Our Stolen Future

Published in 1996 by a trio of authors, Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers, Our Stolen Future chronicles the development of the endocrine disruptor hypothesis by Theo Colborn. Though written for the popular press in narrative form, the book contains a substantial amount of scientific evidence. A foreword from then Vice President Al Gore increased the book's visibility. It ultimately influenced government policy through congressional hearings and helped foster the development of a research and regulation initiative within the EPA.

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The authors also started a website (http://www.ourstolenfuture.org) which continues to monitor and report on endocrine disruptor scientific research.

Thousands of scientific articles have since been published on endocrine disruption, reinforcing the legitimacy of the concerns raised by Our Stolen Future, as well as identifying new areas of concern not envisioned at the time of the book's writing. For example, a symposium at the 2007 AAAS meeting explored the contribution of endocrine disruption to obesity and metabolic disorder. As is often the case, there is strong animal evidence but few epidemiological tests of predictions based on the animal experiments. Some of the most important papers can be found via this link. [1]

A recent analysis of CDC data finds an extraordinary increase in risk to type II diabetes as a function of exposure to persistent organic pollutants. [2]

References

Colborn, Theo; Dianne Dumanoski; and John Peterson Myers. Our stolen future : are we threatening our fertility, intelligence, and survival? : a scientific detective story. New York : Dutton, 1996. 306 p. ISBN 0-452-27414-1

Krimsky, Sheldon. Hormonal Chaos: The Scientific and Social Origins of the Environmental Endocrine Hypothesis. Baltimore, Md, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. 256 pp. ISBN 0-8018-6279-5