Endocrine Society Issues Position Statement On Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals

Main Category: Endocrinology
Article Date: 30 Jun 2009 - 6:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   view / write opinions   rate article

Interest and concern about possible health threats posed by endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) is on the rise, yet there is currently no comprehensive coordinated approach to regulating EDCs in the United States. To address this emerging public health issue, The Endocrine Society today released a new position statement outlining the public health concerns of exposure to EDCs and proposing a series of recommendations for revising current policy and generating new policy on EDCs.

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals are substances in the environment that interfere with hormone biosynthesis, metabolism or action resulting in adverse developmental, reproductive, neurological and immune effects in both humans and wildlife. These chemicals are designed, produced and marketed largely for specific industrial purposes. They are also found in some natural foods and may become further concentrated as foods are processed.

The Endocrine Society is concerned that the public may be placed at risk for exposure to EDCs because critical information about potential health effects of endocrine-disrupting chemicals is being overlooked in the development of federal guidelines and regulations.

"The Endocrine Society does not support alarmist action, but does think the American public should have all the facts and should be protected from potential harm," said R. Thomas Zoeller, Ph.D., a member of the writing group that drafted the Position Statement. "It is clear that more integrated research into this critical health issue is needed to inform effective risk assessment and development of meaningful policy."

The Society supports the following positions (Position Statement can be found online here.):

- Regulatory oversight of endocrine disrupting-chemicals should be centralized such that regulations pass through a single office to ensure coordination among agencies;

- Policy should be based on comprehensive data covering both low-level and high-level exposures;

- Policy should be developed and revised under the direction of a collaborative group comprising endocrinologists, toxicologists, epidemiologists and policymakers. The same group should identify knowledge gaps and recommend research directions to fill those gaps;

- Until such a time as conclusive scientific evidence exists to either prove or disprove harmful effects of substances, a precautionary approach should be taken in the formulation of EDC policy;

- The federal government should develop a public awareness campaign to inform the public of the risks and potential risks related to the presence of EDCs in the environment and in the food supply; and

- The federal government should support further research into EDCs, including the development of high-throughput assays that would allow the testing of many chemicals for EDC activity at a full range of concentrations.

This new Position Statement comes on the heels of the Society's Scientific Statement, Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals: An Endocrine Society Scientific Statement, which presents a comprehensive review of the state of scientific knowledge on endocrine-disrupting chemicals and makes recommendations for improving our understanding of the mechanisms by which EDCs cause or contribute to human disease. The Scientific Statement was unveiled at the Society's 91st Annual Meeting in Washington, DC on June 10, 2009 and can be found online here.

Source
The Endocrine Society