Water Wheel - May/Jun 2003

Abstract

ENVIRONMENT During the 60s and 70s public interest grew in the potential effects on wildlife and human beings of substances used by agriculture and industry which inevitably found their way into the environment – from soil and thence via rainwater run-off to streams, lakes and underground water and even to the air. The possible effects on humans from long-term ingestion of many of these xenobiotics (all non-naturally occurring or synthetic chemicals) included cancer, mutagenicity (i.e. birth defects), reductions in fertility and effects on the functioning of organs of the body such as the liver, ovaries, testes, the brain, etc. This booklet provides a broad overview and update of a specific group of xenobiotics-the socalled endocrine disrupters.

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