A quick listen on endocrine disruptors and the need for chemical policy reform.
- Sarah Janssen
- Staff Scientist, San Francisco
- Blog | About
- Posted September 9, 2009 in Living Sustainably
Living on Earth aired an excellent interview with Dr. Tracey Woodruff on the regulation of endocrine disruptors last week. As an EPA alum and director of UC-San Francisco's Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment, Dr. Woodruff knows a thing or two about the gaps in our system for regulating chemicals that impact reproductive health.
Dr. Woodruff discussed the potential for industry-encouraged delays in regulation and testing of chemicals for hormone disrupting effects pointing to the example of the pesticide, atrazine, as one chemical we already know is an hormone disruptor but has not been regulated based on that effect. My colleague, Jen Sass has blogged about atrazine and NRDC recently released a report on the widespread contamination of water sources throughout the U.S.
Though pesticides are not regulated based on hormone disrupting effects, there is at least a minimum amount of data that must be submitted to EPA before a pesticide is approved for use. However, this is not the case for the tens of thousands of non-pesticide chemicals which are used in everyday products. The radio interview went on to discuss weaknesses in the current law that regulates these chemicals, theToxic Substance Control Act. NRDC has been working with a larger coalition to reform this law to ensure that all chemicals are tested for safety before they are introduced into commerce. Dr. Woodruff also got her interviewer a little concerned about the chemical, triclosan, which is added to soap and other "antimicrobial" products. Triclosan is also an endocrine disrupting chemical that interferes with thryoid hormone, a hormone important for proper development of the brain and nervous system.
A handful of endocrine disruptors like bisphenol A (BPA) and triclosan are the visible "poster children" for chemical policy reform, but there are thousands upon thousands of chemicals in products on the shelves that have not necessarily been proven safe. That's why we need to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act, as my colleagues Daniel Rosenberg discusses here.
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Dr. James Singmaster — Sep 10 2009 03:03 AM
I have tried to get NRDC attention to several major problems with various chemicals much more serious than the ones it panders on practically. First, some months or even years ago I sent several NRDC staff e-mails about the PCBs in drinking water systems from PCBs in a sealant used to paint the inside of treated drinking water storage tanks citing several reports in the Oakland Tribune in late 1993 about a mess with such a tank in Oakland. The application of this sealant appears to have been standard operating procedure for water district to use across the country, but EPA kept the mess from getting much attention. Some data about the sealant suggest a potent endocrine disruptor might have been present, and certainly a major mess in trying to clean-up the mess of the tank developed according to reports in the Oakland Tribune.
In late 2000 an EPA official admitted in a letter to me that analyses of water at treatment plants would not have detected any chemicals that might come out from the drinking water storage tanks that hold the water after the treatment plants.
I do not go on as it will take a lot of space to detail other sources of chemicals pollutants getting little attention. But I do suggest that getting attention to this PCB mess might get the public much more activated in calling for more controls. Especially since I do not know whether EPA ever got any action going to get such storage tanks checked. East Bay Municipal Utility District that had the tank problem indicated that its records showed that 116 of its 176 storage tanks had gotten the PCB containing sealant applied to them. Dr. J. Singmaster