Emerging scientific analyses is showing that environmental toxins pose startling threats to reproductive health and rights. Virtually everyone encounters these toxins daily through synthetic chemicals in products and the environment. Even in small amounts, synthetic chemicals can be absorbed by the body and cause reproductive harm. At stake is the most fundamental of reproductive rights: the ability of women and men to bear healthy children.

Small Amounts of Chemicals Can Damage Health and Fertility
Infertility, lowered sperm quality and count, genital abnormalities, birth defects, reproductive organ cancers, second generation childbearing problems and a number of other reproductive diseases may be linked to very small amounts of toxic synthetic products that interfere with the body's hormones.(1) Although the chemical products have different names and uses, they are linked by their ability to affect the natural bodily systems and are called hormone disrupters, or alternatively endocrine disrupters or reproductive toxins. In a healthy person, the hormones deliver vital messages to cells and catalyze bodily functions, guiding growth, development, intelligence, and reproduction.(2) Abnormal disruption can result in irreversible harm that is passed on to future generations.(3) According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, an estimated 87,000 human-made chemicals are produced today.(4) Only a fraction have been tested for hormone-disruption, but already over 200 widely-used chemicals have been identified as hormone disrupters.(5)

Less Visible Harms
Large increases in cancer rates and other diseases in industrialized countries in the 20th century have long been linked to massive chemical exposure. In the 1950s, chronic mercury poisoning from chemical waste dumped into Minamata Bay, Japan, was discovered to be the cause of severe birth defects, mental retardation, paralysis and death.(6) In 1978, the chemical contamination at Love Canal in New York from building homes on top of a toxic chemical landfill caused families to suffer serious health problems and resulted in the declaration of the first manmade national emergency in the United States.(7) Environmental contamination became a prime culprit in the plague of breast cancer that currently causes 200,000 new cases and 40,000 deaths per year in the U.S.(8) At least initially, the overall solution to preventing these harms was to establish lower, “safe” levels of exposure to the dangerous chemicals.(9)

But hormone disrupters pose an entirely different type of challenge. There may be no “safe” levels, since a small chemical interference at the wrong time can block crucial signals necessary for normal hormonal development. Chemicals in a body can pass through the placenta and cause damage to a fetus quietly and unceremoniously.

Harm to Future Generations
The harm from hormone-disrupting chemicals may be discovered only years later when children born to unsuspecting parents are grown. According to the breakthrough book “Generations at Risk”, these chemicals are “subtle, delayed, difficult to diagnose."(10) One example of how the mechanism of hormone disruption works lies in the sad history of DES, a drug prescribed to many women from 1950-1971 to prevent miscarriages. Many years after its initial use, it was discovered that the hormone-disrupting properties of DES damaged the reproductive capabilities of daughters and sons of the women who had ingested it.  Many “DES daughters,” for example, were unable to bear children of their own. But decades passed before the submerged effects of the DES on offspring were understood.(11)

Many synthetic chemical products display similar hormone-disrupting properties in laboratory or wildlife observations. For example, offspring of rodents exposed to phthalates (pronounced thal-ates), a common element in consumer products such as soft plastics, toys, tubing, containers and cosmetics, experience reduced sperm counts and altered sexual characteristics.(12) A number of studies show significant declines in sperm count in the United States and Europe in the last 50 years, and it is possible this is linked to synthetic chemicals such as phthalates. Other examples of concern appear in the growing body of scientific research on hormone disrupters. Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are flame retardants, used widely in computers, television sets, fabrics and foam. Almost nothing is known about the human health effects of PBDEs, but studies on laboratory animals suggest that PBDEs may cause neurobehavioral alterations and affect the immune system. One type of PBDE— decabromodiphenyl ether — has been classified as a possible human carcinogen.(13)

Small disturbances to hormonal status in utero may have profound and lasting effects, according to the National Science and Technology Council. Low levels of exposure of laboratory animals in utero to the compound bisphenol-A, a chemical used in polycarbonate plastic, causes abnormal pregnancies in mice and a lower age of puberty in offspring.(14) Certain chemicals are thought to contribute to changes in the age of puberty that are becoming more common.(15) In addition, toxins absorbed into a woman’s body may also be passed on in breast milk, at a time when infant development is at a critical stage.(16)

Growing Body of Information on Hormone Disrupters Causes Alarm
The synthetic chemicals that cause hormone disruption are in our air, food, water and household products.  Manufacturing and waste incineration processes can release the toxins into the air, at which point they can travel hundreds and thousands of miles and waft into water and foliage. They then move into the human food chain in vegetation, fish, fowl and animals. Other potentially problem-causing chemicals are ingredients in a vast range of modern products, from soft plastic bath toys to plastic food wrap, from nail polish to carpeting, building materials to pesticides, cosmetics to hospital tubing. So drenched is the environment with these chemicals that all persons (and animals) on the planet have now absorbed some chemicals in their systems.(17)

