Endocrine disrupting chemicals: strategies to protect present and future generations

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are chemicals that alter the actions of hormones. In the 21^st Century, numerous expert groups of clinicians, scientists, and environmental activists have called for action to protect present and future generations from the harm induced by EDC exposures. These demands for regulatory responses come because of the strong weight of the evidence from epidemiology, wildlife, and controlled laboratory studies.

Areas covered: In this review, we examine the conclusions drawn by experts from different scientific and medical disciplines. We also address several areas where recent findings or work has changed the landscape of EDC work including new approaches to identify and evaluate the evidence for EDCs using a key characteristics approach, the need to expand our understanding of vulnerable periods of development, and the increasing concern that traditional methods used to evaluate toxicity of environmental chemicals are insufficient for EDCs and how collaborative science could help to address these gaps.

Expert opinion: The science is clear: there is more than enough evidence to demonstrate that EDCs affect the health of humans and wildlife. Waiting to act is a decision that puts the health of current and future generations at risk.

KEYWORDS:

• Bisphenol
• clarity
• diethylstilbestrol
• endocrine disruptor
• estrogen receptor
• ethinyl estradiol
• perchlorate
• pregnancy
• uterotrophic

Article highlights

• Scientific and medical experts from the World Health Organization, the Endocrine Society, and others have concluded that EDCs pose a risk to the health of humans and wildlife

• One challenge is the use of data to determine if an environmental chemical is an EDC. The new key characteristics approach offers an organizational structure that can be used to evaluate the evidence that an environmental chemical affects any of ten common features of EDCs.

• Although the long-standing dogma of endocrinology expects that adult exposures to EDCs will only produce transient effects, improved understanding of critical windows of development indicate that pregnancy and later adulthood can also be sensitive windows of exposure for at least some organs.

• Traditional methods of evaluating chemical toxicity have many problems, and these are even more obvious for EDCs. There have been attempts to modernize these approaches to include outcomes relevant to endocrine diseases.

• Collaborative approaches provide a path forward to improve the identification and evaluation of EDCs.

Declaration of interest

LN Vandenberg has received travel reimbursement from Universities, Governments, NGOs and Industry, to speak about endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Her EDC-related work has been supported by US federal agencies, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and NGOs including the Cornell Douglas Foundation, JPB Foundation and the Great Neck Breast Cancer Coalition. She is a paid scientific advisor to SUDOC LLC. The author(s) has no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This paper received no funding.