In an article published on January 2, 2020 by Environmental Health News (EHN), author Pete Myers discusses the presence of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in products on the market and the threat they pose to our “health, finances and future.” The safe dose of bisphenol A (BPA; CAS 80-05-7) is used as an introductory example, and Myers informs that based on updated calculations the recognized safe dose needs to be reduced “by at least 20,000-fold” the current value (FPF reported). The article emphasizes that innovation is needed to move away from hazardous chemicals, and Myers highlights the significant financial risks posed to companies and investors if they fail to do so. “Advances in science, legal action and public understanding” have brought awareness and discussion of these chemicals into the open, and pressure is mounting to make improvements.
Myers stresses that in the future we need “to do a much better job at designing the next generation of inherently safer materials, safer than the mix we have today, which has been deployed with far too little attention to its inherent toxicity.” He writes that it “will require tremendous innovation to move away from hazardous chemicals and toward materials that are safer.” But, he writes, “it can be done,” since “the scientific knowledge we possess today about what causes chemical harm is deep and wide, so much better than what we knew when hazardous materials in widespread use today were designed.”
The article further discusses earlier examples of the misuse of scientific data, delays in the discovery of harm, and the importance of challenging “dangerous assumptions” about low-dose effects and choosing to assess chemicals “one at a time.”
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Pete Myers (January 2, 2020). “Looking ahead: Hormone-altering chemicals threaten our health, finances and future.”