Once the chemicals that cause harm are ingested or absorbed, they can build up in the body, or bioaccumulate, because normal systems cannot break them down. Because they can be retained in the environment or body for years, they are known as “persistent” organic chemicals.(18) Every person now carries her or his own "body burden" of synthetic chemicals, a fact underscored by a 2001 report from the federal Centers for Disease Control.(19) An array of contaminants and hormone disrupters were found in people from throughout the United States. Every single person studied had measurable levels of pesticide products. Mercury, a toxin, was found in women of childbearing age, along with disturbing amounts of phthalates. Yet, the study measured only 27 of thousands of chemicals.(20) In addition, little is known about how the toxic chemicals in the body interact with one another.

Exposure to these harmful chemical contaminants happens without the willing assent or knowledge of those who are subjected. And no person is fully protected from exposure to the contaminants, regardless of social status or geographic location or personal precaution. 

The rapidly increasing evidence about the potential devastation of hormone- or endocrine-disrupting products has stimulated a vigorous response from a wide array of concerned organizations and citizens. They want new protections from the looming threat to the ability to bear healthy children.

Reproductive Rights Threatened
Reproductive rights inherently encompass the right to choose to bear children, as well as the right to decline childbearing. Existing laws and documents on reproductive rights have not yet grappled with the exact issues raised by the harmful impact of environmental factors on reproduction. But rights articulated internationally and in the U.S. provide an important framework for reproductive freedoms, and primary among those freedoms is the right to bear children.

As far back as 1942, the U.S. Supreme Court stated that the right to bear a child is a central liberty—"one of the basic civil rights of man," the Court wrote in Skinner v. Oklahoma.(21) The right to bear children is part of a zone of privacy that the U.S. Supreme Court later acknowledged as constitutional and that encompasses matters so personal and intimate that decisions about them must be left up to the individual without the government interfering or restricting them unnecessarily. This includes the right to use contraception, as described by the Supreme Court in the 1965 decision of Griswold v. Connecticut, and the right to make decisions about pregnancy termination, articulated in the 1973 decision of Roe v. Wade and other cases.

The role of U.S. courts in constitutional analyses is to weigh whether a government law or action has exceeded its authority and impinged upon the zone of privacy or another constitutional right. Since the chemicals that are potentially hormone-disrupting are largely produced by corporations, it is harder to argue that the government itself has interfered with privacy or the right to bear children, thus triggering constitutional protection. The real question, from the point of view of protected rights, is whether the government has taken sufficient steps to prevent men and women from serious reproductive harm through regulation of corporate activities. Reproductive rights advocates would argue that contamination from chemicals, without the knowledge or consent of the individuals who absorb them, places reproductive rights, reproductive health and the future of human health in jeopardy.

Social Change Needed
The problems posed by hormone-disrupting chemicals are significant and extensive. Although there are some steps that individuals and communities may take to reduce their exposure, the only long-lasting and successful solutions involve social change and a rethinking of the use of chemical products.

To reduce exposure to hormone-disrupting chemicals on an individual level, people can eat less meat, dairy and fatty fish, where toxins are more likely to accumulate and increase intakes of fruits and grains; eliminate the use of pesticides; refrain from microwaving in plastics; avoid use of soft plastics; filter water through reverse osmosis or activated carbon; not use beauty products, nail polish and soaps that contain phthalates.

Communities can also take actions to lower exposure to hormone-disrupting chemicals by working for chemical-free environments in schools, day care centers, hospitals and workplaces; asking hospitals to find substitutes for medical products made from soft plastic that contain phthalates (such as some intravenous tubing); starting a mercury elimination and thermometer exchange program; asking schools and hospitals to use integrated pest management instead of pesticides; and working with community groups to end incineration.

Ultimately, however, social change is needed. The vast use of chemicals with potentially disruptive properties means that no person is free from chemical contamination, despite personal safeguards. Environmental scientists have called for a different approach to the release of chemicals into the manufacturing stream. Contrary to common belief, chemicals are not tested prior to their release or use in manufacturing or consumer products. The burden often falls on a regulatory agency to prove a chemical is unsafe rather than on the industry to show that the chemical is safe before distributing it.(22)

Currently, chemicals are generally evaluated when suspicions arise about their safety, such as when a cluster of illness is identified in a neighborhood or workplace. At that point, government agencies or private companies may analyze the impact of the product on health. But even then, the underlying premise is that there are safe levels of release and the goal is to find the highest level of release that does not cause significant harm. This type of assessment is totally inadequate for hormone-disrupters, which can cause significant harm at extremely low levels of exposure.

