Title: HORMONE MIMICS AND DISRUPTED BODIES: SOCIAL WORLDS ANALYSIS OF A 
      SCIENTIFIC CONTROVERSY.
Source: Sociological Perspectives, Winter2000, Vol. 43 Issue 4, pS93, 28p.



      Subject(s): ENVIRONMENTAL health -- Research -- United States; HORMONES
      Source: Sociological Perspectives, Winter2000, Vol. 43 Issue 4, pS93, 28p
      Author(s): Christensen, Vivian A.

      Abstract: ABSTRACT: This article offers a social worlds analysis of an 
      emergent and contested scientific paradigm: hormone disruption. It has 
      been argued that humans and wildlife are suffering from health problems 
      resulting from exposure to synthetic chemicals in the environment that 
      mimic natural hormones. Many different social worlds are focused on 
      understanding, expanding, and challenging the concept of hormone 
      disruption, and there is considerable technical and political controversy 
      surrounding this new approach. Using a social worlds analysis, we map the 
      activities of and interactions among some of the communities interested in 
      this paradigm. We pay special attention to the implicated actors involved 
      in--or left out of--the hormone disruptor debates, arguing that it is not 
      enough to ask in the pragmatist sense "who cares" about social phenomena; 
      instead, we must ask "who has the tools and the ability to care" about a 
      certain issue and thus to participate meaningfully in various social 
      worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

      


SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES; WINTER 2000 
HORMONE MIMICS AND DISRUPTED BODIES: SOCIAL WORLDS ANALYSIS OF A SCIENTIFIC 
CONTROVERSY

ABSTRACT: This article offers a social worlds analysis of an emergent and 
contested scientific paradigm: hormone disruption. It has been argued that 
humans and wildlife are suffering from health problems resulting from exposure 
to synthetic chemicals in the environment that mimic natural hormones. Many 
different social worlds are focused on understanding, expanding, and challenging 
the concept of hormone disruption, and there is considerable technical and 
political controversy surrounding this new approach. Using a social worlds 
analysis, we map the activities of and interactions among some of the 
communities interested in this paradigm. We pay special attention to the 
implicated actors involved in--or left out of--the hormone disruptor debates, 
arguing that it is not enough to ask in the pragmatist sense "who cares" about 
social phenomena; instead, we must ask "who has the tools and the ability to 
care" about a certain issue and thus to participate meaningfully in various 
social worlds. 
Scientific controversies and their resolution lie at the very heart of 
scientists' work and their research organizations. Settling disputes over 
theoretical, procedural, and technical issues is observable at the local level 
of the laboratory up to the most monumental disciplinary debates around theories 
and claims about critically important findings. Since scientists like all other 
humans have no lien on the truth and no direct line to reality as such, they 
must ... negotiate theoretical and research claims by discussion, debate, and 
further research. 
--Anselm Strauss, Continual Permutations of Action 
The environment, specifically, what humans have done to it through anthropogenic 
interventions and what we can do for or about the problems we have caused, is 
the subject of ongoing scientific, political, and ethical debate. Environmental 
health--how the health of the planet relates to the health of human beings and 
ecosystems--is one facet of these broader debates and is widely viewed as one of 
the most urgent problems of our time. Yet the meanings of environmental health 
are both varied and contested, and the relationship between ecosystem health and 
community health is conceptualized in multiple, sometimes conflicting, ways with 
a variety of consequences for social and political action. As with many issues 
involving connections between the "social" and the "natural" world, the public 
often looks to science for answers about environmental health. But the impact of 
environmental pollution and degradation on human health is very difficult to 
measure, and there is considerable controversy within scientific and public 
health communities about how to determine cause and effect. 
In this article we explore a particular scientific framework for understanding 
environmental health effects: the hormone disruptor paradigm. The United States 
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA 1997:vii) reports that "evidence has been 
accumulating that humans and domestic wild species have suffered adverse health 
consequences resulting from exposure to environmental chemicals that interact 
with the endocrine system." These synthetic compounds are believed to somehow 
"mimic" the body's natural hormones, tricking them into following a different 
chemical message and thus initiating a cascade of developmental problems. It is 
a controversial idea, and key debates center around epistemological and 
methodological issues as well as political dimensions, including who is held 
accountable for hormone disruption. This emerging paradigm tracks toxins as they 
migrate from geographic spaces into living bodies (both human and nonhuman). It 
has created a major stir in the scientific community, and it has captured the 
public's imagination with its vivid images of environmental apocalypse. The idea 
has also fed into fears that people are rapidly becoming "allergic to the 
twentieth century" (Radetsky 1997) through environmentally induced illness. This 
public reception marks the hormone disruptor hypothesis as an influential source 
of meanings about environmental health and worthy of detailed sociological 
examination. 
We begin this article with a detailed description of the hormone disruptor 
paradigm, explaining its parameters more fully as well as describing its 
reception among scientific and public audiences. We then turn to the heart of 
our analysis, a "mapping" of the social worlds involved in hormone disruption 
based on a thorough content analysis of the scientific, public health, and 
popular environmental literature. In much the same way that Clarke and Montini 
(1993) described the communities interested in the abortifacient RU-486, our 
central aim here is to examine how the hormone disruptor thesis has been 
constructed and debated among major actors in the environmental health arena. It 
is our contention that the paradigm is being created through interactions among 
the various social worlds involved, including science, government, industry, and 
community health activism. Both celebrated and contested, this emergent 
scientific "fact" is given meaning by its immersion in and movement through 
these different communities. Given the stakes involved in determining 
accountability for the potential adverse effects of environmental toxins, all 
actors in this arena are implicated in various ways by the material presence of 
hormone disruptors as well as by frameworks for conceptualizing them. 
In social worlds analysis, collective action derives from shared commitments and 
ideologies. Such groups are fluid and bounded only "by the limits of effective 
communication" (Shibutani 1955:566). In our analysis, we revisit this claim and 
suggest that at least some participants in the hormone disruption controversy 
are excluded by the limits of effective communication. Here we take up Clarke 
and Montini's (1993) challenge to focus on "implicated actors"--that is, those 
actors who may care deeply about phenomena but are unable to act or are silent 
and invisibilized. Our study draws attention to a variety of actors, both 
invisible and visible, excluded and included, powerless and resourceful who are 
affected by migrating toxins; while some of these "implicated actors" may be 
able to participate in the social worlds of hormone disruption, others may not. 
We ask a series of questions: Who has a voice in the hormone disruptor debate? 
Who is able to participate in scientific "claimsmaking" (Aronson 1984) 
processes? Under what conditions and with what consequences? Who is left out of 
the debate? By examining how various actors are defining and responding to the 
hormone disruptor paradigm, we offer sociological insight into its cultural 
meanings and how these play into social action organized around it. 
METHODOLOGY
Our research is intended to offer a descriptive analysis of the debates central 
to the hormone disruptor controversy. We do not aim to provide an exhaustive or 
comprehensive survey of all existing viewpoints or publications on the topic. 
There are some smaller, more specialized social worlds that are part of the 
hormone disruptor debates but are not included in our analysis. For example, we 
do not discuss toxicologists who are concerned that dose response relationships 
of endocrine disrupting chemicals may force the rewriting of toxicology books or 
endocrinologists who often find if difficult to accept the endocrine disruptor 
hypothesis. Instead, we review more broadly how the concept of hormone 
disruption is positioned across the scientific community in order to devote more 
attention to the implicated actors outside of science worlds and their ability 
to participate in this emerging debate. 
To track the debates of the endocrine disruptor paradigm, we conducted a content 
analysis of eighty-six documents. We focused our attention on medical and 
scientific literature, popular magazines (e.g., Chemical & Engineering News, 
Science News, Newsweek), government documents (e.g., EPA reports), and activist 
documents and publications such as local newsletters. We conducted extensive 
library searches over a six-month period (January 1997-June 1997) using search 
engines available through the University of California Melvyl Computer Database 
(Biosis, Medline, Current Contents, Mags, and CAT). Keyword searches included 
hormone disruptor, endocrine disruptor, pesticides, environmental health, 
farmworkers, breast cancer, testicular cancer, infertility, sperm, synergism, 
birth defects, organochlorines, PCBs, DDT, DES (diethylstilbestrol), Lake 
Apopka, and Our Stolen Future. Data were analyzed using a modified grounded 
theory approach (Glaser and Strauss 1967). 
A NEW TOOL FOR MEASURING DISRUPTED BODIES
Before describing the emerging hormone disruptor paradigm and its potential 
significance, we first need to establish what we mean by the term "paradigm." A 
paradigm refers to the major values and assumptions implicit in the day-to-day 
process of "doing" science. In other words, it is the inherent theoretical 
framework from which new hypotheses are tested and validated (Kuhn 1970). 
