Episode 1. Endocrine Disruption: Pete Myers

My guest Pete Myers has spent the past 30 years calling media attention to findings about toxic chemicals, while the industry producing those chemicals has worked to discredit the science and scientists involved.  In the 1990s, Pete helped to establish the field within toxicology known as endocrine disruption. Since then, he has relentlessly brought the findings of this field into public view. 

It turns out that many chemicals are toxic because they disrupt the body’s normal hormonal processes, hence the term endocrine disruption.  Exposure to many of these chemicals in early development can cause diseases later in life.  This includes diseases that people often associate with chemical exposure, such as cancer, as well as other problems such as diabetes, obesity, and infertility.  The science of endocrine disruption, and its implications for humans and wildlife, matured into its own field of study in the 1990s, and Pete Myers was, and is, in the thick of it.