Hormonal Chaos: The Scientific and Social Origins of the Environmental Endocrine Hypothesis

The chemicals that have ushered in the modern industrial age are everywhere, in pesticides applied to food crops, in plastic containers, in dental amalgams, in the resins in tin cans. Such substances have been regarded as safe at low exposures. But new evidence suggests that low levels of industrials may obstruct hormonal activity -- with devastating long-term effects that range from cancer & reproductive abnormalities to cognitive functions. Here, Krimsky discusses the environmental endocrine hypothesis, the assertion that chemicals called ''endocrine disruptors'' are interfering with the normal functioning of hormones in animals & humans. This hypothesis is troubling because of its implications for the effects of mod. ind l practices.