Some chemicals have proven so damaging to human health that they have been declared unsafe at any level. A "dirty dozen" of especially persistent chemicals have been targeted for complete elimination in an international treaty of 127 nations, known as the Persistent Organic Pollutants or (POPs) treaty.(23) A U.S. representative signed the treaty in May 2001, but Congress must ratify the agreement before U.S. participation can become official.

Legislation and Policy
Representative Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) have introduced the Environmental Health Research Act in order to promote further scientific study of hormone disruption and its effect on women’s health.

The act will establish a comprehensive program that will include

• research on the impact of chemicals that affect the health of women and children through disruption of the hormone system
• research on the occurrence of hormone-disrupting chemicals in the environment and their effects on ecological and wildlife health
• the design of a multi-agency research initiative on hormone disruption
• research on hormone disruption in the United States with such research conducted in other nations.

Some states and communities are taking steps to ban individual harmful chemicals.  In 2003, California became the first state to ban the toxic fire retardants PBDEs, effective in 2008.(24) Fourteen states have passed ordinances banning the sale or distribution of mercury thermometers.(25) Three cities – San Francisco, Seattle, and Boston – passed healthy materials resolutions to limit city purchasing of products manufactured in processes that release dioxin or other hazardous chemicals, such as bleached paper, vinyl building products and mercury auto switches.(26)

While these efforts are steps forward, they barely make a dent in the huge number of synthetic chemicals that are currently circulating. Many scientists and activists want a shift in the way that chemicals are released into the environment altogether.  They believe that it is no longer appropriate to assume that a chemical is safe and then later to ban it or limit its usage when it is proves to cause severe damage. Instead, they argue that a “precautionary principle” should be implemented,(27) under which only completely clean chemicals would be released. Environmental scientists also encourage searches for safe alternatives to harmful chemicals.(28) In June 2003, San Francisco became the first U.S. city to require the precautionary principle to become a model for guiding decisions about environmental and health policies.(29)

Generally, chemical companies oppose mandatory or more extensive testing of products and “right to know” legislation that would require companies to provide detailed information about chemical ingredients or known hazards. The chemical industry argues that scientific evidence is incomplete or from wildlife and animal studies that are based on higher levels of exposure than humans encounter. Environmental scientists counter that there are now thousands of studies and the evidence is overwhelming.

Reproductive Rights Unify
The fundamental importance of the right to bear children can unite the many diverse interest groups concerned about the effects of chemical contamination. Hormone disrupters affect people from all backgrounds, economic strata, and geographic location. Leaders in the women’s health and reproductive health fields are stepping forward to advocate for more attention to reproductive harm from environmental toxins. Men find strong points of identification with the harm caused by hormone disrupters, in lowering sperm counts, male infertility and contributing to testicular malformations in newborns. The growing environmental health movement is also raising public awareness about the dangers of chemical exposure to pregnant women, developing fetuses and young children.(30)

In the past, public concerns about toxic pollution have been forwarded mainly by environmental organizations, which bring their vast technical and scientific knowledge to these difficult topics. But the new research about the effect of hormone disrupters on reproductive abilities and human health is commanding the attention of a broader range of activists with experience in reproductive rights and environmental health. They offer, in turn, an understanding of pro-choice history and values, including the reproductive right to bear children, and provide valuable insights that can promote strong alliances, create healthy change, and build common ground well into the future.  

Cynthia L. Cooper and Margie Kelly researched this report.

Footnotes

(1)Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski and John Peterson Myers, Our Stolen Future(New York: Plume/Penguin 1997 (first release Dutton/Penguin 1996)); Web site of Our Stolen Future, www.ourstolenfuture.org; Dore Hollander, "Environmental Effects on Reproductive Health: The Endocrine Disruption Hypothesis," Family Planning Perspectives, Vol. 29, No. 2 March/April 1997, pp.84-85, also at the Web site of the Alan Guttmacher Institute, www.agi usa.org/pubs/journals/2908297.html); Ted Schettler, Gina Solomon, Maria Valenti, Annette Huddle, Generations at Risk: Reproductive Health and the Environment (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 1999) pp 12-19; Peter Montague, "Chemicals Linked to Declining Male Reproductive Health," Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly #514 (Oct. 3, 1996), at the web site of Health Care No Harm, www.noharm.org/library/docs/RHEW_514__Chemicals_and_Mal.htm.

(2)Gillian Ford, Listening to Your Hormones (Rocklin, CA: Prima Publishing 1996, 1997) pp.61-66; Schettler, Generations at Risk, pp.3-12; Colborn, Our Stolen Future, pp. 29-46.

(3)Schettler, Generations at Risk, pp.154-156; Peter L. deFur, Carolyn Raffensperger, "Endocrine Disrupter Backgrounder" (1996) at web site of Health Care No Harm, www.noharm.org/library/docs/Endocrine_Disrupter_Backgro.htm,; Hollander, ibid, pp.82-83.