Occasionally, scientific discoveries produce anomalies that cannot be accounted 
for by the existing paradigm. When this happens, new paradigms may emerge that 
replace existing ways of thinking about social phenomena. However, the process 
of replacing existing paradigms is often very difficult, as it means that 
already accepted beliefs must shift to new ways of thinking about the world. As 
Kuhn (1970:53) states, "Assimilating a new sort of fact demands a more than 
additive adjustment of theory, and until that adjustment is completed--until the 
scientist has learned to see nature in a different way--the new fact is not 
quite a scientific fact at all." In addition, legitimating new paradigms often 
involves power struggles, as different groups compete for the ability to define 
what will be included and excluded in the new paradigm (Cotgrove 1982). Now we 
turn to one such emergent paradigm. 
The hormone disruptor thesis offers a new scientific tool for conceptualizing 
the effects of chemical pollutants on living organisms. Hormones, often 
described as "chemical messengers," are substances found in both animals and 
plants. They are natural secretory products of the endocrine glands, and, in 
higher vertebrates, they travel through the bloodstream, where they exert 
effects on tissues and organs with which they come into contact. Hormone 
receptors may bind to cell surfaces (also known as receptors) or to the 
cytoplasm in the cell, where they influence regulation, growth, and homeostatis 
(equilibrium) of body function. Key endocrine glands are the hypothalamus, 
pituitary, thyroid, parathyroid, pancreas, adrenal, ovary, and testes. A hormone 
disruptor interferes with normal functions (e.g., synthesis, transport, binding, 
elimination) and consequently could alter the organism's key physiological 
processes. As Colborn, Dumanoski, and Myers (1996:46) frame the problem, "Normal 
development depends on getting the right hormone messages in the right amount to 
the right place at the right time.... [E]verything depends on timing and proper 
cues. If something disrupts the cues during a critical period of development, it 
can have serious lifelong consequences for the offspring." 
At least fifty chemicals have been named as possible hormone disruptors. The 
most frequently cited substances are pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, 
insecticides, nematocides, solvents, components of plastic materials, and 
ingredients used in cosmetics--in short, the chemicals that make modern living 
possible. Crone (1986:1) has commented that "the products of the New Chemical 
Age have become part of our everyday life, without us taking much notice of 
their appearance.' For example, between 1940 and 1982 production of synthetic 
materials increased roughly 350-fold, and billions of pounds of synthetic 
chemicals were dispersed into the environment, exposing humans, wildlife, and 
the ecosystem to countless compounds never before encountered (Colborn, 
Dumanoski, and Myers 1996; National Research Council 1989). U.S. production of 
carbon-based chemicals topped 435 billion pounds in 1992 (Colborn, Dumanoski, 
and Myers 1996). Further, according to the Endocrine Disruptor Screening and 
Testing Advisory Committee (EDSTAC 1998), more than 87,000 chemicals, including 
pesticides, food additives, industrial chemicals, and ingredients in cosmetics, 
have not yet been screened for potential endocrine disruptor properties. 
Endocrine disrupting chemicals, also known as xenoestrogens, may have profound 
effects on ecosystem health all along the food chain. Many studies claim that 
synthetic substances acting as oestrogens or blocking the action of male 
androgen hormones (antiandrogens) are causing abnormal development and impaired 
reproduction in wildlife populations (Colborn, Dumanoski, and Myers, 1996; EPA 
1997; Kavlock et al. 1996). It is not known--or, rather, has not been 
established as scientific fact--if similar effects are indeed occurring in 
humans, but some researchers claim that there is evidence of adverse effects in 
certain populations, especially those with relatively high or chronic exposures 
to toxins (EPA 1997; Kavlock et al. 1996). Currently, among the controversial 
claims made by scientists studying endocrine disruption research are that sperm 
counts in men worldwide have fallen about 50 percent since 1940; rates of 
testicular cancer have increased 300 percent and prostate cancer has risen 126 
percent; rates of breast cancer have increased 24 percent; and ovarian cancer 
rates have risen 4 percent and cases of endometriosis have also increased, with 
almost 5 million women affected annually (Cotton 1994; Davies and White 1996; 
Kavlock et al. 1996; Skakketbaek, Giwereman, and de Kretser 1994; Steingraber 
1997). A range of additional health problems have been attributed to endocrine 
disruption, such as cancers, leukemia, increased incidence of asthma and other 
respiratory ailments, chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), and chemical/ 
environmental sensitivity. 
Establishing a causal relationship based on statistical evidence is extremely 
difficult. Instead, most scientific claims are based on the strength of 
association among variables (Shrader-Frechette 1996). In addition, there is 
debate about whether researchers who study the risks of chemical exposure should 
adhere to the norm of avoiding a type I error (false positive), or whether in 
situations of uncertainty the burden of proof should require government/industry 
to demonstrate that the chemicals in question are safe (Shrader-Frechette 1996). 
In other words, should the burden of proof rest on demonstrating that synthetic 
chemicals are guilty or safe? And who should be held accountable? 
As a theory-methods package (Fujimura 1988), the hormone disruptor paradigm 
performs a considerable amount of work. It offers a flexible, comprehensive, 
specific, measurable paradigm for explaining how environmental toxins affect 
organisms. It tells us that pollutants are no longer restricted to a few 
industrial locations; instead, migrating toxins derived from chemicals are found 
in every inch of the globe and in every living body (Colborn, Dumanoski, and 
Myers 1996). Yet this is only one version of the story of hormone disruptors. 
New meanings and boundaries are always being constructed around this rapidly 
emergent paradigm by different groups of actors. Thus our focus here is not on 
the actual chemicals per se but on the changing meanings that are attached to 
potential chemical hazards by and within this new framework. 
SOCIAL WORLDS OF HORMONE DISRUPTION
Social scientists have paid relatively little attention to hormone disruption. 
However, one key commentator, Sheldon Krimsky (1996, 1999), has analyzed the 
social and policy dimensions of this new paradigm.[1] Krimsky describes the ways 
in which hormone-disrupting chemicals pose serious challenges to the current 
regulatory system's ability to manage and assess their potential health effects. 
He demonstrates how an already overburdened federal system of regulation is 
totally unprepared to deal with the massive undertaking of testing thousands of 
chemicals--wall of which could be endocrine disrupting. Nor do we know, he 
argues, how complex chemical mixtures interact in living organisms. He makes 
three major points germane to our analysis. First, he suggests that the 
processes by which environmental issues get onto the public agenda should be 
examined. Second, he argues that controversies produce better science because 
they cause findings to be thoroughly scrutinized and debated. And third, he 
claims that there need to be identifiable targets (e.g., specific chemicals, 
industries, hazardous waste facilities, local governments) for there to be 
accountability for environmental degradation. However, with the endocrine 
disruption paradigm, there is no obvious target. If toxins are everywhere, then 
who specifically is to be held accountable? 
In this section we extend Krimsky's analysis in various ways. Using a social 
worlds analysis, we examine specifically the communities through which hormone 
disruptors enter scientific and public debate. In doing so, we broaden the scope 
of controversy by looking outside the walls of science to the other social 
worlds in which this paradigm is located and contested. And finally, we show 
that while there may not be one specific target, the paradigm is broad enough to 
offer several moving targets that become meaningful in and across the different 
social worlds. In short, what we offer that Krimsky does not is an 
interactionist account of the multiple meanings of hormone disruptors and their 
impact on various stakeholders. It is not our intent to either support or 
invalidate the endocrine disruption hypothesis but rather to track its 
trajectory. Social worlds analysis is ideal for examining emergent phenomena 
such as the endocrine disruption hypothesis because it allows for contingency, 
fluidity, and collective action. 
Controversy and Segmentation in Scientific Social Worlds
As with other environmental risks, science is central to the legitimation of 
claimsmaking in debates about endocrine disruption. As Beck (1992:71) states, 
"So long as risks are not recognized scientifically, they do not exist--at least 
not legally, medically, technologically, or socially, and they are thus not 
prevented, treated or compensated for." In the arena of environmental health, 
scientific expertise is increasingly at the forefront of policy formation 
(Yearley 1995). This is especially true for the hormone disruptor controversy, 
in which scientists have been sought out, or in some cases have succeeded in 
putting themselves forward, as sources of authoritative advice. Although many 
communities care about environmental health hazards, professional scientists 
have created the terms of endocrine disruption; it is scientific framings that 
industry, government, and some activists support, use, challenge, and debate. 
Developments in this arena, including the fertile reception of the paradigm in 
many other social worlds, says a great deal about its utility. However, as we 
shall see, not all actors in scientific social worlds adhere to the paradigm, 
nor do all actors in other worlds. 
