Document zoQdE3EZ2oVMbvEawqvJEbdDg

AIR, EARTH WATER BY RUSSELL CLEMINGS CANCER ON TAP? The case against chlorine ew industrial che abnormalities shared a com micals are as perva mon trait: All could be Fsive as chlorine. It's caused by synthetic chemi used in producing cals--most of them chlorine85 percent of all pre based--whose structures scription drugs, 96 resemble human estrogens. percent of all pesticides aEnsdtrogens are some of the thousands of other mproosdt potent natural body ucts--ranging from the vinyl chemicals. Even before on your chair to the disinfec birth, they guide develop tant in your tap water. ment of male and female sex But now there is growing organs. They manage the evidence that chlorine-based female reproductive cycle chemicals may be damaging from puberty to menopause. our health, primarily by But estrogens have a dark mimicking the sex hormone side. High estrogen levels are estrogen. Organizations from considered a risk factor for the American Public Health breast cancer and other dis Association to Greenpeace eases. In men, excess estro have called for partial or gen can cause the shrinking total chlorine bans. In of sex organs and enlarge February, the Environmental ment of breasts. Protection Agency asked Researchers believe that Congress to create a com estrogen mimics create mission to study the issue. havoc by latching onto The $70 billion-per-year estrogen receptors on cells, chlorine chemical industry either blocking the effects of has begun an aggressive lob natural estrogens or, in some bying campaign to head off cases, amplifying them. To any further restrictions on date, the most damning evi the chemical, which is dence is from wildlife. In derived mainly from saltwa Florida, alligators exposed to ter. "It's ludicrous to think estrogenic breakdown prod you could ban a product that ucts of DDT, a pesticide is part of nature and has so once used widely, are giving many uses," says a spokes birth to far more females person for the Chlorine than males, and males have Chemistry Council. sex organs much smaller Researchers began piecing than normal. In the Great together evidence on chlo Lakes, where fish accumulate rine's hazards almost three estrogenic chemicals known years ago at a conference as PCBs, so many salmon are called by the World Wildlife sterile that the species is Fund. There, scientists con having trouble reproducing. cluded that cancer, infertility The evidence is less con and animal reproductive clusive in humans. But sci entists believe estro genic chemicals in the environment may help explain several alarm ing health trends. Since the 1930s, for example, average sperm counts worldwide have dropped by half. Testi cular cancer has risen 50 percent in the last 20 years. Breast cancer rates among American women have doubled since 1960. "The studies aren't definitive, but they've certainly raised a lot of questions and con cerns," says Pamela Fernandez, health pro tection analyst for the American Public Health Association. At the association's annual meeting last fall, dele gates asked industry to phase out use of chlo rine chemicals unless it could prove they were harmless, or there were no lower-risk substitutes. Similar actions have been taken by two water-pollution scientific panels--the Inter national Joint Commission, which is the environmental watchdog for the Great Lakes, and the Paris Com mission, which monitors the Northeast Atlantic Ocean. Though groups like Greenpeace have long advo cated banning chlorine, the EPA proposal for a study of the chemical's hazards seems to have caught industry off guard. For now it is up to Congress either to embrace the EPA proposal--or to decide that chlorine's eco nomic importance outweighs its possible health risks. RUSSELL CLEMINGS is a freelance writer in Clovis, California, who frequently writes about environmental topics. 24 LONGEVITY/JULY IW4 CTL014275 LARKY DALE GORDON/IMAGE BANK