>> today on "earth focus," everyday chemicals and how theyy mayay be harming us, coming up o on "earth focus." [captioning made possible by kcet public television] they are everywhere in our environment. in the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat. they are in everyday products we use for personal care and cleaning. they are in our furniture, our children's toys, and the products we use in gardening and agriculture. and almost all of us have them inside our bodies. >> chemicals, right now, according to the best evidence we have, are contributing

to the chronic disease burden in thisis country i in ways that are substantial. >> wewe areeeing increaeases, clearlyly, in certain kinds of illnesssses. asthma is one. autism is another. adhd is a third. >> one out of every third child born today is going to have diaabetes. and if f you're a minorityty, it's one out of t. >> chemicals contribute to the incidence of leukemia. >> breast cancer, infertility. >> alzheimer's, parkrkinson's. >> people are more obese or higher weight than they were 10 to 20 years ago.. >> chchildhood cancers are going up. >> we're seeing effects on sperm count in men. um, the catch line is, you know, men today are not the menen ththeir grandfathers were. >> there are more of these bizarre birth defects, particularly around male reproductive development. >> if i were a parent...

i would be very concerned. >> they were meant to make life easier, and they do. >> better things for better living through chemistry. >> > chemicals fight disease, bolster food production, and support manufacturing. they're big business, a keystone of the u.s. economy. from consumer goods to high technology, almost all aspects of modern life depend on the chemical industry. chemical production in thehe united states has grown 25-fold since world war ii. with sales of over $763 billion in 2011, the chemical industry supports over 3 million u.s. jobs

and invests billions into research and development. our bodies take in a soup of chemicals every day, and this exposure has consequences, for our health, our safety, and our future. >> there's 84,000 chemicals that are legal for commerce in the united states, to be used to make all kinds of things, go into the products we bring into our homes, our work places. and they are basically unregulated. >> of course, every year, new chemicals are coming on the line that have not been fully tested. >> there's almost 13,000 chemicals that are used in cosmetics, and just about 10% of them have actually been evaluated for their safety. we found lead in lipstick. there's mercury ouout there in skin lightening creams. we have found formaldehyde in products. >> this is stuff that you use

to embalm the dead, yet they're in products that people are applying to their faces and their skin daily. >> pesticides are clearly poisonous. and it should be obvious to us that if they kill insects that they are going to have the possibibility of hurtrting us. >> in your kitchen cabinet, if you opened up the doors and you counted up all the tin cans in there, all of them are going to be lined with bisphenol a, unless they're labeled that say they're not. >> pcbs migight be in plastics, might be in cups, might be in containers that we put in our microwaves, might be e perfectly safe whehen they are firirst pun the shelf, but quite dangerous once they start to break down. >> what we have is chemical companies that have created producucts that have contaminatd literally every living t thing on the planet. >> i think that the corporations who are profiting from this really have run away with our system.

>> industrial chemical p pollutn begins in the womb. >> evererything that we're bringing into our bodies if we choose to have children, we actually pass that right on through to a developing child. >> some of these chemicals we know can cross the placenta and enter the womb and have efeffects at incredibly tiny, tiny doses. >> about 10 years ago, a seminal study was done on 10 newborns' cord blood. the cord blood, as the baby was born, contained several hundred toxic elements. which terrified all of us. >>hemicals l like bisphenol a, many different classes of flame retardants. >> we found ddt and pcbs,, polychlorinated biphenyls. chemicals that we interact with everery day f from consumer products. >> we e now know that alonong wh

the nutrients s and oxygen that the mother supplies the developing b baby comes a cocktail oof toxic chemicals. [baby cooing] >> we know that chemicals will affect younger children, fetuses, newborns, babies, and young children in general more than older children and adults. and the reasason for thaat is thahat younger r chdren and fetuses s are develoloping h more rapididly. their r organ sysystems arare much more e sen. > what science is starting to show now is that early exposures to toxic chemicals at critical points when a child's in the womb has effects later in life. >> endodocrine disrupuptors are chemicals of growing concern. fetuses and children exposed to even minute amounts may develop a wide range of health conditions, from diminished intelligence to cancers later in life.