The terms "endocrine disruptor" and "hormone disruptor" are now widely (and 
interchangeably) used by the scientific community. Over the past forty years, 
numerous studies have shown the potential for chemicals in the environment to 
"disrupt" bodies. Research indicating a relationship between chemicals and 
endocrine disruption first began to appear in the 1950s (Colborn, Dumanoski, and 
Myers 1996), although the origin of the terms themselves is unknown. A study 
published in the Proceedings of the Society of Experimental Biology and Medicine 
in 1950 was one of the first warnings in the scientific literature that 
synthetic chemicals could have the inadvertent effect of disrupting hormones 
(Burlington and Lindeman 1950). The paper, by two Syracuse University 
zoologists, Verlus Frank Lindeman and his graduate student Howard Burlington, 
described how doses of the pesticide DDT prevented young roosters from 
developing into normal adult males and even suggested that the pesticide was 
acting as a hormone, thus fundamentally altering the rooster's chemistry 
(Colborn, Dumanoski, and Myers 1996:198). Although that article is now routinely 
cited, it did not create a huge impact in the 1950s. 
It appears, in part, as if hormone disruption was not rigorously pursued as a 
viable scientific question because early findings, or reports from the field, 
did not fit prevailing views about chemical hazards. These views had been shaped 
by the previous generation of chemical poisons, specifically pesticides, many of 
them actively toxic arsenic-based compounds that left dangerous residues on 
fruits and vegetables and that sometimes killed people outright. Based on 
pre-World War II understandings, scientists and public health officials in the 
1950s thought in terms of classic poisoning; they judged chemicals safe if they 
did not cause death or obvious disease in those, such as farmers, exposed to 
high concentrations. Many scientists, whether toxicologists, epidemiologists, or 
oncologists, could not at the time even imagine systemic disruption at the 
endocrine level. 
But a decade later, Rachel Carson's groundbreaking book Silent Spring (1962) 
appeared. Like the previous decade's research, Carson's focus was not 
specifically on endocrine disruption, yet she opened the door to considering the 
effects of environmental contaminants on the body's most basic functions. 
Although she did not use the term "hormone disruptor," she did write eloquently 
about "disturbances of the balance of sex hormones" and their link to cancer 
(1962:235). Using evidence from wildlife, specifically reproductive problems 
among birds, Carson postulated that pesticides could adversely affect the 
endocrine system. She cited studies claiming to show reproductive risks to birds 
from residues of pesticides and the more obvious health risks, such as cancer, 
to humans who used the pesticides. By describing how increased rates of hormone 
levels resulting from synthetic chemicals could damage internal organs, Carson 
paved the way for subsequent scientific and epidemiologic research on exogenous 
estrogens (Carson 1962:211; Krimsky 1999:7-8). Her work also influenced 
generations of environmental activists and women in science. 
Endocrine disruption was taken up in the next decade when McLachlan and 
colleagues organized a 1979 symposium on environmental estrogens (McLachlan 
1980). Then, in 1991, scientists at the Wingspread I conference in Wisconsin 
reported a host of effects on wildlife from hormone-mimicking chemicals. These 
researchers laid out an impressive array of data purporting to show a range of 
physiological dysfunction in wildlife species resulting from exposure to toxic 
substances. 
The idea of hormone disruptors continued to gain momentum and was given an 
enormous boost with the publication of Our Stolen Future (Colborn, Dumanoski, 
and Myers 1996), a scientific indictment of environmental pollution hailed as 
"the next Silent Spring" that appealed to scientific, policy, and lay audiences. 
Our Stolen Future was written by two scientists (one with the World Wildlife 
Fund and one with the W. Alton Jones Foundation) and a journalist to inform the 
general public about endocrine disruption. The book's tone was alarmist, and it 
sparked a great deal of debate; its central message was that the world is awash 
in chemicals and all bodies, everywhere, are surely affected. The last section 
of the book included specific policy recommendations as well as advice for 
individuals on how to avoid chemical contamination. With a foreword by Vice 
President Al Gore, the book appealed to environmental activists, horrified the 
chemical industry initiated a rash of government funding, and both intrigued and 
confused members of the scientific community. 
Among scientists, although the terms themselves are ubiquitous, there is much 
disagreement as to the exact effects of hormone-disrupting chemicals, or how 
they work on bodies. The EPA (1997), for example, included a section titled 
"Controversy within the Scientific Community" in a major report on endocrine 
disruption. Similarly, in their recently published report, Hormonally Active 
Agents in the Environment (NRC 1999:2), the National Research Council describes 
ongoing contestation among committee members in regard to "interpreting the 
general hypothesis, determining appropriate sources of information, evaluating 
the evidence, defining the agents of concern, and evaluating environmental and 
biologic variables." The most frequent disagreements involve the role of plant 
estrogens, validity of wildlife evidence, the dose amount needed to induce 
adverse hormone-disrupting effects, and the issue of invisible effects. 
Role of Plant Estrogens 
Some researchers argue that natural pesticides produced by plants are far more 
numerous in the human diet than man-made chemicals and that both naturally 
occurring and synthetic chemicals appear to cause cancer in similar ways. 
Because many sources of natural mutagens and carcinogens exist in the 
environment (e.g., natural toxic chemicals in plants defend against insects; 
chemicals are formed when cooking or preparing food), many researchers claim 
that man-made hormone disruptors have no significant impact on humans. Some even 
claim that naturally occurring plant estrogens have stronger effects (Ames 1989; 
Kaiser 1996). This debate has significance for social and political action in 
terms of identifying the source of environmental contamination. If natural 
estrogens are as dangerous as synthetic estrogens, then responsibility for 
ecosystem damage must rest equally with nature and human activity. Yet this 
elides the possibility that manmade chemicals may fundamentally alter the 
"natural" estrogen level in plants. If scientists achieve a consensus that 
synthetic estrogens are more damaging than naturally occurring ones, 
responsibility must lie squarely with chemical industries and those who approve 
and use their products. 
Validity of Wildlife Evidence 
Some researchers argue that wildlife exposures and effects are possibly the 
first indications of what humans are exposed to (Baker 1994), while others, such 
as the toxicologist Stephen Safe (1995), state that we cannot extrapolate from 
wildlife data to humans. This is an important debate, as much of the endocrine 
disruptor hypothesis is based on wildlife studies: impaired reproduction in bald 
eagles along the Gulf Coast and the disappearance of otters in England's rivers 
and streams in the 1950s; the appearance of minks with mysterious reproductive 
problems in Michigan in the 1960s; the discovery of grotesquely deformed herring 
gulls near Lake Ontario and the feminization and demasculinization of gulls in 
southern California's Channel Islands in the 1970s; a decline in alligator 
populations in Lake Apopka, Florida, and the appearance in various locations of 
fisheating birds with wasting and embryonic deformities in the 1980s; and, in 
the 1990s, a range of "warning signs" such as developmental dysfunction in 
snapping turtles, reptiles, frogs, birds, and fish in the Great Lakes region and 
elsewhere (Colburn, Dumanoski, and Myers 1996; EPA 1997; Guillette et al. 1994; 
Kavlock et al. 1996). According to many observers, this list--which includes 
humans--is just the tip of the iceberg of affected species. 
In addition, the validity of animal studies has been highly contested. In regard 
to endocrine disruption, dose level and short-term versus chronic exposure are 
of central importance. Currently, animal studies are best at determining high 
short-term exposure outcomes, and thus are not the best measure of dose-response 
in which low-level chronic exposure is an issue. For endocrine disruption, the 
dosing regimen is very important, as very different outcomes can result from 
acute high dose studies versus lower dose chronic studies. This is a key issue, 
as the most damning evidence of chemical sources of disruption currently comes 
from animal studies. For example: a fungicide called vinclozolin, whose residues 
are often found on fruit, can slip into a receptor meant for testosterone, 
causing male rats to become hermaphrodites; dioxin, produced when 
chlorine-containing compounds burn, can mimic estrogen and thus decrease by half 
the sperm production in rats; in apes, PCBs used in electrical transformers were 
found to impact thyroid hormones and aberrantly sculpt the developing brain; 
rats exposed to PCBs in the womb and infancy tend to be hyperactive; plastic 
p-nonylphenol masquerades as estrogen and, in lab animals, has been found to 
inhibit growth of the testicles; and bisphenol-A can leach from five-gallon 
polycarbonate jugs of bottled water and the plastic linings of food cans (Begley 
1996). What are the implications if these disruptions are applied to humans? 
Evidentiary debates are relevant not only to the production of scientific 
knowledge but also to questions of legitimacy and the ends to which that 
knowledge can be used. 
