The Endocrine Society is one of the world's leading organizations in endocrinology. Founded in 1917 and composed of more than 15,000 members from over 100 countries, it publishes 7 scientific journals that are internationally recognized. Andrea Cicolella explains in his book "Toxic planet - the invisible scandal of chronic diseases"^[i]At its congress in June 2009, the society launched the Washington Declaration on the basis of a report supported by nearly 500 scientific references. Ana Soto, a professor of biology at Tufts University in Boston and the author of the Wingspread call, was one of the seven authors of the statement, which was intended to expand the known consequences of endocrine disruptors to include behavioral and metabolic disorders. It reads:

The evidence for reproductive outcomes of concern (infertility, cancer, malformations) from endocrine disruptor exposure is strong. In addition, there are a growing number of effects, such as thyroid, neuroendocrine, obesity and metabolic effects, insulin and glucose homeostasis.

Ana Soto defines an endocrine disruptor as follows:

An endocrine disruptor is a natural or synthetic substance that, through environmental exposure or inappropriate exposure during development, alters the hormonal and homeostatic systems that allow the body to communicate and respond to its environment.

According to this researcher, a paradigm shift regarding the consequences of endocrine disruptors is essential and 5 points should be reviewed.

• The age of exposure to these disruptive molecules is essential: "it is the period that makes the poison, because the impacts are always consecutive to the exposure during the gestation period. "
• There is no clear and known time lag between the elapsed time, exposure and consequences of endocrine disruptors. The morbid effects can indeed manifest themselves very long after the exposure and sometimes even when no trace of poison is detectable (except by energetic means) in the body.
• It highlighted the importance of interactions between chemicals. This is called the cocktail effect. If a substance alone can have no effect at a given concentration, at these same concentrations this same substance combined with another can have disastrous effects.
• Ana Soto also explains that the effect of some toxic molecules was more marked at low doses and that it was even possible that they had no effect at high doses. This viewpoint seems delusional to most scientists. However, this is the principle of homeopathy, a principle that has been known for over 200 years.
• The last point is that there would be transgenerational effects. This fact has been confirmed by numerous scientific studies on animals. Exposed to toxic substances during the uterine stage, they sometimes showed disorders during their growth period and in adulthood. But more surprisingly, metabolic disorders were also observed in their offspring, offspring that had not been directly exposed themselves.

In 2011, in the text of the Wingspread statement^[ii] (Réseau Environnement Santé - downloadable in PDF on the Internet), we could already read " ... many populations of wild animals are already affected by compounds of phytosanitary products (malfunctioning of the thyroid, reduced fertility, malformations, metabolic anomalies, feminization of males, masculinization of females, behavioral abnormalities, immune deficiency) and that humans are also affected by these compounds, as the example of distilbene already showed it "Thus, for the 21 scientists who participated in its drafting, no doubt is allowed. There is an urgent need to act and to control the contamination of the environment by endocrine disruptors.

This is a sobering thought about the exposure of pregnant women to toxins, as well as what we pass on to our children. It is known that in the early 2000s, there were already nearly 300 toxic substances in the blood of the umbilical cord of a newborn, and given the increasing number of chemicals that surround us, this has probably not decreased since then.

[i] "Toxic Planet - The invisible scandal of chronic diseases" - Andrea Cicolella - Editions Anthropocene Seuil, 2013

[ii] http://reseau-environnement-sante.fr/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/LA_DECLARATION_DE_WINGSPREAD.pdf