(4)U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Endocrine Disruption Screening Program, ” December 2003, http://www.epa.gov/scipoly/oscpendo/edspoverview/primer.htm#3.

(5)Colborn, interview, August 2003.

(6)Joe Thornton, Pandora's Poison: Chlorine, Health and a New Environmental Strategy  (Cambridge MA: MIT Press 2000), p. 240.

(7)Ecumenical Task Force of the Niagra Frontier, “Love Canal Collection,” http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/projects/lovecanal/index.html

(8)Nancy Evans, ed., “State of the Evidence: What is the Connection between Chemicals & Breast Cancer: 2003” by The Breast Cancer Fund and Breast Cancer Action, http://www.breastcancerfund.org/environment_evidence_main.htm; Sandra Steigraber, Living Downstream—An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment  (New York: Addison-Wesley 1997).

(9)J.P. Myers, "Transcript: Environmental Threats to Reproductive Rights,"  Discussion with Judith DeSarno for the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA), http://www.simulconference.com/simulseminar/NFPRHA/01envthrt/02.shtml; Colborn, Our Stolen Future pp.198-209.

(10)Schettler, Generations at Risk, pp.154-156; interview, 2001.

(11)Schettler, Generations at Risk, pp.153-4; Myers, "Transcript"; "A Healthy Baby Girl," film by Judith Helfand (1996), www.com/catalog/pages/c139.htm.; Colborn, Our Stolen Future, pp.47-86, 261-262.

(12)Myers, transcript, p.4.

(13)Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, “ToxFAQs for Polybrominated Biphenyls and Polybrominated Dipheneyl Ethers,”  September 2002  www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts68.html#bookmark05.

(14)Myers, transcript, p.6.

(15)Myers, ibid.

(16) "A Persistent Organic Pollutants Primer," at Web site of Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), www.wedo.org/ehealth/popsprimer.htm.

(17)Interview, Joe Thornton, May 18, 2001; Thornton, Pandora's Poison; "Trade Secrets: A Moyers Report," Transcript at www.pbs.org/tradesecrets/transcript.html.

(18)Thornton, interview, ibid; Colborn, Our Stolen Future.

(19)Charlotte Brody, interview, June 13, 2001; Centers for Disease Control, "National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals," at www.cdc.gov/nceh/dls/report; "Statement of Health, Education, Religious, Women's, Children's and Environmental Organization in Response to The Nation's First Chemical Exposure Monitoring Report" at www.greenyes.grrn.org/2001/03/msg00080.html.

(20)Brody, interview; "First-Ever Government Report a 'Wake-up Call' on Toxic Exposure of Average Americans," at http://www.pirg.org/envirohealth/media/toxicexposure.html. 

(21)Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316 U.S. 535 (1942

(22)Schettler, Generations at Risk, p. xvi.

(23)"127 Nations Adopt Treaty to Ban Toxic Chemicals," Reuters, May 22, 2001; "A Persistent Organic Pollutants Primer;" Mark Hertsgaard, "Dioxin: Studied to Death," The Nation (May 28, 2001); Sharon Hope King, "Treaty Would Ban Toxins That Invade Breast Milk" at www.womensenews.org; Brody, interview; Thornton, interview.

(24)Wilma Chan,  Assembly Majority Leader “1st in the Nation:
California Bill Banning Toxic Fire Retardants Signed by Governor”
(News release, August 9, 2003) see http://www.cheforhealth.org/events/index.html; Jennifer Lee, “California to Ban Chemicals Used as Flame Retardants” New York Times (August 10, 2003).

(25)Mercury Ordinances/Resolutions. Health Care Without Harm
http://www.hcwh.org/mercury/ordinances. Jan. 2004.

(26)San Francisco, September, 1998: San Francisco Dioxin Resolution, September 1998, http://sfgov.org/sfenvironment/aboutus/policy/resolution/021-98.htm; Seattle, June, 2002, City of Seattle Resolution on Persistent Bioaccumulative Toxic Chemicals (PBTs) as passed 3jul02, http://www.mindfully.org/Pesticide/2002/Seattle-PTB-Resolution2jul02.htm; Boston, October, 2003:Health Care Without Harm news release October 29, 2003. “Public Health Victory Celebrated as Boston City Council Passes Dioxin Resolution,” www.noharm.org.

(27)Thornton, interview; Thornton, Pandora's Poison, pp.7-19, 333-435; Myers, "Transcript," p.9.

(28)Thornton, interview.

(29)City of San Francisco Department of Environment, http://www.sfgov.org/sfenvironment/aboutus/innovative/pp/

(30)Michael Lerner, "The Age of Extinction and The Emerging Environmental Health Movement," draft 3-12-98, at www.commonweal.org/extinctenvhealth.html, pp.15-24.

Perspectives #2, March 22, 2006