Exposure Levels 
Controversy also exists over the significance of claims that synergistic effects 
may play a role in how hormone disruptors work. Several researchers point to the 
significance of findings in which low-level exposures--lower than those that 
cause cancer--may induce adverse effects on the human and wildlife population. 
Pesticides believed to be only weakly estrogenic were tested on yeast cells 
engineered to contain genes that code for the human estrogen receptor. The 
pesticides dieldrein, endosulfan, toxaphene, and chlordane yielded no response 
when tested alone. When the chemicals were paired, however, the effects shot up 
by a factor of 160 to 1,600 (Arnold et al. 1996a, 1996b). This study, however, 
has been the subject of much debate (Krimsky 1999:160-61). After the findings 
were published in the highly respected journals Environmental Health 
Perspectives and Science, industry groups sought to conduct their own research 
on synergistic effects. Two sets of industry-sponsored experiments on synergism 
were unable to replicate the findings of the initial yeast study (see Arnold et 
al. 1996a, 1996b). As a result, the original researchers led by McLachlan were 
compelled to replicate their findings or retract the results of the original 
study (Krimsky 1999:161). Unable to replicate the results, the McLachlan 
research team was forced to write a retraction in the July 25, 1997, issues of 
Science (McLachlan 1997; see also Krimsky 1999:161). 
The dose-response debate is also contested. Some scientists claim that low-dose 
day-to-day exposures can be more harmful than high-dose peak exposures (Hansson 
1997), while others claim that just because high doses of a chemical may cause 
tumors, this does not necessarily mean that small doses will also have health 
effects (Ames 1989). According to the latter researchers (Ames 1989), most 
chemicals are harmless at low levels. Interestingly, many of the researchers who 
make these claims work for or are funded by chemical companies. These scientists 
assert that neither epidemiology nor toxicology--as exemplified by studies of 
Love Canal, Agent Orange, Silicon Valley, Woburn, Massachusetts, or DDT--offers 
convincing evidence that pollution is a significant source of birth defects and 
cancer. As one researcher states, "Even in Love Canal, where people were living 
next to a toxic waste dump, the epidemiological evidence for an effect on public 
health is equivocal. Analysis of the toxicology data on many of these cases 
suggests that the amounts of the chemicals involved were much too low relative 
to the background of natural and traditional carcinogens to be credible sources 
of increased cancer in humans" (Ames 1989). Given the implications of data that 
even a very small dose may be damaging, this issue is particularly contested by 
those both inside and outside of the scientific worlds. 
Invisible Effects 
One of the most striking findings of lab animal and wildlife research is that 
exposure seems to strongly affect embryos and fetuses. This is unsurprising 
given that unborn organisms, undergoing rapid development, are especially 
vulnerable to outside influence. But contrary to established knowledge about 
gross birth defects, what has surprised scientists is that effects are occurring 
much later after birth; evidence of endocrine disruption may not be apparent for 
several years after birth or after puberty. Thus early exposure may not lead to 
readily recognizable changes at the time of birth, and the type of alteration 
characteristic of endocrine disruption is not encompassed by the term "birth 
defect." Neoplastic effects may not manifest themselves until adolescent, adult, 
and even senescent life. The long-term effects of endocrine disruption caused by 
exposure in the womb may result in structural, reproductive, endocrinological, 
metabolic, immunological, neurological behavioral, and tissue changes that lead 
to serious disease and disability, even death. For example, one study claims 
that children whose mothers were accidentally exposed to PCBs during pregnancy 
have IQ deficits and abnormalities such as attention-deficit disorder, learning 
disabilities, and behavior problems (Colborn, Dumanoski, and Myers 1996:189). 
Industry Commitments and Claims
The chemical industry may be especially adversely affected if links are 
established between man-made chemicals and human health. Industry is doubly 
implicated by activities in the scientific social world: actors in this arena 
may care in a pragmatist sense about the paradigm itself while being equally 
concerned with political accountability and liability. Many hormone-disrupting 
chemicals--those that have not already been banned--are part of the fabric of 
our society; they are found in food, household products, dry-cleaning solvents, 
and cosmetics (Castleman 1994; Davies and White 1996; Raloff 1996). 
Consequently, hormone disruption is a potent issue for chemical companies and 
those who consume their products; the "chemical age" has created products, 
practices, institutions, and cultural attitudes that can only be sustained by 
the continued production of synthetics (Colborn, Dumanoski, and Myers 1996). 
Clearly, for the chemical industry, stakes are high with regard to how the 
hormone disruptor hypothesis is defined and regulated. After all, this is the 
industry that gave us the slogan "Better Things for Better Living" (Meikle 
1995). It is important that chemical companies present themselves in the best 
possible light, and public relations campaigns are a significant component of 
activities in this social world. 
Reaction to the hormone disruptor hypothesis from the chemical industry has been 
uniformly negative (Hileman 1996). Industry is actively trying to reframe the 
issue by calling attention to the scientific uncertainties of the hormone 
disruptor paradigm, to the very social processes that characterize the 
scientific social world. The Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology has 
targeted 10 percent of its research budget for the study of hormone disruptors. 
The Endocrine Issues Coalition, formed by the Chemical Manufacturers 
Association, Chlorine Chemistry Counsel National Crop Protection Association, 
Society for the Plastics Industry, American Forest and Paper Association, and 
American Petroleum Institute, meets every few months to share industry research 
and formulate responses to the academic scientific community (Johnson 1996). At 
issue is the dominant tenet of the hormone disruption theory, which posits that 
chemical pollution is the source of environmental disease. 
Most of the attention from the chemical industry has focused on Our Stolen 
Future. The Chemical Manufacturers Association, for example, set aside funds 
specifically for responding to the book's message, including preparing written 
instructions for chemical companies on how to deal with media inquiries (Zeeman 
1996). They also prepared a point-by-point rebuttal of what it claims are 
"uncertainties and errors" in the widely publicized book (Johnson 1996). 
Scientific scholars scheduled a workshop supported by the chemical industry in 
South Carolina, "Principles and Processes for Evaluating Endocrine Disruption on 
Wildlife" (Zeeman 1996), which focused on ways of countering the evidence 
presented in Our Stolen Future. 
Industry also points to factors other than chemical exposure, such as lifestyle 
behaviors, that could be responsible for the increase in illness and disease. 
For example, Ronald Bailey (1996), a journalist who has written extensively 
about environmental issues, states, "Americans eat too much fat, smoke too much 
tobacco, and sunbathe. Exposure to synthetic chemicals does not seem to be a 
problem." Bailey (1996) also claims that cancer is not increasing; rather, we 
are getting better at detecting it. Others argue that the fact that we are 
living longer "seems to challenge the notion that we are doing awful things to 
ourselves with chemicals" (Carey 1996). 
Finally, a host of reasons have been given for why we need the chemicals in 
question. The chemical industry has mounted a strong defense of modern living 
and the role of synthetics in maintaining our standard of living. It is 
currently being argued, for example, that we need pesticides to produce the 
world's food, that plastics are needed to keep such items as food and medicine 
sanitary, and that DDT has been used to "successfully" treat and eradicate 
malaria. These issues are featured in numerous public relations materials as 
well as in the scientific literature. 
In sum, just as controversy abounds in scientific communities over how hormone 
disruptors work, so too do industry representatives debate the "scientific" 
merits of the paradigm. It is clear that the chemical industry cares a great 
deal about the hormone disruption paradigm, although for different reasons than 
scientists. The increasingly popular notion that synthetic chemicals in the 
environment may have devastating consequences for human and wildlife health lays 
blame squarely at the door of industrial manufacturers and consumers. Yet this 
calls into question our very cultural identity and the links between synthetic 
chemicals and progress. In other words, the development of chemicals has helped 
to make us modern and has been a major part of our national identity in the 
twentieth century. If indeed we are putting the health of future generations at 
risk with the widespread use of synthetic chemicals, then we as a society will 
be forced to challenge our ideals of progress and mastery over nature. 
Government and Policy Initiatives
What the federal government does or does not do can determine whether our 
nation's resources will be available for future generations, whether there are 
poisons in our air and water, whether polluters are punished, and whether the 
by-products from industry are regulated. Government at all levels has become 
increasingly involved in regulation as both the environment and health have 
emerged as potent social problems over the past few decades. Hormone disruption 
research has garnered a considerable amount of federal support targeted to the 
environment, and can even be conceived as an institutionally based social 
movement of sorts (Begley 1996). In formulating policies about hormone 
disruption, government representatives often look to science for answers. 
Questions of truth, evidence, proof, and occasionally justice become important 
factors. Although government itself may be a stakeholder, it is responsible for 
ensuring that the sometimes competing needs of other stakeholders are met. 