our endocrine glands produce hormones that regulate the basic processes of our body, like metabolism, growth, reproduction, and development. endocrine disruptors disturb how these processes work. >> endocrine disrupting chemicals interfere with hormone signaling. proper hormone signgnaling isis very important for fetetal development and for chchildhood devevelopme, as well a as sexual maturation. therefore, compopounds that interfere withth these processes could have very profoundd effects. >> many of these and other chemicals appeaear to be associated with lower i.q.s, and/or behavioral problems in children. >> if you look at what these chemicals can do to the brain, we know now these chemicals are also interfering with how we process information. >> they affect ouour genetic

outcome. they increase the possibility thatat we lose a baby.y. they change the activy of o our hormomones, our sex hormones, in a variety ofof different way. >> we''re seeieing children starting pupuberty at youounger ages. so there are many little girls that have, for example, breast buds by the age of 7 in the african american community and d 8 in the white community. this s is too y young for our children. >> 980 endocrine disrupting chemicals have now been identified. among the most ubiquitous are a class of compounds called phthalates, bisphenol a, and flame retardants, including pbdes, chemicals so common that almost all of us have them inside our bodies.

>> so you may have vinyl floors, yoyou may have vinyl shower curtains, you may have vinyl toys that your kids are usining. those, if it's soft andnd pliabe plplastic, it's leaching pthalates, which are known to be toxic, into the envvironment where youou get exposed. >> pthalates are in many common products, including food packaging, building materials, and pharmaceuticals. they're in our cars, and even in new car smell. they're used in cosmetics to hold fragrance and help products to more effectively penetratete and moisturize the skin. >> we're concerned about their effects on males, on bababy boys. >> we see problems with testicular development, problems with sperm development. >> they can be associated with a decrease in testosterone levels. so if you interfere with the testosterone levels, they don't quite go up all the way. in animal studies, it's been shown to be linked to cryptorchidism, so, undescended

testicles, and hypospadias, which is incomplete formation of the male reproductive organs. >> pthalates m may also be feminizing boys. scientists found that pthalates may be associated with a shorter ano-genital distance-- the distance between the genitals and anus, a subtle marker of feminization in boys. the american chemistry council, which represents chemical manufacturers, says pthalates are among the most thoroughly studied compounds in the world and have a history of safe use. but pthalates are banned from children's toys in more than 10 countries and the european union. in the united states, 3 pthalates were permanently banned from children's toys and child-care articles in 2008 because of their potential to leach from plastic that's chewed or sucked. >> the worst actors have been taken o out of childr's toys,s,

but they're still widely used in many other types of consumer products, , and bio-monitoring studies show that thesee chemicals are still showowing up in people. >> we're deep in the hold of bisphenol a. there's widespread exposure. it's biologically active at very low levels. >> bpa is of concern, bececause it looks s like an estrogen. anand it's bbeen sn to have a weak estrtrogenic effect. anand so if you're expod to a chehemical that migight terfere wwith your hormone levels, in this case your estrogen, that can have effects, particularly i if it happens during development. >> and there is preliminary data that says that it may in fact directly--an early life exposure might directly incncrease the risk of breast cancer in animals. if there are chemicals that affect the development of the brereast even before birth, ifif there are chemicalss that cause breast tumors in

animals, these are chemicals that we want to be worried about and start thinking about reducing exposure. >> in addition to breast cancer, bpa may be associaiated with gegenetic damage and a wide variety of f reproductive, metabolic, behavavioral, and developmental proroblems. it's one of the top industrial chemicals in the world. about 6 billion pounds of bpa are produced globally each year, earning manufacturers a profit of some $8 billion. >> we've made some progress with eliminating bpa from infant products, including infant formula packaging, baby bottles, and plastic drinking cups. >> but bpa remains widely used inin many consumer products, from electronics to medical equipment. and it's in the resin of can linings and in plastic bottles, where it can leach into the food or liquid contents

inside. the food and drug administration, which has jurisdiction over food packaging, says bpa is safe at the low doses that occur in food. but many research and health organizations remain concerned about bpa's impact on human health at current levels of exposure. over 1.5 million tons of flame retardants are used worldwide each year. they're added to consumer products to meet flammability standards, though their effectiveness remains questionable. >> any furniture that you have that has polyurethane foam in it, which is most of o our furniture, may cocontain toxic flame retardants. and those flame retardants don't stay put in that foam. they leech out and they end up in the dust in our house, where we're all exposed and particularly kids who are on the ground low, picking things up, putting their hands in their mouths,

