The Worst Science Stories of 2007

Sex, Drugs, Race and the Chemicapocalypse

Each year, STATS publishes its "Dubious Data" Awards, in the grand manner of looking back over the year and sighing at the fact that nothing was learned from the one previous. This was particularly the case with the coming of the chemicapocalypse - the increasing fear that everything in the modern world is toxic and out to make us ill, disrupt our hormones, bend our genders, and make us infertile. In 2007, Activists and journalists attributed all manner of health problems to absorbing tiny amounts of chemicals from everyday objects, even though the science is tentative, the evidence thin, and the risk of something materially bad happening to you hypothetical.

If it sounds suspicious, ban it

In June, San Francisco's mayor, Gavin Newsom, decided to ban plastic water bottles, in part because of concerns about recycling, which was reasonable enough, and in part because they contained "toxic" vinyl softeners known as phthalates, which was, at least metaphorically, garbage. The mayor - and the journalists who dutifully conveyed his fears to the public - seemed oblivious to the fact that plastic bottles do not contain phthalates; they are, instead, made with a polyester called polyethylene terephthalate, which is something quite different even though it seems to sound similar. But that's chemistry for you. Poylethylene terephthalate, or PET for short, is not considered a health hazard by any regulatory agency in the world.

Perhaps a refresher course in puberty?

Phthalatophobia, a subcategory of chemophobia (the fear of chemicals), led the media to make all sorts of remarkable claims in 2007, none more ballsy, perhaps, than Time magazine's decision to advance puberty beyond the bounds of biological plausibility with the claim, in September, that inhaling phthalates from air fresheners could decrease sperm levels in infants.

Perhaps, Time was demonstrating that the mere act of reporting on toxic chemicals can cause mental derangement, as a) infants don't produce sperm and b), the author of the study on phthalates in air fresheners, Dr. Gina Solomon of the Natural Resources Defense Council, admitted that had no "clear cut evidence here for health effects." This comment was something of a let down from urgent wording of the NRDC press release, which claimed that phthalates were "particularly dangerous for young children and unborn babies."

According to Google News, there were, on average, 7.7 news stories about or referencing phthalates every day during 2007. And yet despite such concern, it was far from clear what people should really be concerned about in terms of an actual risk of something - anything - happening. California banned phthalates in children's toys in October, even though the Consumer Product Safety Commission in the U.S. and the European Union's scientific risk assessment found no cause for worry (Europe, however, had already ignored its scientists and banned phthalates in toys too). More to the point, the National Institutes for Health found that children's exposure to phthalates was overwhelmingly through food and dust, so banning toys will have no discernible effect on exposure regardless of whether there's a risk or not.

Some phthalates have been shown at very high levels to harm laboratory animals, but then you can make rodents sick if you give them too much of anything. One study has drawn a statistical association between exposure to some phthalates in the womb and borderline changes in genital development. But contrary to the way the media have reported this study, the children were all healthy and had normal reproductive functioning. Even the Guardian newspaper, which is ardently pro green, concluded in its "Bad Science" column (written by an actual doctor) that the data on phthalates was being "overstated."

As for air fresheners, the NRDC only measured the presence of phthalates inside the product. As to how much evaporated into the air and was likely to be absorbed by a passing human, there was nothing. The Environmental Protection Agency has since turned down the NRDC's petition to examine the safety of air fresheners, although the agency does note that they are highly flammable - and will likely kill you if you eat one.

So, um, don't eat air fresheners.

iFear Apple

If one was to pick one of the key flaws in the way the media reported the risk from chemicals it would have to be the absence of any meaningful measurement. Few journalists, when faced with a press release or a study by some group claiming some new threat to our collective well being, say, "show me the numbers." But without numbers, it's impossible to assess just what the risk is.

Such penetrating questioning might have spared Apple computers from a whirlwind of negative publicity after Greenpeace ranked the company bottom in its list of enviro-friendly computer companies because its phones and computers contained toxic chemicals, like brominated fire retardants.

