chemical spill, or exposure to agrochemicals, the victims all seemed to be having many of the same symptoms. It was almost as if I was hearing the same story over and over again.

Well now it all made sense. There was one common thread running through all these stories. In researching these various subjects, just since March 2012, we were confronted with thousands of chemical compounds which were labeled toxic, carcinogenic, and/or endocrine disrupters, some all three. I understood toxic and carcinogenic. That’s clear. But I didn’t fully understand what they meant by the term, endocrine disrupter. Hence the need for this article.

One more thing I’ve got to say. While working on this story I found the lack of regulation in the US and around the word and the lack of care for Mother Earth and her creatures once again to be totally insane.

We are certain this article will be accused of sensationalism, but let me assure you, we are not making this stuff up. We are just reporting, with no exaggeration, scientific research over more than a decade as affirmed by the NIH (National Institute of Health) and by the UN’s WHO (World Health Organization). The premise that certain chemicals interfere with natural hormonal function is now universally accepted in the academic and scientific communities, despite what you may hear from industry scientists, websites and social networking sites promising safety. The reason this article may seem sensational is that it is just so shocking to those of us, including ourselves, who have been lulled into the stupor of ignorance discussed earlier, as has been encouraged by the modern society in which we live.

In the interest of brevity we left out so many details, so we encourage you to check out our section of Reference Resources, starting with The Endocrine Disruption Exchange TEDX Database, in which you can search any chemical to see whether it has been listed as an EDC. The TEDX website has much else to offer. We also included recently published material on the State of the Science of EDC’s from the World Health Organization (the UN’s WHO), a report from the National Institute of Health (NIH), a 50 page Statement by the Endocrine Society, and an incredibly good document entitled, From Rachel to REACH, a report on the EU regulation of EDC’s, criticizing the 2007 EU law REACH for falling short. (Stands for Registration, Evaluation, and Authorization of Chemicals, and Rachel refers to Rachel Carson – author of the groundbreaking book, Silent Spring).

Another resource used in our research was the video, Unacceptable Levels, an intimate and very thorough look at a young couple’s exploration into the subject. Though we were unable to include it, it is accessible, and for a taste of it, check out the trailer.

We are pleased to offer five videos, the first of which is a delightful TEDWomen presentation by the at the time very pregnant filmmaker of The Toxic Baby, Penelope Jagessar Chaffer, whose pregnancy certainly adds a dimension. Her co-presenter, the scientist, Tyrone Hayes, shows us just how dangerous EDC’s are, by offering us a glimpse into the sexual mutation of frogs in the wild exposed to the agrochemical EDC, Atrazine, the most widely used herbicide in the US. He shows us slides of male frogs having developed both male and female organs from their exposure.

The second one is also a TEDTalk video with Dr. Theo Colburn, author of Our Stolen Future, and president and founder of the Endocrine Disruption Exchange (TEDX)) reading an eloquent letter to President Obama in her plea for action regarding chemicals disrupting our bodies.

Third, a very thorough video entitled, UNSAFE: The Truth Behind Everyday Chemicals. A very good documentary in every respect.

Fourth, we couldn’t help but include this 2009 news story, because we were so impressed that this very informative piece covering BPA’s was so well produced by Fox 5, a local New York City TV station. As an outreach to our more conservative friends (and we all know, and even love, a few), you may find them more receptive to learning about this from a Fox (Rupert Murdock) station.

Number five is the The Disappearing Male, and though at first we questioned whether to include it because of its at times rather sensational TV production tone, on review we took no exception to the facts presented, and felt that it was certainly worth watching. Not that extinction is imminent (though for many species it already is), but unless we take action regarding EDC’s, extinction is the ultimate outcome of our current path.

We thank our readers in Germany, the UK, Russia, Canada, and France (our biggest audience outside the US), and we thank all of our US and international readers (from over 80 nations). We really appreciate you taking the time to read our articles. And we extra-appreciate when you refer them to friends. On this story, it is possible your referral could save families tremendous heartache. We love getting feedback from our readers. Our email address is woodstockearthblog@gmail.com, or if you prefer Twitter, you can use @Mikethemikeman1. For the sake of our people, our families, and Mother Earth, we encourage all of you, as charter members of Woodstock Earth, to spread the word and help get these stories out.

Reference Resources

The Endocrine Disruption Exchange

TEDXList of Potential Endocrine Disruptors - Search Engine

World Health Organization & United Nations Environmental Program

Stateof the Science of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals 2012 (PDF)

National Institute of Health
National Institute of Environmental Health Services Endocrine Disruptors

The Endocrine Society

Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals (PDF)

European Union Regulation of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals

That Affect Reproduction – From Rachelto REACH (PDF)

Videos

The Toxic Baby A TEDWomen Event