The U.S. government is currently funding more than four hundred research 
projects on endocrine disruption at a cost of between $20 million and $30 
million and has created a twenty-six-member panel to oversee research efforts. 
The National Academy of Sciences has launched a study of chemicals reported to 
have endocrine-disrupting effects; the EPA has made hormone disruption a top 
priority; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has initiated a 
program (Begley 1996); the National Institute of Environmental Health has jumped 
on the bandwagon with its own set of projects; and the White House has 
established a database of hormone disruptor research that will coordinate all 
related projects in the United States and Europe. This huge level of support 
reflects both federal and state interest in "science" and its supposed public 
benefits, as well as a growing commitment to environmental concerns. Because of 
public pressure and the passage of two laws in 1996, the Food Quality Protection 
Act (FQPA) and amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), public 
officials from the EPA have had no choice but to take the hormone disruption 
paradigm seriously. Even a cursory review of the Web sites and literature of 
these agencies makes it clear that the hormone disruptor paradigm is an 
important new tool in these worlds. 
In the interest of space, we profile just one significant agency: the 
Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA (1997) recently released a 
much-anticipated and very thorough report on hormone disruptors that, despite 
its attention to the issue, raised more questions than it answered. The report 
stated that there is little knowledge of or agreement on the extent of the 
problem. Moreover, based on the current state of the science, the EPA does not 
consider endocrine disruption to be an adverse endpoint per se but a mode or 
mechanism of action potentially leading to other outcomes, such as carcinogenic, 
reproductive, or development effects, that are routinely considered in reaching 
regulatory decisions. In other words, hormone disruption initiates a cascade of 
other developmental problems and diseases that themselves are the focus of 
federal research efforts and policy-making activities. By making that important 
connection, even while recognizing the controversies inherent in this research 
arena, the EPA lends credence to the idea that there is a causal arrow leading 
from chemicals to the physiological process of hormone disruption to the 
manifestation of disease. This surely spells trouble for industry while 
providing support for health activists and the claims of some scientists. 
Chock full of scientific information, the report also lists numerous activities 
in which the EPA is engaged: cosponsoring a review of existing literature on 
hormone disruption; developing and implementing a multiyear hormone disruptor 
research strategy; documenting and coordinating the federal effort to research 
hormone disruption; and establishing an advisory committee to assist in 
developing a screening and testing strategy for evaluating chemicals for their 
possible hormone-disrupting effects. At the EPA, as at other federal agencies 
with an interest in hormone disruption, an emerging research and policy 
infrastructure will likely further legitimate this new paradigm. 
Government involvement, however, does not necessarily signal the end of 
controversy. For instance, in a review of the EPA's testing program, the U.S. 
General Accounting Office (GAO 1990) criticized the EPA for failing to implement 
a review process of chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), 
which was created in 1978 to test for toxicity for chemicals not covered under 
existing legislation. In fact, the GAO found that of the 60,000 chemicals then 
in commercial use, adequate data existed for less than i percent. In other 
words, the EPA had compiled complete test data for only six chemicals since the 
enactment of TSCA in 1978 and had not completed assaying any of them (GAO 1990). 
Chemicals are not now routinely tested for hormone disruption; indeed, except 
for pesticides, most chemicals are not tested for any biological effect (Hileman 
1996). However, the EPA is developing a screening mechanism for the 87,000 
chemicals now in commercial use in the United States. If successful, the 
multimillion-dollar program could mold these debates in significant ways (EDSTAC 
1998). 
This screening program is being developed in response to the 1996 passage of the 
Food Quality Protection Act and amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act, which 
required the EPA to develop a method of determining whether various chemical 
substances and common mixtures have endocrine-disrupting properties (EDSTAC 
1998). A very commendable approach to assessing the possible adverse effects of 
endocrine disruption, the project also raises questions regarding its 
feasibility. If the EPA was only able to assess less than I percent of the 
chemicals included under TSCA, how realistic is it to assume that the EPA will 
be able to review the endocrine effects of the 62,000 chemicals it listed for 
necessary testing?[2] Also, according to the NRC (1999:8), there are "no 
generally accepted, adequately validated methods for routine identification or 
monitoring of exposures to hormonally active agents." 
Moreover, the final report by the Endocrine Disruptor Screening and Testing 
Advisory Committee (EDSTAC 1998:chap. 6, p. 1) includes a discussion of the 
importance of "effective communication" to various stakeholders. Demonstrating a 
strong commitment to making information available to "a variety of people and 
organizations, each with varying levels of knowledge and interest in endocrine 
disruptor-related issues ... and [possible] language barriers and differences in 
culture or economic viability" (EDSTAC 1998:chap. 6, pp. 1-2), the committee has 
even suggested possible ways to word the information to make it more accessible. 
An example of such watered-down language is the following: "These assays are 
intended both to provide a cursory assessment of the chemicals' potential to 
interact with estrogen, androgen, and thyroid receptor systems and to assist in 
the effort to set priorities for Tier I Screening. Using a limited numbers of 
assays that are appropriate for automated processing and that rely on robotics 
technology, HTPS is designed to generate results quickly and inexpensively" 
(EDSTAC 1998:chap. 6, p. 5). We find it unlikely that anyone other than highly 
educated individuals or specialized non-profit groups will be able to make use 
of such information. 
Health Activism: The Example of Breast Cancer
Community activists around the nation--indeed, the globe--are more aware than 
ever of the chemicals and toxic waste in their neighborhoods, and they often 
organize in response to the potential effects the chemicals will have on their 
health (Brown and Mikkelsen 1990; Szasz 1994). Unlike other social worlds, 
community members in areas where environmental contamination is highest (e.g., 
farmworkers, those living near toxic waste sites) often have fewer resources at 
their disposal but are likely to be among the most implicated actors in terms of 
health. Although they are most at risk from hazardous waste, their 
knowledge-producing practices may not be recognized as legitimate by other 
actors, such as scientists and industry representatives. They are less likely to 
use the language of science to foster their claims, although there are 
exceptions to this. For example, Brown and Mikkelson (1990) studied community 
responses to toxic waste in Woburn, Massachusetts, which experienced a very high 
rate of childhood leukemia. They coined the term "popular epidemiology" to 
describe how community members borrowed the tools of public health to conduct 
their own cancer cluster analyses. With respect to community action, we are 
interested in which groups use the hormone disruption thesis and which groups do 
not. 
Breast cancer activists, in particular, have become vocal participants in the 
hormone disruptor debates. Why? During the past three decades, the lifetime risk 
of breast cancer has more than doubled from one in twenty to one in nine (Davies 
and White 1996). Matin County, California, north of San Francisco, has one of 
the highest rates of breast cancer in the nation, with one in eight women at 
risk. This is rather puzzling because the elevated risk does not fit 
epidemiological models of the social production of disease: Marin County is 
predominantly white and affluent, and it is not an industrial center. Moreover, 
the known risk factors for breast cancer, such as family history of breast 
cancer, late menarche, early menopause, late age at first pregnancy, 
childlessness, and obesity in postmenopausal women, explain less than 30 percent 
of the cases that occur. Thus 70 percent of cancer cases are unexplained by 
current scientific frameworks (Chidley 1996). While many biomedical researchers 
have turned their attention to breast cancer genetics, breast cancer activists 
are increasingly focusing on potential environmental causes. Taking their cue 
from AIDS activists (Epstein 1996; Gross 1991), breast cancer activists are 
engaging in their own forms of "popular epidemiology," working both in concert 
with and in opposition to mainstream science. The hormone disruption paradigm is 
yet one more tool that these resourceful activists are using in their battle. 
Concern about environmental causes of breast cancer appeared in the early 1980s, 
when scientists began to investigate possible links of cancer to 
hormone-mimicking chemicals in the environment (Ahlborg et al. 1995; Davis and 
Bradlow 1995; Falck et al. 1992). In a major study, Falck, Wolff, and colleagues 
(1992) found that the pesticide DDT may play an important role in the rise in 
breast cancer. Blood levels of DDE (a derivative of DDT) from 58 women with 
breast cancer were compared with DDE levels of 171 women without breast cancer, 
while controlling for socioeconomic status, age, and other known risk factors. 
Women with the highest levels of DDE had a breast cancer risk four times greater 
than women with the lowest levels of DDE. The biologist Sandra Steingraber 
(1997), herself a cancer survivor, also presents an exhaustive list of effects 
she claims are caused by DDT, including breast and ovarian cancers. Her work has 
been cited in many places, including newsletters of local breast cancer groups. 
