"Our Stolen Future"

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Environmental Studies > Air Pollution
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Environmental Studies > Management

"Our Stolen Future"

This is a through book review of "Our Stolen Future, Are We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence and Survival? A Scientific Detective Story" by Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski and John Peterson Myers.

1,220 words () | 0 sources | MLA | 2002 United States

Paper Summary:

The author of this book begins with an explanation on how this book begins with a short, seemingly unexplained phenomena among animals, which catches the reader's attention very well. He then discusses how the book progresses into talking about the plight of seagulls and other creatures that live in the Great Lakes area who developed a rare vaginal cancer. The book moves into showing how hormone-disrupting chemicals work. It also shows that some plants have hormone-disrupting chemicals as a defense. After explaining drugs that people knew that they were in taking, the book moves on to some chemicals that are much sneakier. This book also studies small animal populations that have been adversely affected in the past 30 years by chemicals. It links concepts such as hyperactivity and lower brain function to people. Chemicals were mainly thought of as cancer causing agents and nothing else. This book has shown that many chemicals are endocrine disruptors, as well as carcinogens.

From the Paper:

"In the past 2 decades male sperm count has dropped 45 percent. This is one of the many horrible facts that this book puts forth. We threaten our unborn children and fertility from doing small things like eating a fish caught in a local river. 8000 flipper babies born was a wakeup call to people. The Thalidomide tragedy was one of the first cases of distrust in medicine. DES a drug given to prevent miscarriages, which didn't prevent miscarriages, caused cancer, infertility and many other serious problems for children. These are a few of the many topics addressed in "Our Stolen Future, Are We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence and Survival? A Scientific Detective Story" By Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, John Peterson Myers."