from the NY Times Op Ed
Op-Ed Columnist
This Is Your Brain on Toxins
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: October 16, 2013 124 Comments
“Lead helps to guard your health.”
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That was the marketing line that the former National Lead Company used
decades ago to sell lead-based household paints. Yet we now know that
lead was poisoning millions of children and permanently damaging their
brains. Tens of thousands of children died, and countless millions were
left mentally impaired.
One boy, Sam, born in Milwaukee in 1990, “thrived as a baby,” according
to his medical record. But then, as a toddler, he began to chew on lead
paint or suck on fingers with lead dust, and his blood showed soaring
lead levels.
Sam’s family moved homes, but it was no use. At age 3, he was
hospitalized for five days because of lead poisoning, and in
kindergarten his teachers noticed that he had speech problems. He
struggled through school, and doctors concluded that he had “permanent
and irreversible” deficiencies in brain function.
Sam’s story appears in “Lead Wars,” a book by Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner
published this year that chronicles the monstrous irresponsibility of
companies in the lead industry over the course of the 20th century.
Eventually, over industry protests, came regulation and the removal of lead from gasoline.
As a result, lead levels of American children have declined 90 percent
in the last few decades, and scholars have estimated that, as a result,
children’s I.Q.’s on average have risen at least two points and perhaps
more than four.
So what are the lessons from the human catastrophe of lead poisoning
over so many decades? To me, today’s version of the lead industry is the
chemical industry — companies like Exxon Mobil, DuPont, BASF and Dow
Chemical — over the years churning out endocrine-disruptor chemicals
that mimic the body’s hormones. Endocrine disruptors are found in everything from plastics to pesticides, toys to cosmetics, and there are growing concerns about their safety.
The Endocrine Society, the Pediatric Endocrine Society, the European
Society of Pediatric Endocrinology and the President’s Cancer Panel have
all warned about endocrine disruptors — also referred to as E.D.C.’s,
for endocrine disrupting chemicals. The World Health Organization and
United Nations this year concluded:
“Exposure to E.D.C.’s during fetal development and puberty plays a role
in the increased incidences of reproductive diseases, endocrine-related
cancers, behavioral and learning problems, including A.D.H.D.,
infections, asthma, and perhaps obesity and diabetes in humans.”
Alarm about endocrine disruptors once was a fringe scientific concern
but increasingly has moved mainstream. There is still uncertainty and
debate about the risk posed by individual chemicals, but there is
growing concern about the risk of endocrine disruptors in general —
particularly to fetuses and children. There is less concern about
adults.
Scientists are also debating whether the old toxicological models are
appropriate for chemicals that mimic hormones and thus may trigger
bodily changes, especially in fetuses and children.
These are the kinds of threats that we in journalism are not very good
at covering. We did a wretched job covering risks from lead and tobacco
in the early years; instead of watchdogs, we were lap dogs.
One common thread is industry’s greed, duplicity and powerful lobbying in Washington and around the country. The chemical industry spent $55 million lobbying last year, twice the figure a decade earlier, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
The Chicago Tribune last year documented
how the chemical industry created a fake movement for flame retardants
in furniture, supposedly to prevent fires; in fact, flame retardants
don’t reduce fires but do contain endocrine disruptors that may be
harmful to our children.
This summer 18 scientists wrote a scathing letter
railing against European Union regulations of endocrine disruptors.
That underscored the genuine scientific uncertainty about risks — until Environmental Health News showed that 17 of the 18 have conflicts of interest, such as receiving money from the chemical industry. Meanwhile, more than 140 other scientists followed up with their own open letters denouncing the original 18 and warning that endocrine disruptors do indeed constitute a risk.
Andrea C. Gore, the editor of Endocrinology, published an editorial
asserting that corporate interests are abusing science today with
endocrine disruptors the way they once did with lead: for the “production of uncertainty.”
She added that the evidence is “undeniable: that endocrine-disrupting chemicals pose a threat to human health.”
When scientists feud, it’s hard for the rest of us to know what to do.
But I’m struck that many experts in endocrinology, toxicology or
pediatrics aren’t waiting for regulatory changes. They don’t heat food
in plastic containers, they reduce their use of plastic water bottles,
and they try to give their kids organic food to reduce exposure to
pesticides.
So a question for big chemical companies: Are you really going to follow
the model of tobacco and lead and fight regulation every step of the
way, once more risking our children’s futures?
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