But such findings have been highly contested by other researchers. Nancy Krieger 
et al. (Krieger was a coauthor of the Falck et al. study) (1994) studied blood 
samples from 150 women for toxins; they argue against the role of 
organochlorines, stating that no connection between pesticides and cancer was 
established (see also Taubes 1994). Other researchers have concluded that 
available epidemiological evidence overall is not supportive of an association 
between exposure to DDT and an increased risk of breast cancer (MacMahon 1994). 
Such findings are also present in the most recent study of breast cancer risk 
and synthetic chemicals. Data from the Nurses' Health Study, a national study in 
which more than 121,700 women have participated, suggests that DDE and PCBs are 
not associated with increased breast cancer risk (Hunter et al. 1997). These 
findings are disputed, or at least viewed with suspicion, by some breast cancer 
activists. As in the scientific social world of hormone disruption, the breast 
cancer research world is characterized by much contestation. 
Despite scientific concerns involved in mapping cancer clusters that include 
long latency periods and confounding variables (Kase 1996), a group in 
California called Marin Breast Cancer Watch (MBCW) has recently begun a project 
to map breast cancer cases in the San Francisco Bay Area. Armed with $250,000 in 
federal funds and $500,000 in county funds, the Marin project will include a 
survey of affected women and production of geographic maps of cancer clusters. 
The Marin County Health Department is also involved and will direct a 
community-health survey leading to GIS (geographic information system) mapping. 
The purpose of the GIS maps will be to compare breast cancer rates to the 
presence in Marin County of environmental toxins such as hazardous waste and 
electromagnetic radiation. Some of the project's funds will be used to hire an 
epidemiologist to assist with the map "in an effort to puzzle together possible 
causes of the disease" (Cohen 2000). According to the MBCW staff, community 
members will be invited to participate "at every step along the research route" 
(Cohen 2000). Activists are especially concerned to address a recent report by 
CDC that linked the Bay Area's high breast cancer rates to delayed childbirth 
and mammogram screening. 
The Marin County case offers an excellent example of clashes between lay 
perspectives and scientific approaches and suggests that the boundaries of 
social worlds are indeed drawn by the limits of effective communication. Many 
breast cancer activists indicate a general familiarity with the language of 
hormone disruption. For example, MBCW sponsored a presentation by one of the 
authors of Our Stolen Future and has used hormone disruptor terminology in its 
newsletter. Another group of Bay Area breast cancer activists recently 
participated in a documentary entitled Rachel's Daughters featuring lay 
"detectives" seeking knowledge from scientists and experts in the field of 
breast cancer, including information on hormone disruptors. As predominantly 
(but not exclusively) white, middle-class, educated women, Bay Area activists 
have access to scientific knowledge--and funding--that other groups may not. 
MBCW and some of the activists featured in Rachel's Daughters possess enough 
"cultural capital" to enable them to gain access to and feel comfortable with 
professionals and the language of science. 
Yet while some groups use the tools of science and the language of hormone 
disruption, others may not have this option. For example, Rachel's Daughters 
also raises issues of class and race, as the investigators examine higher 
mortality rates from breast cancer among poor, African American women living in 
Bayview-Hunters Point, which also has the highest concentration of polluting 
industries in the San Francisco Bay Area (Fernandez 1997). Unlike Marin County, 
Bayview-Hunters Point is not a site of GIS mapping and has not been the 
beneficiary of public funds. It is important to ask whether these women would 
gain attention from the scientific community and policy makers, or whether there 
could be a basis for shared communication. Given their lesser degree of cultural 
capital and economic resources, would they be able to gain access to the 
language and tools of hormone disruption to make sense of their health problems? 

THE POLITICS OF IMPLICATION
As a way of taking up Clarke and Montini's (1993) challenge to "turn up the 
volume" on implicated actors, we offer a dual strategy here. First, we identify 
two groups of actors--farmworkers and fetuses--implicated by hormone disruption 
who, for very different reasons, do not have a voice in this debate. The first 
group is virtually ignored by other actors, while fetuses, although silent 
themselves, are overrepresented. Tackling what we term the "politics of 
implication," we raise some theoretical concerns about the pragmatist emphasis 
on "caring" in social worlds analyses. Such an emphasis implies an agent with 
the ability and resources to act and ignores the material advantages (e.g., 
knowledge, funding, institutional power) that may also make action possible. An 
analysis of the complexities in this arena suggests that interactionist 
approaches must also take into consideration the structural features of society, 
including differences in individuals' and groups' ability to act. Although many 
actors may care about environmental health hazards, not all of them are capable 
of participating in ongoing debates about hormone disruption or of reaping the 
benefits that may derive from this paradigm. Farmworkers and fetuses are far 
more likely to figure into these debates as either "gaps" in the literature or 
as screens onto which other actors project their interests. 
Invisible Farmworkers
An important but often-neglected set of implicated actors in the hormone 
disruptor debates are migrant farmworkers. As agricultural processes are 
developed to increase production, the reliance on pesticides and herbicides--key 
endocrine disruptors--also increases. The agricultural industry, for example, 
uses 75 percent of the 1.1 billion pounds of pesticide products sold in the 
United States every year (Wilk 1996). Such production has not been without 
costs, as pesticides are believed to cause harm to the environment and its human 
inhabitants. Claims are increasing that pesticides, fungicides, and other 
agricultural chemicals may pose serious health risks to farmers and laborers, 
including applicators, harvesters, irrigators, and field hands. Farmworkers and 
their families, particularly migrant wage laborers, live and work close to 
pesticides and other chemicals. Migrant labor camps are often located on the 
farm properties themselves, right next to fields. They are likely exposed to far 
greater amounts of chemical hazards than the average consumer (Moses et al. 
1993; National Research Council 1989). 
The EPA estimates that there are approximately three-hundred thousand cases of 
farmworker pesticide poisonings each year. This figure represents a conservative 
estimate as occupational disease among farmworkers is grossly underreported 
(Moses et al. 1993; Wilk 1996). On many farms, it is common practice to send 
farmworkers to the emergency room when they complain of illness; however, if it 
turns out that their condition is not found to be related to pesticide exposure, 
the farmworker herself must foot the bill. Many low-income, undocumented workers 
are simply unable to take this financial risk and often suffer through sickness 
rather than seek care. Although there are about 2.5 million farm laborers in the 
United States (Wilk 1996), as a group they are often without resources, both 
economic and educational, and without the political representation often needed 
to enter into debates. Farm laborers earn an average of $6,500 per year, the 
lowest income level for any sector of the U.S. labor force (Wilk 1996). They 
must concentrate their energies on securing shelter and other basic necessities; 
further, many Mexican immigrant farmworkers often send money to family members 
who remain in Mexico. 
There is considerable uncertainty, however, as to the full range of health 
effects derived from pesticide exposure (Blair 1989; Davis and Bradlow 1995). 
Labor groups such as the United Farm Workers (UFW) offer their own estimates, 
but these are contested by farm owners (increasingly large corporations) and by 
scientists. The known health hazards about which scientific claims are made can 
be placed into two categories: acute poisoning and chronic exposure. The most 
toxic pesticides act like nerve gases by attacking the body's central nervous 
system, causing a variety of neurological and behavioral abnormalities. Even 
mild poisoning can lead to nausea, blurred vision, headaches, dizziness, muscle 
cramps, and vomiting (Moses et al. 1993). Chronic or long-term exposure is 
associated with increased risk of stomach cancer, testicular cancer, liver 
cancer, myeloma, leukemia and lymphomas, malignant brain tumors, and other 
nervous system malignancies (Davies 1985; Moses et al. 1993; Pearce, Smith, and 
Fisher 1985; Weisenburger 1985; Wilk 1996). In one study, farmworkers exposed to 
herbicides for more than twenty days annually were shown to have a risk six 
times that of non-farmworkers for developing lymphomas (Hoar et al. 1986). Other 
studies have claimed links between pesticide exposure and increased reproductive 
problems, such as birth defects, stillbirth, spontaneous abortion, sterility, 
and menstrual dysfunction (Filkins 1998; Wilk 1996). 
Despite this array of problems, there is no systematic monitoring of the health 
of farmworkers or their levels of exposure to toxic chemicals. Farmworkers and 
other agricultural workers have virtually no protection under the Occupational 
Safety and Health Administration, nor do local agencies, such as the California 
Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR), monitor farmworker health. This is 
despite the major contribution of migrant farmworkers to California's economy. 
Moreover, there has been little attention to farmworkers in the general 
scientific literature on environmental health risks. Although studies have 
linked pesticide exposure to cancer, birth defects, reproductive impairment, 
respiratory disease, and systemic poisoning, there is almost no information on 
chronic disease risks among migrant or seasonal farmworkers (Truax 1992; Wilk 
1996). Where dose inhalation or dermal contact effects usually are manifested 
within minutes or hours, low-level or prolonged pesticide exposure--such as that 
experienced by many farmworkers--is much harder to assess. In part, this is 
because farmworkers' experiences are often not taken as serious data. 
