The End of Doom (44 page)

eggshell thinning of some bird species:
Rhys E. Green, “Long-Term Decline in the Thickness of Eggshells of Thrushes,
Turdus
spp., in Britain.”
Proceedings of the Royal Society B
265 (April 22, 1998): 679–684.
rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/265/1397/679.short
.

DDT did not cause eggshell:
M. L. Scott et al., “Effects of PCBs, DDT, and Mercury Compounds Upon Egg Production, Hatchability and Shell Quality in Chickens and Japanese Quail.”
Poultry Science
54 (1975): 350–368.
ps.oxfordjournals.org/content/54/2/350.short
.

strict controls on DDT:
Richard Tren, Richard Nchabi Kamwi, and Amir Attaran, “The UN Is Premature in Trying to Ban DDT for Malaria Control.”
BMJ,
October 10, 2012, 345.
www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e6801
.

200 million people:
Malaria Fact Sheet, World Health Organization, March 2014.
www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs094/en/
.

most searching inquiry ever:
Renee Twombly, “Long Island Study Finds No Link Between Pollutants and Breast Cancer.”
JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute
94.18 (September 17, 2002): 1348–1351.
jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/94/18/1348.full
.

“are not associated”:
Gina Kolata and Deborah Winn cited in “Looking for the Link.”
New York Times,
August 11, 2002.
www.nytimes.com/2002/08/11/weekinreview/11KOLA.html
.

longer a woman breast-fed:
Torgil M
ö
ller et al., “Breast Cancer and Breastfeeding: Collaborative Reanalysis of Individual Data from 47 Epidemiological Studies in 30 Countries, Including 50302 Women with Breast Cancer and 96973 Women Without the Disease.”
Lancet
360.9328 (July 2002): 187–195.
lup.lub.lu.se/search/publication/1123899
.

“This only appears”:
“Is There a Cancer ‘Epidemic'?” Understanding Cancer Series, National Cancer Institute, January 28, 2005.
www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/understandingcancer/cancer/page61
.

lifetime risk of:
American Cancer Society, “Lifetime Risk of Developing and Dying of Cancer,”
www.cancer.org/cancer/cancerbasics/lifetime-probability-of-developing-or-dying-from-cancer
.

If you live long:
George Johnson, “Why Everyone Seems to Have Cancer.”
New York Times,
January 4, 2014.
www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/sunday-review/why-everyone-seems-to-have-cancer.html?_r=0
.

annual death rates:
David S. Jones, Scott H. Podolsky, and Jeremy A. Greene, “The Burden of Disease and the Changing Task of Medicine.”
New England Journal of Medicine
366 (June 21, 2012): 2333–2338.
www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMp1113569
.

This initially sounds:
Felicitie C.
Bell and Michael L. Miller
, “Life Tables for the United States Social Security Area 1900–2100.” Actuarial Study No. 120, Social Security Administration.
www.ssa.gov/OACT/NOTES/as120/LifeTables_Body.html
.

Today, 88 percent:
Elizabeth Arias, “United States Life Tables, 2009.” National Vital Statistics Report, January 6, 2014.
www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr62/nvsr62_07.pdf
.

In 1929, the first year:
Elizabeth Arias, “United States Life Tables, 2009.”

lung cancer death rate:
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, “Achievements in Public Health, 1900–1999: Tobacco Use—United States, 1900–1999.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, November 5, 1999, 986–993,
www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4843a2.htm

endocrine disrupter conjecture:
Howard A. Bern et al., “Statement from the Work Session on Chemically-Induced Alterations in Sexual Development: The Wildlife/Human Connection.” Wingspread Conference Center, July 1991.
www.ourstolenfuture.org/consensus/wingspread1.htm
.

endocrine-related disorders:
Ake Bergman et al.,
The State of the Science of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals 2012: Summary for Decision-Makers.
United Nations Environment Programme and the World Health Organization, 2012, 2.

Alarm about:
E. Carlsen et al., “Evidence for Decreasing Quality of Semen During Past 50 Years.”
BMJ
305 (1992): 609–613.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1883354/pdf/bmj00091-0019.pdf
.

falling sperm counts:
Steve Connor, “Why Be So Careless with the Facts?”
The Independent,
June 4, 1995.
www.independent.co.uk/voices/why-be-so-careless-with-the-facts-1585007.html
.