they're exposed to that dust, wwhich is gonna have flame retardant chemicals in it. >> there are many different kinds of flame retardants. among the most studied are polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or pbdes. scientists have linked pbdes to a wide range of conditions, from delayed development to learning problems and diminished intelligence. >> the neuro-developmental effects--so that's exposures during pregnancy or early in life,e, linking too neuroro-developmental effects in animals, have now beenen evaluated in two human studies. so there's one in a population in new york and one in a population inn california. and what they find is actually remarkably similar. these developmental exposures to pbdes are actually linked to detriments in i.q. >> two pbdes, penta and octa, were taken off the u.s. market voluntarily in 2004 because

of growing health concerns. production of the pbde deca is in the process of being terminated. >> the problem with all of these pbdes is that tthey are very persistent in the environment. >> the issssue with pbdes is tht theyey've been replaceced withtr tytypes of chemicals thatat maye very simimilar concerns and perhaps even the same mechanism of action, in n terms of their ability to disruptt the endocrinene system. >> the flame retardants chlorinated tris and fire master 550, which may be linked to dna damage, cancer, or neurological defects, continue to be widely used in polyurethane foam in a number of common children's' products. >> so i think that the whole issue of flame retardants is one for which there is somome conce, and i think the real question we shshould ask, and maybe we nd to ask this more broadlyly of other kinds of chemicals asas well, is, do we e really

need them? >> when it comes to endocrine disruptors, one of the most toxic places is your home. the silent spring institute conducted the first household endocrine disruptor exposure study in 2004. their focus was cape cod. >> we went into 120 homes on the cape and tested air and dust samples and women's urine, looking for 89 hormone disruptors. and we found 67 of them. >> we e were surprised to find pcbs in house dust and d in indr air in these suburban homes. >> we see some links between certain ones of thehese pcbs and breast cancer diagnosis years later. >> we measured 27 different pesticides. we've measured 44 different flame retardants.

in two thirds of e homes, we stl l founddt.t. >> a 2007 studyound a psible li betwe early eosure to ddand lar developmt of brea cance even thou ddtas banned years a. >> we s in that study that the womewho werender 14 years d when they werexposed to ddare at mh higherisk obeinindiagnosed with bret cacer under the agof 50. about 5-ld higr r risknn thse women who had been exposed to d as girl we c look the lab and see what emicals e doing biolocally and thenene can lolook in our bodies and in our homes and see which ones we're exexposed to, wherere they're cg from in the products or pollution, then we have the opportunity to reduce exposure to these suspect chemicals, uh, now.

>> the emerging science on endocrine disrupting chemicals really means that we have to haveve a completete overhaul of our chemical safety system. >> you k know, we're dealing with chemicals for which t there is no safe level of exposure. >> it's the tiny, repeated exposure that more adequately mimics our ownwn hormone system that is really concerning. >> the hormones in our bodies are operating at parts per billion and parts per trillion concentrations. >> the onone thing that's clears that our current system isn't working, and it doesn't take these low chchronic doses into account. >> i think it's very important for us to m make sure thatt we investigate effects that at least approach human exposure levvels. >> our currerent system does not look at t aggregate exexposures, basically a fancy way of saying, what do all these low dose chemicals do in combinationon together?

>> b but looking at low dose exposures meanans a sea change in how we do toxicocological testing and ririsk assessment, and that's controversial, costly, and something the chemical industry opposes. >> one of the areas of science that is emerging, and very interesting and very troubling, is called epigeneticscs, which shows that an acute chemical exposure can actually resesult into a gegenetic chanange. and d that genetic c change cane passed down from generation to generation baseded on a chemical exposure. > your grandmother could have been exposed to something that you didn't know about, she didn't know about, that is affecting your health today. >> the evidenence that we do hae frfrom laboratory experiments in animals cerrtainly g gives us cause for concern. >> some people are more exposed to chemicals because of the job they do or where they live. low income and d minority cocommunities often livive near

pointsts of pollution like chemical plants and waste dump sitites, or in n aged and substandard housing. and these communities share aa dispropoportionate burdrden of diseasese. >> higher rates of asthma, higher rates of obesity, higher rates of lead poisoning. >> so thehe asthma rarate in whe call centntral and east harlemm is at one in 4 children. um, anand when yoyou go basiically 0 blblocks southth to the upupper eastside, you find ththat the asthma rate f for children is le halflf of that. >> we house over one third of the new york city's diesel bus fleet. and when youou figure that we've got 5 depots, each with 200 or more buses, these are depots right across from people's homemes, uh, from schools, across from parks. >> researches at columbia university found that pregnant african american and dominican american mothers in new york

