The toxic baby

Filmmaker Penelope Jagessar Chaffer was curious about the chemicals she was exposed to while pregnant: Could they affect her unborn child? So she asked scientist Tyrone Hayes to brief her on one he studied closely: atrazine, a herbicide used on corn. (Hayes, an expert on amphibians, is a critic of atrazine, which displays a disturbing effect on frog development.) Onstage together at TEDWomen, Hayes and Chaffer tell their story.

Penelope Jagessar Chaffer: I was going to ask if there's a doctor in the house.

No, I'm just joking.

It's interesting, because it was six years ago

when I was pregnant with my first child

that I discovered

that the most commonly used preservative

in baby care products

mimics estrogen

when it gets into the human body.

Now it's very easy actually

to get a chemical compound from products

into the human body through the skin.

And these preservatives had been found

in breast cancer tumors.

That was the start of my journey

to make this film, "Toxic Baby."

And it doesn't take much time

to discover some really astonishing statistics

with this issue.

One is that you and I all have

between 30 to 50,000 chemicals

in our bodies

that our grandparents didn't have.

And many of these chemicals

are now linked to the skyrocketing incidents

of chronic childhood disease

that we're seeing across industrialized nations.

I'll show you some statistics.

So for example, in the United Kingdom,

the incidence of childhood leukemia

has risen by 20 percent just in a generation.

Very similar statistic for childhood cancer in the U.S.

In Canada, we're now looking at one in 10 Canadian children with asthma.

That's a four-fold increase.

Again, similar story around the world.

In the United States,

probably the most astonishing statistic

is a 600 percent increase

in autism and autistic spectrum disorders

and other learning disabilities.

Again, we're seeing that trend

across Europe, across North America.

And in Europe,

there's certain parts of Europe,

where we're seeing a four-fold increase

in certain genital birth defects.

Interestingly, one of those birth defects

has seen a 200 percent increase in the U.S.

So a real skyrocketing

of chronic childhood disease

that includes other things

like obesity and juvenile diabetes,

premature puberty.

So it's interesting for me,

when I'm looking for someone who can really talk to me

and talk to an audience about these things,

that probably one of the most important people in the world

who can discuss toxicity in babies

is expert in frogs.

(Laughter)

Tyrone Hayes: It was a surprise to me as well

that I would be talking about pesticides,

that I'd be talking about public health,

because, in fact, I never thought I would do anything useful.

(Laughter)

Frogs.

In fact, my involvement in the whole pesticide issue

was sort of a surprise as well

when I was approached by the largest chemical company in the world

and they asked me if I would evaluate

how atrazine affected amphibians, or my frogs.

It turns out, atrazine is the largest selling product

for the largest chemical company in the world.

It's the number one contaminant

of groundwater, drinking water, rain water.

In 2003, after my studies, it was banned in the European Union,

but in that same year,

the United States EPA re-registered the compound.

We were a bit surprised when we found out

that when we exposed frogs

to very low levels of atrazine -- 0.1 parts per billion --

that it produced animals that look like this.

These are the dissected gonads of an animal

that has two testes, two ovaries,

another large testis, more ovaries,

which is not normal ...

(Laughter)

even for amphibians.

In some cases, another species like the North American Leopard Frog

showed that males exposed to atrazine grew eggs in their testes.

And you can see these large, yolked-up eggs

bursting through the surface of this male's testes.

Now my wife tells me, and I'm sure Penelope can as well,

that there's nothing more painful than childbirth --

which that I'll never experience, I can't really argue that --

but I would guess that a dozen chicken eggs in my testicle

would probably be somewhere in the top five.

(Laughter)

In recent studies that we've published,

we've shown that some of these animals when they're exposed to atrazine,

some of the males grow up

and completely become females.

So these are actually two brothers consummating a relationship.

And not only do these genetic males mate with other males,

they actually have the capacity to lay eggs

even though they're genetic males.

What we proposed,

and what we've now generated support for,

is that what atrazine is doing

is wreaking havoc causing a hormone imbalance.

Normally the testes should make testosterone,

the male hormone.

But what atrazine does is it turns on an enzyme,

the machinery if you will, aromatase,

that converts testosterone into estrogen.

And as a result, these exposed males

lose their testosterone, they're chemically castrated,

and they're subsequently feminized

because now they're making the female hormone.

Now this is what brought me to the human-related issues.

Because it turns out

that the number one cancer in women, breast cancer,

is regulated by estrogen and by this enzyme aromatase.

So when you develop a cancerous cell in your breast,

aromatase converts androgens into estrogens,

and that estrogen turns on or promotes

the growth of that cancer

so that it turns into a tumor and spreads.

