Our toxic bodies: Historian's book explores chemicals' health effects

Our toxic bodies: Historian's book explores chemicals' health effects
http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/health_med_fit/article_0e220580-5a19-11df-b53b-001cc4c002e0.html

"As Langston writes in "Toxic Bodies: Hormone Disruptors and the Legacy of DES," the Green Bay paper mills had manufactured paper coated with industrial chemicals known as polychlorinated biphenyls. The PCBs made their way into the Fox. The city of Green Bay poured perfume into the river to mask the stench, but back then few scientists realized the potent hormonal effects the chemicals could have on wildlife and developing fetuses and children, and so local, state and federal authorities provided little oversight or regulation. The PCBs accumulated in the fatty tissues of fish. People ate the fish.

Decades late, the alarm bells rang. Around the world, species exposed to such chemicals were developing sexual and reproductive abnormalities, cancers and birth defects; in some cases, even showing intersex characteristics. The river was nominated as a Superfund site; recently the federal government has embarked on an expensive and some fear futile project to clean it up."