As Jon Entine of the Genetic Literacy Project reports, the NRDC is not exactly known for scientific nuance. So, there was little surprise when blogger Mae Wu took to the cyberwaves recently to plug an NBC Dateline story promoting the alleged dangers of “endocrine disrupting” chemicals.
According to Wu, we should all be shocked—yes shocked—that an NBC producer and her family found trace chemicals in their urine—microscopic amounts of BPA, triclosan and phthalates—all of which are approved and not harmful as commonly used, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
But that didn’t stop NBC and Wu from hyping what amounted to chemophobia. The scare tactic in this case was insinuating that the presence of common chemicals in our urine is dangerous. Journalists who do not understand risk analysis make this mistake all the time—ignorantly more than likely by NBC, as the reporter had no background in toxicology or science in general, but cynically by NRDC, whose unstated mission it seems is to scare people about chemicals.
What NBC and Wu never disclosed is that the presence of chemicals in our urine is neither unusual nor, in almost all cases, anything to be remotely concerned about. Miniscule traces of substances found in our urine can sometimes be meaningful but it’s usually just data noise—an artifact of high tech ultra sensitive biomonitoring devices; the dose and exposure time, not the presence of a chemical, determines its toxicity....To Read More...
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