In response to one of the biggest health scares of the 1990s, last year federal legislators passed amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Food Quality Protection Act. The scare: Increased reports worldwide of altered endocrine function, such as lowered sperm counts and reproductive abnormalities caused by chemicals, termed "endocrine disruptors." One study that initiated the greatest concern was from Tulane University in 1996 that suggested a 1,600-fold increase in risk of endocrine disruption when relatively small amounts of chemicals were combined.

But, as has become true with other alarming reports, this scare may not be real after all. In the July 25, 1997 issue of Science magazine, Dr. John A. McLachlan, one of the authors of the Tulane study, formally withdrew his original paper, stating "any conclusions drawn from this paper must be suspended until such time, if ever, the data can be substantiated." In fact, other scientists around the globe have not been able to duplicate the Tulane study. Dr. Stephen Safe, professor of toxicology at Texas A&M University commented: "It is clear that the best science now points to the conclusion that the endocrine effects of environmental chemicals are less harmful than had been suggested."

The scientific investigation continues. The EPA's Endocrine Disruptor Screening and Testing Advisory Committee will still develop and implement a screening program for EPA to submit to Congress by August 1999, and the National Academy of Sciences' study is scheduled to be released the end of this year. According to Assistant EPA Administrator, Lynn Goldman, "The retraction does not eliminate the scientific basis for regulatory concern over endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Scientific and regulatory realities are not that simple." It appears that the endocrine disruptors scare may have just been the latest example of placing too much emphasis on one study.