Most reporters failed to note that Greenpeace didn't measure how much of these chemicals were in Apple's products, and whether they leached out in a way that could be dangerous. Moreover, in the case of the fire retardant deca-BDE - the most widely used flame-retardant in consumer products - Greenpeace conveniently overlooked the fact that the European Union conducted a 10-year risk assessment, evaluating 588 studies on the chemical, and found it posed no health risk. The press didn't catch them on this either.

Yes, there are health and environmental concerns over two other brominated fire retardants, "penta" and "octa," but their use was phased out in the U.S. several years ago. A special exemption is required from the EPA to import any item containing these chemicals.

Hot air on 'Fresh Air'

The chemicapocalypse reached a fever pitch on NPR's Fresh Air in November, when Terry Gross interviewed Mark Shapiro, an investigative journalist who had just written a book on the topic: Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What's at Stake for American Power.

Shapiro claimed that a litany of epidemiological evidence showed that chemical exposure might be behind "spikes" in the incidence of breast cancer, reproductive problems among young women, endocrine troubles, mutagenic effects in young children, and declining sperm counts.

The only problem is that all of these problems can be explained much more easily by other factors or dismissed as false or misleading: breast cancer rates, for instance, are falling; the spikes in incidence can be explained by such known factors as the surges in hormone replacement therapy use, increased fertility treatments, later age of first birth, alcohol consumption and increased numbers of women having mammograms. The rise in fertility issues is almost certainly a matter of greater reporting and more intervention, say doctors, especially in the marketing of high-end fertility treatments. Birth defect rates are also stable - and the claims for declining sperm counts have been widely attacked for poor methodology.

What Gross, Shapiro, and many other journalists during the year failed to do when it came to the evaluating the risk from trace amounts of chemicals was to think critically about the numbers. Epidemiology can show associations between any number of things; you could, in theory, show an association between green health products and increasing cancer rates if you mined the data enough; but a correlation is not evidence of causation. To establish a causal relationship between common chemicals in parts per billion and health problems, you have to prove that the correlation does not have other, better, and possibly really obvious, explanations.

Not every over-hyped, goof-ridden story in 2007 involved chemicals, the media also stumbled over sex, drugs, race and math - but for more of that check out the rest of our awards

Comments

[belladawna]

wow, thank you for all that you do...

[stevesrant]

Yes, media coverage of science news is often irrational, uninformed, and in cases involving consumer risk, alarmist. So some clarification of chemophobia may be helpful to your readers. Yes, everything is made of chemicals. But the ones referred to in your article are man-made chemicals, which do not exist in the same relationship to us as those naturally occurring in the world we evolved in. I would guess (correct me if I'm wrong) the majority of man-made chemicals are petrochemicals - derived from petroleum. This is a crucial factor to be considered when evaluating the health risk/safety of a consumer product, for obvious reasons.

[T.Roll]

You'll notice it's mostly liberals that are both promulgating and believing these stories. Want to scare a liberal? Just say the word "chemical". :)

[Sciguy]

C'mon folks, even water is toxic if you drink WAY too much of it at once.

As for banning "chemicals," especially from kids' toys - great idea! Kids can go back to eating dirt, just like in the old days. Mudpies... YumYUM.

And a note to the anti-chemical folks: everything is a chemical. Air is chemicals, water is a chemical, your computer is made from chemicals. Nature is made from chemicals. Companies that sell "green" stuff are still selling chemicals made from other chemicals. The only way to have fewer chemicals is to live in a vacuum - and since most vacuums aren't true vacuums, you'll still run into the dreaded chemicals.

[LeftRight]

Yeah, that's why I take all those new reports about whats going to kill me tomorrow with a grain of salt.

[mbaty]

Seriously, there is a cause to be concerned. Breast cancer rates may be going down now, but they've jumped since a few decades ago; and so many of the cleaners sold do NOT include the ingredients, and this includes spray air fresheners that are intended to be breathed in. In recent years some people have even sided with DDT as a viable pesticide, leading people to assume that there are no completely safe cheap pesticides, which there undoubtedly are. And several companies make products now that are completely "green," and that is a big step. I know that I am sensitive to chemicals, and I don't use typical household cleaners. Many canned food items also contain trace amounts of heavy metals and such...these are not good for our bodies, and in small doses we are able to cope and not notice, but over time we get strange epidemics like autism, and some people have the gall to say that the "evidence isn't in" about mercury. No doubt, this is to avoid countless lawsuits from millions of dental patients, but we do need to be mindful of what chemicals we use and their small cumulative effects. It only takes one animal species to go extinct to change the balance of the biosphere, and if you haven't noticed, frogs are dying. They are very sensitive to chemicals.

