TED Talks And Endocrine Disruptors

Last week we talked about endocrine disruptors in fabric, and how they might affect us, a reposting from a few years back. This post is also a bit aged, but startling and topical nonetheless.

Today’s post features a video clip from TEDWomen, featuring filmmaker Penelope Jagessar Chaffer and Dr. Tyrone Hayes, an endocrinologist at the University of California, Berkeley, and an expert in how genes and hormones direct the developmental stages of amphibians. Dr. Hayes believes if the health of frogs is effected, then so too is the health of humans. In 2002, Nature published research by Hayes and colleagues showing that “developing male frogs exhibited female characteristics after exposure to atrazine … at exposure levels deemed safe by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)”.(1)

Filmmaker Penelope Jagessar Chaffer – who has won several British Academy Award nominations for her films – was curious about the chemicals she was exposed to while pregnant: Could they affect her unborn child?.

It was her question about the effects of chemicals on her unborn child which led to her production of the documentary/surrealist film Toxic Baby. Today she works to bring to light the issue of environmental chemical pollution and its effect on babies and children.

Here Hayes and Chaffer tell their story. It’s stunningly disturbing.

(1) Tyrone Hayes, Kelly Haston, Mable Tsui, Anhthu Hoang, Cathryn Haeffele & Aaron Vonk, “Herbicides: Feminization of male frogs in the wild”, Nature 419, 895-896 (31 October 2002) | doi:10.1038/419895a