Fear mongering by the Endocrine Society

The precautionary principle strikes again, as the Society's overblown findings are being trumpeted in the mainstream media.

"When an activity raises threats of harm to the environment or human health, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically."

To the uninitiated, this principle may sound good, but in practice there have been virtually no demonstrated benefits to balance the well-documented failures and even catastrophes. All but the most strident Greens now agree that the banning of DDT was a tragic mistake, leading to the deaths of millions of Africans from malaria. Closer to the present, a mostly moronic Congress was quick to exploit the lead-poisoning death of young Jarnell Brown, with the patently ridiculous and destructive Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act—quite possibly the worst law passed in the last 50 years.

At any rate, the charm that killed Jarnell was proscribed by a law dating back to 1978.

In calling for reduced use of BPA—an important chemical proven safe both by usage experience as well as by extensive FDA testing—the Society is exposing itself as a bunch of PC know-nothings. How ironic that their big scientific statement came out only a few weeks after the wonderful Fisch epi study that drove a stake through the heart of virtually all of their premises.

There is much wrong with the Society's "Scientific Statement" on endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and I cannot cover it all here, but will mention a few things:

This entire body of so-called knowledge has a phenomenal over-reliance on sometimes absurd rodent studies. I challenge you to read some of the papers cited, and you will marvel at how much the currency of peer-reviewed journal articles has been devalued. Apparently, all a budding researcher need do is pick a chemical, posit some dire consequence, and no matter how bad the methodology or ambiguous the results, as long as the PC (that is, dire) conclusion is obtained, it will be published.

An upcoming Health News Digest article will be linked on this blog, which criticizes a typical study.

Clearly, Fred vom Saal and Shanna Swan paved the way for the many imitators who are now on the scene with this sort of "science." Do you really think that if BPA or phthalates—used extensively for decades—were so dangerous, we would not have observed the consequences by now? Or, as my friend Lewis Fein likes to say, "Where are the bodies?"

But, give the Society credit. Their report (if not the media coverage) does mention naturally-occurring phytoestrogens as having the very same effect as BPA and other synthetic endocrine disruptors. However, there is no mention that endocrine disruption is used by many drugs, and such phytoestrogens as genistein (in soy) are said to be protective against breast and prostate cancer.

How tragic that we are spending untold dollars chasing tenth-order effects, while the number one cause of morbidity and mortality—obesity—gets scant media coverage.