[Dem02020]

I clicked the essay from seeing the title "Worst Science Stories of 2007", expecting to see a little ridicule of the fantastic (ridiculous) "leading edge" of Science that we see reported in newspapers and other places.
Stuff of the sort like the idiocy about "strings" and "string theory", or else the fantastic nonsense we hear occasionally about "black holes" (Did you hear the latest! Someone calling themselves scientists are imagining a "black hole" billlions and billions of times the size of our sun! WOW!).

Stuff like that.

But the essay seems instead to have been an argument against the Regulation of the industrial effects on our environment (and by envorinment is meant air water soil and other substances which enter or touch our body, and whose taint and toxicity become our sickness and disease).

And whether or not the examples cited in the essay are sensible or perhaps extreme and foolish (and chosen for just that reason), it doesn't change the fact that in total, the essay is an argument against the Regulation of our environment, and in favor of those things that industrial concerns would manufacture and otherwise use, that might make us sick.

Which is an argument of business versus Regulation, in a place where I was fooled into thinking I was going to read a send-up of some of the more hilarious claims about "black holes" and "strings".


So I shouldn't have clicked the essay, because I didn't need to read a defense of industrial concerns over health concerns, but I still wanted to comment anyway.

[Semaj51]

Great story. Personally, I'm tired of all the "Crying Wolf" stories you read. It seems that if something is good for you today, by next year it will be classified as harmful.

[Idytme]

I did click on your link.
I'm surprised you kept in your Avandia rant, as it has received a black box warning by the FDA.
And I was surprised you have the heading,
"Will one joint make you schizoid?" when you later refer to schizophrenia.
Although the lay person doesn't need to know the difference, surely a science writer should know that the disorder classified as schizoid has *nothing what-so-ever* to do with psychosis or schizophrenia. It is a social disorder that could be described as extreme shyness with an inability to form close bonds with people.
As to the chemicals, I prefer the European system where they have to be proven to be safe rather than proven to be unsafe as they are here. For a while I did a lot of research on lawn pesticides and it is deplorable what is put on the market. Some were pulled a few years ago because they were so unsafe they were doing serious harm. The problem is this was known for years, many more should be pulled now, especially because the home consumer uses them in a far more unsafe manner than the commercial consumer does - rarely following directions, using too much and not wearing protective gear. The chemical industry absolutely should be more highly regulated and if there are a few wrong product casualties, it is far better than a lot of consumer casualties.

[maddogbitesback]

Everything is chemistry. However, the concept that their is an over concern about chemicals is ridiculous. I doubt if the lead in the toys from China would have had much effect on children however it could have been avoided. To say that just because a mayor was erroneous re phthalates in plastic bottles of water is not to say there is no problem with the massive exposure to plastics in all forms and for a variety of reasons. Who knew mercury would be so toxic. Or that mercury is a part of the chemical pollution produced by coal fired electricity plants. Before the war everyone ate organic food because farmers didn't have pesticides and herbicides. Before the war if you wanted to clean the house you used soap and water and vinegar and soda. Now household cleaners are in chemical cleaners and plastic bottles and all food and the birds are filled with chemicals. It takes about twenty chemicals to get a banana on the shelves in your grocery store. In 1942 you couldn't buy a car and people used public transit which was cheaper, efficient and caused far less discharge of toxic hemicals. Now we have urban sprawl and everyone needs two cars minimum to manage to survive in the suburbs. Luckily some people managed to get a law passed so catalytic convertors would be mandatory so the toxic soup produced by cars is greatly reduced. Chemicals are a big problem in to-days world. The fewer the better. Science cannnot determine the effects of longterm exposure to plastics. So why use them for unnecessay things like plastic water bottles. Half the water in water bottles is just tap water so at the very least they are huge costs for a drink opf water that you wouldn't have had fifteen years ago.