In fact, this aromatase is so important in breast cancer

that the latest treatment for breast cancer

is a chemical called letrozole,

which blocks aromatase, blocks estrogen,

so that if you developed a mutated cell, it doesn't grow into a tumor.

Now what's interesting is, of course,

that we're still using 80 million pounds of atrazine,

the number one contaminant in drinking water, that does the opposite --

turns on aromatase, increases estrogen

and promotes tumors in rats

and is associated with tumors, breast cancer, in humans.

What's interesting is, in fact,

the same company that sold us 80 million pounds of atrazine,

the breast cancer promoter,

now sells us the blocker -- the exact same company.

And so I find it interesting

that instead of treating this disease

by preventing exposure to the chemicals that promote it,

we simply respond

by putting more chemicals into the environment.

PJC: So speaking of estrogen,

one of the other compounds that Tyrone talks about in the film

is something called bisphenol A, BPA,

which has been in the news recently.

It's a plasticizer.

It's a compound that's found in polycarbonate plastic,

which is what baby bottles are made out of.

And what's interesting about BPA

is that it's such a potent estrogen

that it was actually once considered for use

as a synthetic estrogen in hormone placement therapy.

And there have been many, many, many studies that have shown

that BPA leaches from babies' bottles

into the formula, into the milk,

and therefore into the babies.

So we're dosing our babies,

our newborns, our infants,

with a synthetic estrogen.

Now two weeks ago or so,

the European Union passed a law

banning the use of BPA

in babies' bottles and sippy cups.

And for those of you who are not parents,

sippy cups are those little plastic things

that your child graduates to after using bottles.

But just two weeks before that,

the U.S. Senate refused to even debate

the banning of BPA

in babies' bottles and sippy cups.

So it really makes you realize

the onus on parents

to have to look at this and regulate this and police this

in their own lives

and how astonishing that is.

(Video) PJC: With many plastic baby bottles

now proven to leak the chemical bisphenol A,

it really shows how sometimes

it is only a parent's awareness

that stands between chemicals and our children.

The baby bottle scenario proves

that we can prevent unnecessary exposure.

However, if we parents are unaware,

we are leaving our children

to fend for themselves.

TH: And what Penelope says here

is even more true.

For those of you who don't know, we're in the middle of the sixth mass extinction.

Scientists agree now.

We are losing species from the Earth

faster than the dinosaurs disappeared,

and leading that loss are amphibians.

80 percent of all amphibians

are threatened and in come decline.

And I believe, many scientists believe

that pesticides are an important part of that decline.

In part, amphibians are good indicators and more sensitive

because they don't have protection from contaminants in the water --

no eggshells, no membranes

and no placenta.

In fact, our invention -- by "our" I mean we mammals --

one of our big inventions was the placenta.

But we also start out as aquatic organisms.

But it turns out that this ancient structure

that separates us from other animals, the placenta,

cannot evolve or adapt fast enough

because of the rate that we're generating new chemicals

that it's never seen before.

The evidence of that is that studies in rats, again with atrazine,

show that the hormone imbalance atrazine generates causes abortion.

Because maintaining a pregnancy is dependent on hormones.

Of those rats that don't abort,

atrazine causes prostate disease

in the pups so the sons

are born with an old man's disease.

Of those that don't abort,

atrazine causes impaired mammary, or breast, development

in the exposed daughters in utero,

so that their breast don't develop properly.

And as a result, when those rats grow up,

their pups experience retarded growth and development

because they can't make enough milk to nourish their pups.

So the pup you see on the bottom is affected by atrazine

that its grandmother was exposed to.

And given the life of many of these chemicals,

generations, years, dozens of years,

that means that we right now

are affecting the health

of our grandchildren's grandchildren

by things that we're putting into the environment today.

And this is not just philosophical, it's already known,

that chemicals like diethylstilbestrol and estrogen,

PCBs, DDT

cross the placenta

and effectively determine

the likelihood of developing breast cancer

and obesity and diabetes

already when the baby's in the womb.

In addition to that, after the baby's born,

our other unique invention as mammals

is that we nourish our offspring after they're born.

We already know that chemicals

like DDT and DES and atrazine

can also pass over into milk,

again, affecting our babies

even after their born.

PJC: So when Tyrone tells me

that the placenta is an ancient organ,

I'm thinking, how do I demonstrate that?

How do you show that?

And it's interesting when you make a film like this,

because you're stuck trying to visualize science

that there's no visualization for.

And I have to take a little bit of artistic license.

(Video) (Ringing)

Old man: Placenta control.

What is it?

