Incorporation of Endocrine Disruption Into Chemical Hazard Scoring for Pollution Prevention and Current List of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals

Abstract

Research continues to support the theory of endocrine disruption. Endocrine disruption is defined as the ability of a chemical contaminating the workplace or the environment to interfere with homeostasis, development, reproduction, and/or behavior in a living organism or it's offspring. Certain classes of environmentally persistent chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxins, furans, and some pesticides can adversely effect the endocrine systems of aquatic life and terrestrial wildlife. The University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTN), developed a method for hazard scoring chemicals for the aquatic ecosystem. The Indiana Clean Manufacturing Technology and Safe Materials Institute at Purdue University (CMTI) later expanded the scoring system to include terms for worker hazard as well as terms for contamination of soil and air quality, and for stratospheric ozone depletion. We call the CMTI chemical hazard score the Purdue score. At West Virginia University, two improvements of the Purdue chemical hazard score are developed, a normalizing of the term for soil contamination, and addition of hazard score terms for ecosystem endocrine disruption. The results of incorporating endocrine disruption terms into the hazard scoring equations resulted in increased hazard rankings, often substantially increased, for 26 endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) among 200 Superfund chemicals. Because data suggesting human endocrine disruption from such chemicals is still controversial, no endocrine disruptor term has been added to the human toxicity portions of the chemical hazard scoring system at this time. The third product of this work is assembly of a current consolidated list of (1) established or probable, mostly synthetic, industrial chemical and medication EDCs and (2) suspect (less certain) synthetic and natural (phytoestrogen) possible endocrine disrupting chemicals, with the goal of contributing to future development of quantitative structure activity relationship software for predicting whether an untested chemical is likely to be an endocrine disruptor. We conclude that enough endocrine disrupting chemicals are now identified to make an attempt at developing structure activity estimates of disrupting potential worthwhile. Further, we conclude that within a group of 200 chemicals of concern to the US EPA, the addition of endocrine disrupting terms to the Purdue score substantially increases its representativeness in reflecting ecological exposure hazard. We have developed this enhanced Purdue score risk management tool to be of assistance to industry.

Acetaldehyde at a Low Concentration Synergistically Exacerbates Allergic Airway Inflammation as an Endocrine-Disrupting Chemical and as a Volatile Organic Compound

“…Therefore, continuous exposure toenvironmental acetaldehyde or formaldehyde might exacerbate asthma. Many reports have described that formaldehyde acts as an EDC/VOC and adversely affects health [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. Garrett et al [7] found that inoculation with low levels of formaldehyde increases the risk of bronchial asthma in children.…”

“…Cigarette smoke and vehicle exhaust emissions contain both acetaldehyde and formaldehyde [2,6,7,8,21], and these chemicals are also found in paints, plastic products and adhesives, for example [2,7,9]. In addition, some fruits naturally contain acetaldehyde [2], and acetaldehyde is used as a food additive in some countries. Therefore, continuous exposure toenvironmental acetaldehyde or formaldehyde might exacerbate asthma.…”

“…Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) confer health risks such as toxicity, carcinogenicity, mutagenicity, immunotoxicity and neurotoxicity in humans [1,2,3,4,5]. A relationship between EDCs and allergic diseases has been established [6,7,8,9,10], but the exact mechanism underlying this relationship remains obscure.…”

“…Acetaldehyde, a metabolite of alcohol, plays a critical role in this alcohol-induced bronchoconstriction via stimulation of mast cells/basophils to produce histamine [20]. In addition to being an alcohol metabolite, acetaldehyde is also a VOC that has been linked to sick building syndrome and asthma [6,7,8,9,10], and it might have various adverse effects on humans [1,2,3,4,5]. In fact, acetaldehyde in cigarette smoke inhibits ciliary motility via phosphokinase C-dependent mechanisms [21].…”

Effects of environmental chemicals and drugs on reproductive endocrine system

“…EDs are toxic substances to the endocrine system (2). The list of EDs includes environmental and crop protection substances like insecticides and pesticides as well as hormonal drugs and industrial substances which allow rapid growth of plants (3,4). Because they experience constant physiological change and are in a process of growing up all the time, children are more prone to get affected by such a toxically charged environment (5).…”