“allegations for a worldwide”:
Harry Fisch and Stephen R. Braun, “Trends in Global Semen Parameter Values.”
Asian Journal of Andrology
15.2 (March 2013): 169–173.
www.asiaandro.com/news/upload/20130912-aja2012143a.pdf
.

“generalized statements that hypospadias”:
Suzan L. Carmichael, Gary M. Shaw, and Edward J. Lammer, “Environmental and Genetic Contributors to Hypospadias: A Review of the Epidemiologic Evidence.”
Birth Defects Research Part A: Clinical and Molecular Teratology
94.7 (July 2012): 499–510.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3393839/pdf/nihms387688.pdf
.

“While genes involved”:
L. F. M. van der Zanden et al., “Aetiology of Hypospadias: A Systematic Review of Genes and Environment.”
Human Reproduction Update
18.3 (February 26, 2012): 260–283.

“A review of the epidemiologic data”:
Harry Fisch, Grace Hyun, and Terry W. Hensle, “Rising Hypospadias Rates: Disproving a Myth.”
The Journal of Pediatric Urology
6 (2010): 37–39.
www.pedclerk.sites.uchicago.edu/sites/pedclerk.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/1-s2.0-S1477513109003490-main.pdf
.

“the trend of increasing adult height”:
Fabrizio Giannandrea et al., “Case-Control Study of Anthropometric Measures and Testicular Cancer Risk.”
Frontiers in Endocrinology
3 (November 26, 2012): 144.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3505837/#!po=4.54545
.

“changes in diet”:
Elizabeth E. Hatch et al., “Association of Endocrine Disruptors and Obesity: Perspectives from Epidemiologic Studies.”
International Journal of Andrology
33.2 (January 22, 2010): 1365–2605.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3005328/
.

changes in the number of calories:
Earl S. Ford and William H. Dietz, “Trends in Energy Intake Among Adults in the United States: Findings from NHANES.”
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
97.4 (April 2013): 848–853.

“Over the last 50 years”:
T. S. Church et al., “Trends over 5 Decades in U.S. Occupation-Related Physical Activity and Their Associations with Obesity.”
PLoS One
6.5 (May 25, 2011): e19657. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0019657.

being overweight escalates:
Lei Chen, Dianna J. Magliano, and Paul Z. Zimmet, “The Worldwide Epidemiology of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus—Present and Future Perspectives.”
Nature Reviews Endocrinology
8 (April 20, 2012): 228–236.
211.144.68.84:9998/91keshi/Public/File/34/-/pdf/nrendo.2011.183.pdf
.

“In no case was”:
Kristina A. Thayer et al.
,
“Role of Environmental Chemicals in Diabetes and Obesity: A National Toxicology Program Workshop Review,”
Environmental Health Perspectives,
June 2012.
ehp.niehs.nih.gov/wp-content/uploads/120/6/ehp.1104597.pdf
.

earlier onset of puberty:
Frank M. Biro et al., “Onset of Breast Development in a Longitudinal Cohort.”
Pediatrics,
November 5, 2013.
pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2013/10/30/peds.2012-3773
; Paul B. Kaplowitz, “Link Between Body Fat and the Timing of Puberty.”
Pediatrics,
February 1, 2008.
pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/121/Supplement_3/S208.long
.

“no evidence to suggest an increase”:
Guilherme V. Polanczyk et al., “ADHD Prevalence Estimates Across Three Decades: An Updated Systematic Review and Meta-Regression Analysis.”
International Journal of Epidemiology
43.6 (January 24, 2014).
ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/43/2/434
.

“hypothesis that the negligible exposure”:
Gerhard J. Nohynek et al., “Endocrine Disruption: Fact or Urban Legend?”
Toxicology Letters
223.3 (December 2013): 295–305.

only 5 to 10 percent:
Gautam Naik and S. Stanley Young cited in “Analytical Trend Troubles Scientists.”
Wall Street Journal,
May 4, 2012.
online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303916904577377841427001840
; see also S. Stanley Young and Alan Karr, “Deming, Data and Observational Studies: A Process out of Control and Needing Fixing.”
Significance
,
Journal of the Royal Statistical Society
8.3 (September 2011): 116–120.
errorstatistics.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/young-karr-obs-study-problem.pdf
.

publish only studies with positive results:
Gary Taubes, “Epidemiology Faces Its Limits.”
Science
269.5221 (July 14, 1995), 169.