Oh what?

(Snoring)

(Honk)

Puffuffuff, what?

Perflourooctanoic acid.

Blimey.

Never heard of it.

PJC: And neither had I actually

before I started making this film.

And so when you realize that chemicals can pass the placenta

and go into your unborn child,

it made me start to think,

what would my fetus say to me?

What would our unborn children say to us

when they have an exposure

that's happening everyday, day after day?

(Music)

(Video) Child: Today,

I had some octyphenols,

some artificial musks

and some bisphenol A.

Help me.

PJC: It's a very profound notion

to know that we as women

are at the vanguard of this.

This is our issue,

because we collect these compounds our entire life

and then we end up dumping it and dumping them

into our unborn children.

We are in effect

polluting our children.

And this was something that was really brought home to me a year ago

when I found out I was pregnant

and the first scan revealed

that my baby had a birth defect

associated with exposure

to estrogenic chemicals in the womb

and the second scan

revealed no heartbeat.

So my child's death, my baby's death,

really brought home the resonance of what I was trying to make in this film.

And it's sometimes a weird place

when the communicator becomes part of the story,

which is not what you originally intend.

And so when Tyrone talks about

the fetus being trapped in a contaminated environment,

this is my contaminated environment.

This is my toxic baby.

And that's something

that's just profound and sad,

but astonishing

because so many of us don't actually know this.

TH: One of this things that's exciting and appropriate

for me to be here at TEDWomen

is that, well, I think it was summed up best last night at dinner

when someone said, "Turn to the man at your table and tell them,

'When the revolution starts, we've got your back.'"

The truth is, women,

you've had our back on this issue for a very long time,

starting with Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring"

to Theo Colborn's "Our Stolen Future"

to Sandra Steingraber's books

"Living Downstream" and "Having Faith."

And perhaps it's the connection to our next generation --

like my wife and my beautiful daughter here about 13 years ago --

perhaps it's that connection

that makes women activists

in this particular area.

But for the men here, I want to say

it's not just women and children that are at risk.

And the frogs that are exposed to atrazine,

the testes are full of holes and spaces,

because the hormone imbalance,

instead of allowing sperm to be generated,

such as in the testis here,

the testicular tubules end up empty

and fertility goes down by as much as 50 percent.

It's not just my work in amphibians,

but similar work has been shown in fish in Europe,

holes in the testes and absence of sperm in reptiles in a group from South America

and in rats, an absence of sperm

in the testicular tubules as well.

And of course, we don't do these experiments in humans,

but just by coincidence,

my colleague has shown

that men who have low sperm count, low semen quality

have significantly more atrazine in their urine.

These are just men who live

in an agricultural community.

Men who actually work in agriculture

have much higher levels of atrazine.

And the men who actually apply atrazine

have even more atrazine in their urine,

up to levels that are 24,000 times what we know to be active

are present in the urine of these men.

Of course, most of them, 90 percent are Mexican, Mexican-American.

And it's not just atrazine they're exposed to.

They're exposed to chemicals like chloropicrin,

which was originally used as a nerve gas.

And many of these workers

have life expectancies of only 50.

It shouldn't come to any surprise that the things that happen in wildlife

are also a warning to us,

just like Rachel Carson and others have warned.

As evident in this slide from Lake Nabugabo in Uganda,

the agricultural runoff from this crop,

which goes into these buckets,

is the sole source of drinking, cooking and bathing water for this village.

Now if I told the men in this village

that the frogs have pour immune function

and eggs developing in their testes,

the connection between environmental health and public health

would be clear.

You would not drink water that you knew was having this kind of impact

on the wildlife that lived in it.

The problem is, in my village, Oakland,

in most of our villages,

we don't see that connection.

We turn on the faucet, the water comes out, we assume it's safe,

and we assume that we are masters of our environment,

rather than being part of it.

PJC: So it doesn't take much to realize

that actually this is an environmental issue.

And I kept thinking over and over again

this question.

We know so much about global warming and climate change,

and yet, we have no concept

of what I've been calling internal environmentalism.

We know what we're putting out there,

we have a sense of those repercussions,

but we are so ignorant of this sense

of what happens when we put things, or things are put

into our bodies.

And it's my feeling

and it's my urging being here

to know that, as we women move forward

as the communicators of this,

but also as the ones who carry that burden

of carrying the children, bearing the children,

we hold most of the buying power in the household,

is that it's going to be us moving forward

to carry the work of Tyrone and other scientists around the world.

And my urging is

that when we think about environmental issues

that we remember that it's not just about melting glaciers and ice caps,

but it's also about our children as well.

Thank you.

(Applause)