This book was first published in 1996, and while its basic premise has not yet been incorporated into mainstream thinking, Our Stolen Future is making headway, at least in the community of Long Island Sound lobstermen.
Recommended by a Long Island Sound harvester attending the First Lobster Town Meeting in Portland last April, the book covers a subject close to that region’s harvesters – the effect of chemicals on living things.
In his foreword, then-Vice President Al Gore refers to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and says this book “raises questions just as profound as those Carson raised thirty years ago – questions for which we must seek answers.”
The book is subtitled “A Scientific Detective Story,” and a cover note asks “Are we threatening our fertility, intelligence, and survival?” Gore writes: “Our Stolen Future takes up where Carson left off and reviews a large and growing body of scientific evidence linking synthetic chemicals to aberrant sexual development and behavioral problems. Although much of the evidence these scientific studies review is for animal populations and ecological effects, there are important implications for human health as well.”
Long Island Sound suffered a collapse of its lobster fishery a few years back, and although no definitive reason has been given for the massive die-off of lobsters, many still believe it was caused by spraying of two pesticides to control mosquitoes and halt the spread of the sometimes-fatal West Nile virus.
In the book, two scientists and an environmental reporter trace historical markers of aberrational events in nature, particularly regarding the reproduction of species, up to recent phenomena they say indicates cause for concern.
The first chapter, “Omens,” opens with the decimation of the bald eagle on Florida’s Gulf Coast in the early 1950s, goes to the mysterious disappearance of most river otters in England at the end of the decade, then the 1960s’ failure of ranched minks in the Great Lakes area to reproduce, the discovery that female gulls had begun nesting together in California in the 1970s, an egg shortage coupled with a high infant alligator mortality rate on a Florida lake in the 1980s, a massive seal die-off in the Kattegat strait between Sweden and Denmark in1988, dead dolphins in the Mediterranean in the early 1990s and deformed frogs in Denmark in 1992.
Different times, different places, and some of the incidents seemed to include chemicals, but in the 1980s researcher Theo Colborn finally linked all the incidents to a common thread – chemical pollution. A chapter called “Hand-Me-Down Poisons” documents Colborn’s discovery and her attempt to prove a connection by finding higher incidents of cancer in humans. When the cancer theory didn’t prove out, she realized that toxic chemicals are so linked in our minds with cancer, we may be failing to recognize other disease and public-health problems linked to chemicals, including reproductive problems.
Examining old evidence from earlier studies, she began to look for other connections and found many instances of changes in sexual development and reproductive habits in species, such as gulls, in various places. Close examination of chicks and adults showed “feminization” of male gulls’ reproductive organs and disrupted development of female reproductive systems.
Thus begins the “detective story” as researchers try to track the cause back from the effects and discover the “hormone imposters” they believe are disrupting our natural systems. Their research indicates that many of the animal populations were affected adversely by eating contaminated fish. While the chemical contaminants did not kill the adult fish, they wrought havoc with the eggs of eagles and reproductive systems of otters.
While they say they have not proven a link to learning disabilities or social behavior, the scientists have not ruled out a connection, saying these fields need further research.
Theo Colborn is a senior scientist with the World Wildlife Fund and an expert on endocrine-disrupting chemicals with a Ph.D. in zoology. John Peterson Myers also has a Ph.D. in zoology, is director of the W. Alton Jones Foundation which supports efforts to protect the environment, and is a former senior vice president for science with National Audubon Society. Dianne Dumanoski has reported on national and global environmental issues for the Boston Globe.