Search Results

In the early 1990s concern emerged that hormonal compounds present in small amounts in food and water – “environmental estrogens” -- could be having subtle effects on human health and wildlife. This concern led to the formulation of the “endocrine-disruption hypothesis,” which has received widespread attention. Over twenty years of research have shown that environmental exposures to these substances is generally minute and are dwarfed by hormonal (phytoestrogenic) compounds in food, as well as by hormone therapy used by some women. Nevertheless, the issue of “endocrine-disrupting chemicals in the environment” is currently under debate within the European Union and elsewhere.

This chapter focuses on four of the best known and most well characterized EDCs: the polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), diethylstilbestrol (DES), and bisphenol A (BPA) as prototypical EDCs. For each compound, historical information regarding use, sources of contamination, descriptions of toxic effects, nature of endocrine disruptive mechanisms, and detailed summaries of critical research findings are highlighted. Each of these chemicals are seminal illustrative examples of EDCs that came to be recognized, defined, and considered seriously by the general public and the regulatory community. Continuing work with these well-studied chemicals continues to reveal new mechanisms of EDC action and identifying new potential health outcomes and effects, and have become important “positive control chemicals” for toxicity and chemical testing strategies and identification of emerging EDCs.

This chapter presents three case studies of chemical risks to examine regulatory riskwork in three different risk scenarios. The first risk scenario concerns ‘established’ risks, which stem from hazards that are widely recognized and which have been causally linked to particular practices or products, usually through significant and mainly uncontroversial scientific study. The second scenario involves ‘emerging’ risks, which stem from hazards that are perceived to be novel or unfamiliar, and which are only starting to be recognized by some, but not all, members of scientific and other communities. The third scenario involves ‘eliminating’ risks altogether, by substituting practices or products understood as being hazardous with alternatives believed to be non-hazardous. For each scenario, the chapter identifies the riskworkers, the nature of riskwork and discursive work in which they engage, the implications of their work for how risk objects are conceptualized, and the likely effects of their riskwork.