“Investigators who find”:
Taubes, “Epidemiology Faces Its Limits,” 169.

little thing from a big thing:
Taubes, “Epidemiology Faces Its Limits,” 164.

“only primitive tools”:
Samuel Shapiro, “Looking to the 21st Century: Have We Learned from Our Mistakes, or Are We Doomed to Compound Them?”
Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety
13.4 (April 2004), 260.

“pathological science”:
Irving Langmuir and Robert N. Hall, “Pathological Science.”
Physics Today,
October 1989.
scitation.aip.org/content/aip/magazine/physicstoday/article/42/10/10.1063/1.88120.5
.

“the first characteristic”:
Denis Rousseau, “Case Studies in Pathological Science,”
American Scientist
80.1 (January–February 1992): 54–63.

cell-based and animal model tests:
Laura N. Vandenberg et al., “Hormones and Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals: Low-Dose Effects and Nonmonotonic Dose Responses.”
Endocrine Reviews
33.3 (June 2012): 378–455.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3365860/
.

not careful enough:
Frederick S. vom Saal et al., “Flawed Experimental Design Reveals the Need for Guidelines Requiring Appropriate Positive Controls in Endocrine Disruption Research.”
Toxicological Sciences
15.2 (February 17, 2010): 612–613.
toxsci.oxfordjournals.org/content/115/2/612.short
.

impervious to critiques:
Leon E. Gray Jr. et al., “Rebuttal of ‘Flawed Experimental Design Reveals the Need for Guidelines Requiring Appropriate Positive Controls in Endocrine Disruption Research' by vom Saal.”
Toxicological Sciences
115.2 (March 5, 2010): 614–620.
toxsci.oxfordjournals.org/content/115/2/614.full#ref-68
.

“contradicts centuries of”:
Nohynek et al., “Endocrine Disruption: Fact or Urban Legend?”

“nutribogus epidemiology”:
John P. A. Ioannidis, “Why Science Is Not Necessarily Self-Correcting.”
Perspectives on Psychological Science
7.6 (November 2012): 645–654.
130.236.177.26/~729A94/mtrl/Why_science_is_not_necessarily_self-correcting.pdf
.

“vested interest of scientists”:
Nohynek et al., “Endocrine Disruption: Fact or Urban Legend?”

5. The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes?

“overall cancer incidence rates”:
Report Prepared by the Hawai'i Tumor Registry for the Hawai'i State Department of Health: Kaua'i Cancer Cases, April 2013.
health.hawaii.gov/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Kauai-Cancer-Cases-April-2013.pdf
.

“There's no real consensus”:
Doug Gurian-Sherman, “Are GMOs Worth the Trouble?”
MIT Technology Review,
March 27, 2014.
www.technologyreview.com/view/525931/are-gmos-worth-the-trouble/
.

a worldwide moratorium:
Paul Berg et al., “Potential Biohazards of Recombinant DNA Molecules.” Letter to the Editor,
Science
185.4148 (July 16, 1974): 303.

“In the case of recombinant DNA”:
Liebe Cavalieri, “New Strains of Life—or Death.”
New York Times Magazine,
August 22, 1976, 67.

“We want to be damned”:
Alfred Vellucci, cited in John Kifner, “‘Creation of Life' Experiment at Harvard Stirs Heated Debate.”
New York Times,
June 17, 1976, 1.

“one of the world's major”:
Cambridge Community Development Department, “Cambridge: The Brains of Biotech, The Heart of Innovation,” brochure. Downloaded 2014.

“Scientifically I was a nut”:
James Watson, personal communication to
Ronald Bailey
, cited in
Eco-Scam: The False Prophets of Ecological Apocalypse.
New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993, 94.

“In looking back”:
Burke Zimmerman,
Biofuture: Confronting the Genetic Era
. New York: Plenum Press, 1984, 176.

“The traditional notion”:
Ted Howard and Jeremy Rifkin,
Who Should Play God? The Artificial Creation of Life and What It Means for the Future of the Human Race
. New York: Delacorte Press, 1977, 223.