APES Endocrine Disruptors

Atrazine

• Herbicide applied to fields to prevent crop loss

• Runs off into water

• Causes birth defects, tumors, and weight loss. Carcinogen

• Avoid working/digging in soil where it is applied

DDT

• Insecticide applied to fields

• Runs off into water

• Causes, vomiting, shaking, seizures

• Avoid eating animal fats and fish

Phthalates

• Come from plastic and cosmetic manufacturing

• Enter water through dumping trash or chemical waste

• Absorbed into blood and fluids, impairing physiological mechanisms

• Avoid vinyl toys and perfumed shampoo/lotion

Human Medications

• Enter sewage through urine/flushed meds

• Interfere with reproduction. Carcinogen

Mercury

• Naturally occurring in coal

• Humans are exposed through coal combustion, trash incineration, burning medical waste, and heating limestone for cement

• Harmful to developing fetuses

• Pregnant women can eat less seafood

Arsenic

• Naturally occurring in rocks. Wood treatment chemicals, old pesticides

• Humans are exposed through rocks dissolved into drinking water (worsened by mining)

• Carcinogen

• Can be removed with water filters

Lead

• Found in old paint, old pipes, and soil contaminated by vehicle exhaust from old leaded gasoline

• Released in fly ash of coal combustion

• Neurotoxicant

• Can be removed with water filters