city who are exposed to high levels of airborne pollutants from vehicle exhaust and burnrng solid waste gave birth to children who later developed cognitive and behavioral problems. dr. frederica perera led the study. >> develolopmental dedelay at ae 3, with cognitive deficitits at age 5, and behavioral problems, including anxietyty, depression, and attention, symptoms of those problblems, at ages 6 to 7. >> these children also scored more than 4 points lower on standardized intelligence tests at age 5. > [indistinct chatatter] >> even a a very small drop in i.q.q. can affefect or can be predicted to affect lifetime eaearnings of that individual. >> you have these types of injustices occurring in rural communities, like out on indian reservations, for example.

you have them occurrrring in suburbs that mimight be predominantly african american or latino. >> when you realize that some communities have, uh, have aa disproportionate share of that pollution b burden, then you begin to understand why we have communities that are sicker than others and why it is harder for those communities to recover. >> there is nothing more important than protecting the health of our children and generations to come. and no one's profit margin can justify harm brought to our children and to future generations. thank you. [cheering] >> the fact is that our chemical policy system in the united states, whether itit's at the state e level oror at the e fedl level, is broken.. > the toxic substances coconl act, my joke is it's the laww that never lived up to its nama. >> when they passed the law in 1976, they grandfathered in about 62,000 chemicals, called them safe because they were

already in use. some of these chemicals that we knew nothing about at the time are turning out to be problematic. >> and according to the general accounting office, 85% of new chemical applications and their technical names of pre-manufacture notice include no testing data whatsoever. >> under the toxic substances control act, or tsca, the burden is on the environmental protection agency to show that an industrial chemical is unsafe. epa can only ask the company for data or require testining if epa can prove that there is a potential risk. and that's hard to do without access to the company's data in the first place. >> the burden of proof has to shift. it has to be on the companies, not on the government. the companies are making the profit, and theare government simply doesn't have the resources. >> the decisions a about chemics are made almost entirely on the basis of their functionality for a manufacturer. >> in realitity,

we become the guinea pigs in the marketplace. > safety only y comes into py if people like us have made a stink about it. >> the chemical industry, scientists, and environmentalists all agree that changege is needed. but efforts at reforming legislation are currently stalled between the chemical industry's push for profit and safety advocates' drive to protect the public from harm. with federal toxic law broken and no improved law likely coming soon, action on chemical safety on the state level has taken the spotlight. in 2013, 29 states introduced policies to reduce exexposure to toxic chemicals in l legislative sessions. states can actuaually forbrd different products frfrom coming in with thesese chemicals of concern. so that''s really important. it's also important in that the more states take actition, the signal to the mart

is that you u need to start looking for an alternative emical. b because there''s enouh of a consumer concern to support the state level l action. >> so i think that that sort of intersection of the consumer power and policy advocacy is what's going to lead us to these real long-term changes. >> when people speak up and citizens speak up, companies are forced to listen because of the power of the purse, so to speak. >> johnson & johnson agreed to reformulate all of their products to remove carcinogens, mutagens, and reproductive toxins. they've made this commitment because they recognize that this is what their consumerers want. >> i think shoppers should be able to go to the store without a chemistry degree and a magnifying glass and know that the products on the shelf have been evaluated for safety. >> it's our children and ourur grandchildren n who are going to suffer as thesese toxins build

up in our bodies and in our environment over time. >> we don't want to kill thee economy. we want to make sure that children are protected. >> no mother should have to worry and look at this baby fromom the minute it's bborn and watch it and wonder what is going to happen to this s child. [captioning made possible by kcet public television] [captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org--]

j.p. harpignies: greetings, fellow creatures. so all we need to do is really to know a little bit of our history or to turn on the news every day to know that fanatically utopian social movements can be catastrophically destructive. also, the utopian impulse can be embarrassingly silly when it's not grounded. that said, the utopian imagination is crucial to the human enterprise because it's the source of most of the new ideas and visions that human beings come up with, and i suspect that none of you would be here at t "bioneers" i if you didn't think we needed someme nw ideas and new visions.s. the literary realm that has explored the utopian