Wynne (1992:285), for example, has written about the British Pesticides Advisory 
Committee (PAC), made up primarily of toxicologists and charged with 
investigating chemicals used in agriculture. One study concluded unequivocally 
that there was no risk of a particular herbicide. When farmworkers presented 
their own data, radically different from that of the scientists, the PAC 
disregarded it as "merely anecdotal, uncontrolled non-knowledge." Additional 
public scrutiny of PAC led to repeated assertions that the chemicals were not 
dangerous "so long as the herbicide was produced under the correct conditions," 
that is, in a laboratory setting of perfect use. Farmworkers responded by 
labeling the scientists' so-called correct conditions a "fantasy," arguing that 
actual conditions of use were much different. According to farmworkersand their 
representatives, "instructions for use were frequently obliterated or lost, the 
proper spraying equipment was often unavailable, protective clothing was often 
inadequate, and weather conditions were frequently ignored in the pressure to 
get the spraying done" (Wynne 1992:285). 
Notably, there is very little mention of farmworkers in research on hormone 
disruption. Although farmworkers may experience the effects of hazards far more 
than the average citizen, they are invisible in paradigms designed to make sense 
of ecological hazards. Neither scientists nor industry feature the unique 
problems and needs of this population, nor does government seem especially 
concerned. The 1997 EPA report cited earlier did not once mention the special 
needs of farmworkers. Because very little research has focused on how hormone 
disruptors may affect farmworker health, this group is often left out of 
strategies for protection and remediation. They are not even studied for what 
their bodies and experiences can tell us about others who may be at risk for 
chemical exposure--a fate too often experienced by the disadvantaged but 
surprisingly absent here. 
Farmworkers themselves may be quite knowledgeable about the effects of pesticide 
exposure on their bodies, although it is unlikely they are aware of or "care 
about" the hormone disruptor paradigm. What are the consequences for farmworkers 
and others, such as low-income women of color with breast cancer, who are left 
out of these debates and absent in the literature? Assuming the health effects 
of the chemicals in question remain the same regardless of how they are 
conceptualized, does it matter whether farmworkers are aware of hormone 
disruptor terminology? Would their lives be significantly altered if they were 
able to participate? Perhaps so, for scientists and others might then be 
compelled to include farmworker perspectives and experiences in their knowledge 
production practices. Government officials might have to take seriously the 
unique circumstances of this group, including claims for better working 
conditions. Thus, we must ask, at what cost are implicated actors prevented from 
participating in scientific debates and policy decisions? Moreover, what can be 
done to create more opportunities for groups such as migrant farmworkers to help 
shape the worlds in which they live and work? 
The Fragile Fetus
We now turn to a very different category of implicated actor but one that is far 
more visible in the scientific literature and public debates. Because the 
effects of endocrine disruption are extremely difficult to measure and may not 
become apparent until several years after birth, DES has been used as a model of 
what synthetic hormone disruptors are capable of. From the 1940s to the 1960s, 
doctors prescribed diethylstilbestrol (a steroidal estrogen) as an 
antimiscarriage drug or, in the absence of risk, simply to ensure a better 
pregnancy (Blair 1992). Today, there are more than two million "DES daughters," 
women with glandular abnormalities in the vagina or cervix whose mothers took 
DES (Bell 1986). Many of the daughters are infertile, many have developed 
cancer, and still others have had reproductive organs removed; the mothers 
suffered no related health problems. Bern (1992) writes that the DES experience 
has indicated the following: exposure to estrogen in embryonic or fetal life can 
lead to the development of major structural changes in the genital tract; there 
are critical periods for such exposure; early exposure may not lead to readily 
recognizable changes at birth; estrogens may vary in potency; and there may be 
synergistic effects of estrogens both at the time of exposure and subsequently. 
In Bern's view, the DES case can serve as an important model for other hormone 
disruption studies; he writes that "only by the application of results from such 
studies can `the fragile fetus' be protected" (p. 10). 
While prenatal exposure seems to pose the greatest hazard, health specialists 
also worry about the chemicals passed on in breast milk. Sensitive developmental 
processes continue in the weeks immediately after birth and the transfer of 
contaminants to the offspring continues through rich, fatty breast milk. While 
nursing, a woman's body draws down her fat stores, dumping not only the fat but 
also the persistent toxic chemicals she has accumulated over the years in her 
body fat into her breast milk. In this way, a load of contaminants that it has 
taken a woman's body decades to accumulate is passed on to her baby in a very 
short time. During breast feeding, infants are exposed to higher concentrations 
of these chemicals than at any subsequent time in their lives. In just six 
months of breast feeding, a baby in the United States and Europe gets the 
maximum recommended lifetime dose of dioxin (Colborn, Dumanoski, and Myers 
1996:107). The same breast-feeding baby gets five times the allowable daily 
level of PCBs set by international health standards for a 150-pound adult 
(Colburn, Dumanoski, and Myers). 
Research on prenatal and immediate postnatal exposure to toxins is interesting 
for a number of reasons. The hormone disruption thesis, as we have seen, has 
taken the environmental health research community by storm--and by surprise. 
Offering a profoundly different way of thinking about the effects of toxins on 
human and animal bodies, researchers have had to scramble to keep up with new 
findings, find methodologies that work, and come to grips with the long-term 
processes of endocrine disruption across time. Researchers in this arena have 
been quite interested in tracking exposure to its source. In this respect, the 
mammalian womb and its occupant(s) have become key sites of investigation. 
The EPA toxicologist Linda Birnbaum, for example, has noted that "most 
epidemiological studies have focused on adults, typically adult men" (quoted in 
Colborn, Dumanoski, and Myers 1996). This "bias" is seen as especially 
problematic in regard to hormone-disrupting chemicals. According to Colborn et 
al. (1996:206), "Timing ... may be more important than dose, and one may find 
more telling results by studying the second generation exposed in the womb than 
by studying those who were exposed only as adults." Indeed, the thrust of Our 
Stolen Future is to shift research to the effects on "the unborn" as 
representatives of the next generation--the future of the species. Colborn et 
al. write (1996:209), "Because hormone-disrupting chemicals act broadly and 
insidiously to sabotage fertility and development, they can jeopardize the 
survival of entire species--perhaps in the long run, even humans." But despite 
efforts to construct the fragile fetus as a paradigm of human exposure, there is 
no guarantee that focusing the research lens on the womb will provide easy 
answers. 
We suggest that research on prenatal exposure to hormone-disrupting toxins has 
much to tell us about the politics of implication. Although the fetus itself is 
incapable of caring about environmental pollution, it is an important symbol 
both in scientific communities and in nonscientific social worlds such as 
government and health activist communities. The image of vulnerable fetuses as 
canaries in the coal mine at risk for whatever toxins will be passed on to them 
is a powerful one, tapping into deep cultural concern with the fate of fetuses 
that undercuts much current reproductive politics and medicine (Casper 1998; 
Morgan and Michaels 1999). In many respects our future as a species is already 
precarious, and new information that we are poisoning our unborn--the future of 
the species--is frightening to many. 
Our first point, then, is that scientific constructions of the fragile fetus tap 
into some of these deep fears, perhaps purposefully. Our Stolen Future is 
designed to scare us. The researchers are alarmed, and they want to alarm us 
too. Why? One explanation would be that they want to generate public interest in 
hormone disruptors; this may be one answer to Krimsky's (1996) call for a close 
look at how issues get on the public agenda. Another reason would be to convince 
us that it is not too late to make needed changes in how we live on the planet. 
Both reasons seem supported by the claims made in Our Stolen Future. The corpus 
of research identifying environmental health hazards certainly seems to make the 
case that we are threatening our fertility, intelligence, and survival, to 
paraphrase Colborn et al. Here the fetus is a tool constructed by other actors 
in this arena as a powerful symbol useful both scientifically and politically. 
Prenatal exposure research performs additional work in this arena. To some 
degree, it detracts attention from the more difficult problems of measuring 
adult exposure to toxins. As we saw earlier, the scientific community is split 
along several issues and concerns, including the very mechanisms of endocrine 
disruption. What various actors across social worlds seem to agree on, however, 
is that fetuses are particularly vulnerable. Even if researchers disagree about 
the causes, the exact links to toxins, and the trajectory of exposure, few are 
suggesting that fetuses are immune from risk. Yet does prenatal exposure tell us 
anything new about adult exposure? Some researchers think not. Just as there may 
be limits to what wildlife studies can tell us about human exposure, there may 
be limits to what the fragile fetus can tell us about the already-born 
population. 
