Long-Term Health Threats of BPA and Other Endocrine Disruptors
Contemporary Science Issues & Innovations August 21, 2012 Belmont Media Center, Belmont MA
Ana Soto, M.D. Professor of Anatomy and Cellular Biology, School of Medicine, Tufts University
Carlos Sonnenschein, M.D. Professor of Anatomy and Cellular Biology, School of Medicine, Tufts University
BPA and other endocrine disruptors are used in plastics, can linings, and other products. These chemicals, which are now widespread in the environment, are implicated in cancer, reproduction problems, childhood obesity, and autism. Drs. Ana Soto and Carlos Sonnenschein are leading researchers in this field. They explain how endocrine disruptors affect living organisms over multiple generations and why the impact is so broad. And they discuss the urgent need to control the use of such chemicals.
Congratulations! Drs. Soto and Sonnenschein (and Dr. Patricia Hunt of Washington University) received the **2012 Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award ** for identifying the cellular effects of bisphenol in plastics. They have struggled for decades to alert the medical community and the public about multigenerational effects of endocrine disruptors. (October 22, 2012)
Some background:
update 2013: BPA as Mammary Carcinogen: Early Findings Reported in Rats
Big Chem, Big Harm? (NYT 8/26/12)
Endocrine-disrupting chemicals pose cancer risk
BPA exposure effects may last for generations
Exposure to environmental chemicals in the womb reprograms the rodent brain to disrupt reproduction
Phthalate, environmental chemical is linked to higher rates of childhood obesity
BPA exposure in pregnant mice changes gene expression of female offspring
The Society of Cells: Cancer and Control of Cell Proliferation. Carlos Sonnenschein and Ana M. Soto. Oxford: Bios Scientific Publishers; New York: Springer. (1999)