Endocrine Disruptors Part 2--Theo Colborn, Grandmother of a Movement

In 1987, absolutely no one was talking about endocrine disrupting chemicals. You could say they were under the radar, but in that year, Theo Colborn, one of the authors of Our Stolen Future, began work for the Conservation Foundation, a Washington D.C.-based environmental think tank. As a newly minted (and grandmotherly) Ph. D., having just received her doctorate in zoology at the age of 58, Theo was tasked with reviewing all the studies she could lay her hands on related to the environmental health of the Great Lakes, and there were plenty of them.

Over the next couple of years, Theo accumulated two thousand papers and five hundred government reports, and it was clear something was very, very wrong, yet she couldn't quite put her finger on it. Forty-three boxes lined her office wall, each home to reports relating to a specific species, and each hinting at problems: there were vanishing mink, proliferating tumors in fish, large numbers of unhatched eggs in bird colonies, and bizarre mating behavior and birth defects across multiple species. She came across repeated references to the hormone estrogen, and to chemicals, like PCBs, that appeared to be mimicking estrogen in wildlife studies.

One particular piece of the puzzle involved "gay gulls," or female gulls that were nesting together. This was odd behavior for gulls, and she thought it might have some thing to do with the endocrine system, so she began studying endocrinology texts. Once Theo began thinking in terms of hormones, the pieces of her many puzzles seemed to fall into place.

In July of 1991, Colborn organized a meeting at the Wingspread Conference Center, in Racine. She invited dozens of the world’s leading scientists who were looking at hormone mimics and their impacts on reproduction and health in both wildlife and humans. By the end of the three-day meeting, the participants coined the term “endocrine disruptor,” and those attending felt like they had found their voice: they published a consensus document, known as the Wingspread Statement, which said, in part, “A large number of man-made chemicals that have been released into the environment, as well as a few natural ones, have the potential to disrupt the endocrine system of animals, including humans.”

In her 80s now, Theo is still one of the world's leading experts on endocrine disruptors. Her groundbreaking work laid the foundation for thousands of others researchers who are helping us understand how chemicals such as phthalates and bisphenol A, both used in various types of plastics, are acting as endocrine disruptors.