It is our impression that there has been a redirection of scientific interest 
away from large-scale community sites to smaller, more manageable environments 
such as the womb. In toxic communities, research is complicated by a range of 
factors, from methodological issues to industry resistance to citizens' desire 
to participate. Finding answers may be frustrating given how difficult it is for 
scientists to "control" aspects of their research in such settings. The womb, in 
contrast, offers a contained space whose only source of toxicity is the woman's 
body. The tiny occupant of the womb--unlike angry middle-class women with 
at-risk breasts--cannot participate in the kind of popular epidemiology that 
sometimes causes rifts between scientists and laypeople. Moreover, the womb is 
already primed as a kind of social space drawing public interest and concern. 
Over the past two decades, we have become increasingly used to thinking about 
fetal exposure to various toxins, although preventive efforts have focused on 
maternal drug and alcohol use rather than industrial toxins. There seems to be a 
lurking assumption that perhaps we cannot fully clean up our environment writ 
large, namely the planet, but maybe we can clean up smaller, more contained 
spaces like the womb, source of future generations. 
In the final chapter of Our Stolen Future, "Defending Ourselves," Colborn, 
Dumanoski, and Myers suggest that individuals who are already exposed may be 
beyond repair--which lets at least some actors off the hook of accountability. 
But "with diligent work," threats to the next generation can be reduced; in 
their view, "children have a right to be born chemical-free" (1996:212). A 
woman's day-by-day choices, not just during pregnancy but throughout her 
lifetime up until she conceives, are the main target of Colborn et al.'s 
recommendations for saving the next generation. Everybody, but especially women, 
needs to "know your water," "choose your food intelligently," and "avoid 
unnecessary uses and exposures." "It is particularly important that women 
minimize the consumption of animal fat from birth until the end of their 
childbearing years. They bear the next generation and the responsibility to 
protect their children from contamination" (1996:214; emphasis in original). 
Ironically, these are the same activities that many middle-class women engage in 
to lessen their own risk to breast cancer but that poor people such as 
farmworkers often cannot engage in. 
In short, if fetuses are implicated in these debates, then so too are pregnant 
women, naturally. Not chemical companies, not the government, not even whole 
communities, but women themselves are responsible for protecting the next 
generation. A number of researchers who focus on the fragile fetus seem to write 
off the rest of us who have already been exposed and who may be beyond repair; 
we are casualties of modernity. All of our efforts, they suggest, should go into 
protecting the unborn, the next generation, our future as a species. In the 
infamous Love Canal case, for example, a local commissioner informed the 
residents that an epidemiologist would look for adverse health effects on the 
human fetus since the unborn were perceived as the most vulnerable segment of 
the population (Paigen 1982). The residents assumed, quite logically, that any 
increase in adverse pregnancy outcomes would indicate that toxic chemicals were 
present and that the entire population was at risk. They reacted angrily when 
the commissioner announced that the fetus was indeed at risk but that the state 
would evacuate only pregnant women (Paigen 1982). 
Embedded in hormone disruption research, then, are cultural assumptions about 
who matters--and who does not--and who needs to ensure that those who matter are 
protected. These assumptions both reflect and help to maintain ongoing social 
relations of gender, class, and status. Permeating the social worlds of hormone 
disruption are hierarchies of value and accountability. The politics of 
implication tell us that while some actors such as farmworkers are excluded from 
the endocrine disruption arena, others such as pregnant women are compelled to 
participate because of their particular responsibilities to the fragile fetus. 
CONCLUSION
This article offers a look at the emergent social worlds of hormone disruption. 
This paradigm is being created, maintained, disseminated, challenged, and used 
by a variety of actors in many social worlds. At the same time, it is being 
reformulated depending on who cares about it; for each set of actors, hormone 
disruption carries different, sometimes competing meanings. For scientists, it 
is a new tool for making sense of disrupted bodies, although there are 
disagreements about how it works. For industry, it is a major challenge to 
corporate autonomy and a key focus of public relations activities. For some 
community members, it is a useful tool for activism, while other potentially 
at-risk groups are excluded from the hormone disruptor framework. Still others 
are implicated in and by the paradigm, constructed in various ways for 
scientific and political purposes. Farmworkers are especially vulnerable to 
exposure and are left out of most research; fetuses are perhaps equally 
vulnerable to exposure yet assume center stage in many studies. What accounts 
for these differences in meaning and practice? We have argued that shifting, 
varied meanings are an ongoing source of contention. While an interest in 
environmental health may link these social worlds, consensus may be hampered by 
obvious limits of effective communication. 
As we have attempted to show here, there are hierarchies of knowledge and 
practice in this arena, itself a "whirlpool of argumentative action" (Strauss 
1993:227). Uncertainty and controversy are ubiquitous here, with consequences 
for pragmatic social action. Although many actors may care deeply about 
environmental pollution and risks to vulnerable bodies (including their own), 
not everybody has the resources and opportunities to act on their concerns by 
engaging in debates about hormone disruption. It remains to be seen how these 
issues will play out in the broader environmental health policy arena. Will the 
hormone disruption paradigm continue its ascent as the favored scientific method 
for making sense of toxins? Will other ways of understanding disrupted bodies be 
created, accepted, and used? Who will get to act in these worlds? Who will be 
implicated by toxins themselves and by frameworks for understanding them? By 
foregrounding issues of power, accountability, and the politics of implication, 
our research offers a strategy for tracking meanings and possibly intervening in 
the social processes that contribute to knowledge about disrupted bodies in our 
modern chemical world. 
What are some policy implications of our research? Our map of the hormone 
disruption arena points both to shared meanings and to contradictions, as well 
as to differences in power, knowledge, and political agency. If we assume that 
hormone disruptors are "real" in the sense that certain synthetic chemicals 
cause bodily harm, then what needs to happen in order to best protect those most 
at risk? It is not enough to allow resourceful activists and energetic 
scientists to shape public policy about health and the environment. 
Environmental health reseachers must work to ensure that the voices of all the 
implicated actors are heard in ways that do not reproduce social hierarchies. 
For example, "listening" to the fragile fetus is not in and of itself a 
dangerous thing, for reproductive research may tell us a great deal about how 
toxins work on all human bodies. However, if our solution for dealing with 
at-risk fetuses is simply to reproduce a gendered division of labor advocating 
maternal responsibility, then perhaps we need a different strategy. If 
farmworkers are not currently part of the hormone disruptor debate, then we 
should at the very least reconceptualize the paradigm so that their experiences 
become part of the production of scientific knowledge. The social organization 
of agriculture must also be changed to prevent the systematic poisoning of 
farmworkers and their families. 
Crone (1986:5) has written, "We are living in a Chemical Age, which is new and 
brings with it novel problems. Because of the newness of the Chemical Age, 
people have no prior experience of these problems and therefore cannot assess 
them fully as to their severity and likely impact on society." We have attempted 
here to shed some light on the "novel problem" of hormone disruption, using the 
tools of symbolic interactionism to portray key actors, activities, and 
implications. But hormone disruption is just one small part of the story of 
chemical threats to environmental health. The future of the paradigm--and of our 
planet--is unknown. 
Acknowledgments: The authors would like to thank Professor Don Smith in the 
Department of Environmental Toxicology at UCSC for his thoughtful and expert 
comments on this article; Roberta Lessor and Theresa Montini for their 
organizing and editorial efforts; fellow participants and audience members at 
the sessions in honor of Anslem Strauss at which this paper was first presented; 
and the anonymous reviewers. The research on which this article is based was 
funded in part by the UCSC Committee on Research. 
NOTES
1. This article was already under review when we read Krimsky's new book. 
2. Of the 87,000 chemicals listed by the EPA, 25,000 are polymers, which the 
committee has recommended should be exempt from screening for 
endocrine-disrupting properties. Thus EDSTAC (1998) estimates that approximately 
62,000 chemicals will need to be tested. 
Sociological Perspectives, Volume 43, Number 4, pages S93-S120. 
Copyright (C) 2000 by Pacific Sociological Association. All rights reserved. 
Send requests for permission to reprint to: Rights and Permissions, University 
of California Press, 
Journals Division, 2000 Center St., Ste. 303, Berkeley, CA 94704-1223. 
ISSN: 0731-1214 
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~~~~~~~~ 
By Vivian A. Christensen, University of California at Santa Cruz 
Direct all correspondence to: Vivian A. Christensen, Department of Sociology, 
324 College 8, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064; e-mail: 
vac@cats.ucsc.ed 
Direct all correspondence to: Monica J. Casper, Department of Sociology, 324 
College 8, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064; e-mail: 
mjcasper@cats.ucsc.edu. 



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