Message from charlie.cray@green2.greenpeace.org

[charlie.cray@green2.greenpeace.org]

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Original-TO:      dioxin-l@essential.org
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ENVIRONMENT-HEALTH: Chemical Industry Gears Up For Fight
 
by Pratap Chatterjee
 
SAN FRANCISCO, Jul 24 (IPS) - Chemical companies are quietly
preparing their defence of synthetic substances -- the ones used by
industry that have been linked to falling sperm counts and rising cancer
rates.
 
The  U.S.  government will soon publish a series of investigations into
studies which show that many common synthetic chemicals could be
major culprits in a number of new and serious health problems.
 
Alarm bells went off four months ago when Penguin books published
'Our Stolen Future'.  The book warned that humans, ''in their relentless
quest for dominance over nature, may be inadvertently undermining their
own ability to reproduce or to learn and think.''
 
It addressed findings that synthetic chemicals cause a 50 percent fall in
male sperm counts in many countries and startling increases in cancer
rates.
 
Written by Theo Colborn of the World Wildlife Fund, Pete Myers of the W.
Alton Jones Foundation and Dianne Dumanoski of the Boston Globe, the
book focuses on such common chemicals as atrazine and DDT, as well
as lesser known chemicals like dioxin, which is a by-product of certain
industrial processes.
 
'Our Stolen Future' says that doses as low as one part in a trillion of
these chemicals could be disrupting the endocrine system, including the
hormones which govern reproduction and development.
 
The White House is to coordinate studies by eight government agencies
on the impact of the chemicals.  Coordination will proceed through a new
body called the Endocrine Disruptor Research Coordination Committee.
 
The eight agencies that have studied the issues are the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Biological Survey,
the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institute of

Environmental Health Sciences, the Department of Defence, the National
Science Foundation, and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease
Registry.
 
In the meantime, industry is gearing up to repel any new attacks.
 
Researchers from Dow Chemical and Shell Oil recently published studies
which show that the use of more complex statistical models could lead to
the conclusion that sperm count has been increasing -- not decreasing --
among men in cities like New York during the past 20 years.
 
Industry-backed scientists say the effects of synthetic chemicals are
minuscule.
 
Stephen Safe of Texas A & M University, whose work is partly 
funded by the Chemical Manufacturers Association, has published 
papers which say synthetic chemicals amount to less than one- 
thousandth of one percent of the amount of naturally occurring 
chemicals that have similar effects.
 

He told reporters here that a ban on synthetic chemicals could be
dangerous to the economy.
 
''You could be talking about thousands of jobs and billions of dollars to
get rid of some of these chemicals, all because of something that we
have no compelling reason to believe is really a threat,'' he said.By some
accounts, industry began to gear up for battle about three years ago.

 
The action was in response to a 1992 report by the International Joint
Commission (IJC), a government body set up by Canada and the United
States to study pollution in the Great Lakes.  The report called for all
chlorine-based chemicals to be phased out, and the appeal was
endorsed by the American Public Health Association the next year.
 
Industry fought back.
 
The Chemical Manufacturers Association set up the Chlorine Chemistry
Council (CCC) in Washington in 1993, which in turn hired Jack Mongoven
of the public relations firm Mongoven, Biscoe and Duchin to target
environmental groups.
 
According to Peter Montague, editor of Rachel's Environment and Health
Weekly at the Environmental Research Foundation in Maryland,
Mongoven's long-term strategy was to characterise the
''phase-out-chlorine'' position as a violation of industry's Constitutional
right to do what they choose.
 
Noting that environment activists have used children's and women's
organisations to publicise the dangers posed by industrial chemicals,
Mongoven has suggested that the CCC try to counter the phase out.
 
''It is especially important to begin a programme directed to pediatric
groups throughout the country to counter activist claims of
chlorine-related health problems in children,'' Mongoven wrote in a memo
to the organisation.
 
Industry efforts are now being coordinated by CCC and by the
organisation, Endocrine Issues Coalition, which consists of the American
Crop Protection Association, the Chemical Manufacturers Association,
and the Society of Plastics Industry.
 
Another industry-funded organisation working on these matters is the
Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology (CIIT) in Research Triangle Park,
North Carolina, which has just launched a three-year, five-million-dollar
research effort into how natural and synthetic chemicals affect the
human hormone system.
 
Cancer toxicology research -- which traditionally took up two- thirds of
its programme -- is now making way for the study of non- cancer
effects such as neurotoxicity and endoc rine effects.
 
CIIT is funded by dues from about 40 member chemical companies,
including DuPont, Dow Chemical, Exxon Chemical, General Electric, and
Hoechst Celanese.
 
On the other side of the Atlantic, the powerful European chemical
industry is also reacting.  Players that have promised to research this
matter include the European Chemical Industry Council's Endocrine

Modulating Steering Group, which says it will spend up to four million
dollars in the next three years on the matter.
 
The organisation intends to focus on ''defining the extent to which
observed health effects like declining sperm counts may be due to
lifestyle factors, such as diet, rather than chemicals.
(END/IPS/PC/YJC/96)
 
 Origin: Washington/ENVIRONMENT-HEALTH/                ----
 
 [c] 1996, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)   All rights reserved
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