Have you had a dose of toxins today?

Local author explores the health effects of endocrine disruptors

By Chris Lydgate

Pamplin Media Group, Sep 11, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

‘The Body Toxic: How the Hazardous Chemistry of Everyday Things Threatens Our Health and Well-being’ By Nena Baker; North Point Press

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The poison is everywhere. Lurking in baby bottles, tainting our reservoirs, contaminating the food we eat and the air we breathe.

We are under siege by minuscule traces of sinister chemicals known as endocrine disruptors, whose cumulative damage is unknown – but which probably are responsible for the soaring rates of cancer, autism, Alzheimer’s, obesity, infertility, misbehaving children, and other scourges of Western civilization.

That, anyway, is the basic creed of the “disruptor theory” – the latest twist on a chemical dread that, in one form or another, has haunted America since the publication of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” in 1962.

In fact, you could argue that pervasive anxiety about environmental contamination is the driving force behind the rise of organic food, the popularity of alternative medicine, and the proliferation of titles such as “The Body Toxic,” by Portland writer Nena Baker, published last month by North Point Press.

Without question, the last 50 years have witnessed horrifying examples of the perils of low-level environmental contamination, from DDT to dioxin to PCBs. What is different about the disruptor theory is that the concentrations under suspicion are far, far lower – typically measured in parts per billion – and their actual effect in the real world remains unclear.

Disruption detailed

That uncertainty is what makes “The Body Toxic” both instructive and infuriating. Baker does a good job of tracing the Faustian bargain we have unwittingly made as a society; that is, enjoying the benefits of weedkillers and nonstick frying pans without making any sort of systematic effort to determine their long-term side effects.

But she also never really convinces the skeptical reader that these chemicals are actually harmful – at least, not in the vanishingly small concentrations found in the environment.

Baker examines several specific cases, including:

• bisphenol A, an ingredient in plastic baby bottles and food containers, accused of causing cancer, sexual abnormalities, early puberty, metabolic disorders and attention-deficit (hyperactivity) disorder.

• the weedkiller atrazine, a potential carcinogen

• a family of plasticizers called phthalates, suspected of causing birth defects and reproductive problems

n polybrominated diphenyl ethers, which are used as flame retardants, accused of causing developmental and learning problems

• PFOA, used in making Teflon and other slippery items, which is suspected of causing cancer and metabolic problems

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