Environmental health perspectives

There is an increasing perception that environmental contamination by chemicals no longer poses a significant health threat and that relaxation of environmental regulations is warranted. However, many wildlife populations are showing signs …

Concerns have been raised regarding the role of environmental and dietary estrogens as possible contributors to an increased incidence of various abnormalities in estrogen-target tissues of both sexes. These abnormalities include breast can…

Children may be more susceptible to exposures to environmental toxins than adults and may be more vulnerable to their effects. Because of this, the health care community and those responsible for children need to be alert to possible enviro…

Humans are exposed to mixtures of polyhalogenated aromatic hydrocarbons, and the potential health effects of these exposures are uncertain. A subset of this class of compounds produce similar spectra of toxicity in experimental animals as d…

The potent developmental toxicity of dioxin in multiple species has been known for a number of years. However, recent studies have indicated that dioxin also induces functional developmental defects, many of which are delayed. Subtle struct…

Xenobiotic estrogens are external compounds with estrogenic activity that may thereby affect the risk of breast cancer. This paper describes a mechanism by which xeno-estrogens may affect the development of breast cancer. Estradiol metaboli…

Endometriosis is a reproductive disease characterized by the growth of endometrial cells at sites outside the uterus. This disease is a serious disorder associated with chronic pain and infertility, which may be present in 6 million women i…

The Great Lakes basin is characterized as a heavily populated and industrialized region in which a large number of environmental contaminants have been identified. Both the scientific community and the public have voiced concern that contam…

This summary report focuses on current studies on reproductive effects reported at the workshop on Perinatal Exposure to Dioxin-like Compounds and supporting data noted in the discussion. Recent laboratory studies have suggested that altere…

An international workshop reviewed 20 ongoing or recently completed studies of the effects of perinatal exposures to dioxins, dibenzofurans, and PCBs on the reproductive, endocrine, neurodevelopmental, and immune systems. Many of the observ…

Studies of perinatal exposures to dioxin-like compounds (DLCs), coplanar polycyclic halogenated aromatics whose prototype is 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), have employed a variety of outcome measures to investigate effects on t…

Recent reports have suggested that environmental chemicals may be associated with endocrine alterations in people, wildlife, and experimental animals. Pharmacological investigations as well as natural poisoning episodes have led to the asso…

A recent study by Rier et al. showed that rhesus monkeys exposed daily for 4 years to 5 or 25 ppt of dioxin in food develop endometriosis, with incidence and severity related to dose. We aimed to determine whether the total time-integrated …