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Introduction

The concern over the effects of so-called Endocrine Disruptors (ED) has gained momentum over the last several years due in large part to communities, entities, and organizations such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Department of Transportation (DOT), colleges and universities, and business.

The Civil Rights movement in the United States in the 1960’s was the soil from which concern over disproportional burden upon people of color grew. The affected communities endeavored to address the seeming inequity of protection from toxins, including EDs, from the siting of Treatment, Storage, and Disposal Facilities (TSDF) in their communities. Thirty years later, in 1990, EPA officials met with a group of academics, community leaders, and social scientists to discuss their findings that health risks among people of color and low-income populations was greater than in other areas. As a result of these meetings, the EPA created the Environmental Equity Workgroup, which goal was to determine whether "racial minority and low-income populations bear a higher environmental risk burden than the general population." What came from this was a report, in 1992, entitled "Reducing Risk in All Communities," which determined that the allegations had merit. As a result, ten recommendations were made, including the creation of the Office of Environmental Equity, which was later renamed the Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ). "History of Environmental Justice." EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, n.d. Web. 08 Apr. 2014.

Milestones:
 * 1962 Cesar Chavez founds the United Farm Workers of America (UFW). It is now the largest farm workers union in the US. As part of the UFW agenda, protection was sought from toxic pesticides that were being used on farms/fields in California.
 * 1962 Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was published, discussing the harmful effects of pesticides. Many consider this publication to have been the genesis of ecological consciousness in America, and, subsequently, throughout the world.
 * 1969 Lawsuit filed on behalf of migrant farm workers eventually leads to the ban of the use of DDT in the US.
 * 1970 20,000,000 Americans celebrate the first Earth Day on April 22; The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created; The Clean Air Act is passed.
 * 1971 Council on Environmental Quality states that racial discrimination has an adverse affect on the environment of the urban poor.
 * 1972 Use of DDT banned in the US.
 * 1979 In Houston, people of color bring first Title VI lawsuit challenging the siting of a waste facility in their community.
 * 1972 Clean Water Act is enacted.
 * 1983 Public access to data from EPA regarding the health and safety data on pesticides mandated by lawsuit.
 * 1997 The U.S. and 121 other nations ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Congress refuses to ratify it.

Robert Bullard, Dean of the Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs at Texas Southern University, commented on the development and progress of the environmental movement over the last several decades “…when the executive order (EO 12898) was signed in 1994, there were just a couple of states that had environmental justice laws, or Executive Orders, or policies to deal with environmental justice. And today, every state in the country has some kind of environmental justice law, or Executive Order, or policy – [though] all of the regulations are not created equal.” He went on to say that the movement has grown beyond the courtroom and today almost every university has a course on environmental justice. Many have created EJ centers and/or legal clinics specializing exclusively on EJ. Exemplifying this growth is the fact that, in the early 1990’s, there were approximately 300 EJ organizations in the US. Today there are several thousand.

Community Responses: Mitigating Exposure

There have been many strategies employed in an effort to prevent disproportional burdening of low-income and minority populations, including litigation, creating governmental policies, mediation in the private and public sector, and grassroots action. Recently, Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) has achieved a measure of success by getting individual community members involved to gain onsite evidence to be used in holding agencies and industry accountable for their polluting. This has been an interdisciplinary effort that incorporates “citizen science,” community monitoring, and participatory research.

New Developments

There has been a metamorphosis of strategy over the last several years that seems to be a synthesis of two different movements: the reproductive rights movement, and the EJ movement. Although there is evidence to suggest that reproductive health is impacted by environmental conditions, there has been very little crossing over. Both movements could learn from the other. For example, the reproductive rights movement has vast experience, and good success with fundraising, coordinating, research, message development. Similarly, reproductive rights organizations would profit by embedding EJ issues into their campaigns. In this way, they are seen as committed to the broadest view of reproductive rights—one that extends beyond the bounds of abortion advocacy and family planning—and includes the right to have children who are not at risk of being harmed by the impact of environmental injustice.

Effects of Endocrine Disruptors

Toxins in the environment have a negative impact on human development, from conception through adulthood. The effects are numerous and include the endocrine disruption. This process is described as naturally occurring, or artificially occurring agents that, when introduced into the human lifecycle, alter normal hormone activity. Research has shown that exposure to these chemicals may be responsible for a range of health issues, from birth defects to cancer, to abnormal sexual behavior and the feminization of the male. One ED is especially problematic when fetal exposure occurs and that those problems may not appear for years after the exposed child is born: diethylstilbestrol (DES). DES was a synthetic estrogen that was used to treat women in order to reduce the occurrence of miscarriage before 1973, even though its effectiveness had not been demonstrated. Some time after, the treated women’s daughters showed a greater incidence of cancer and other abnormalities. The male children showed greater risk of anomalies in their genitals.

Herein above, we read about another aspect of these toxins and how they create chaos: cumulatively. It cannot be overstated that the cumulative effects of endocrine disruptors on humans is, by and large, not fully understood. Even so, research suggests that the impacts are great and varied.

Risk of cancer is increased by exposure to pesticides, as are miscarriages and birth defects. Children are particularly susceptible, as they are physically closer to the pesticide-saturated soil, are apt to put their hands and infected items (e.g., dirt) into their mouths and have direct contact with pesticides through their skin due to crawling and playing in affected areas (dirt fields, etc.). According to the National Resources Defense Council, Hispanic farmworkers in California have a much greater chance of contracting stomach, cervical, and uterine cancer, as well as leukemia (59%—69%) than other Hispanics in California.

Areas Of Greatest Impact

Air quality is better if you live in a non-poor area. Higher pollution rates tend to be found in areas where the poor live, and people of color are even more likely to live in areas of greater pollution. Coal powered plants are located primarily in poor, non-white communities. Seventy-six per cent of the people living within three miles of one of the worst of these plants are non-white whose per capita average income is less than $15,000.

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Eighty-eight per cent of American farmworkers are Hispanic. These workers are exposed to pesticides regularly, both on the job, and at home. These toxoids settle into drinking water, on their clothing, and—of course, in the air while working the fields. The most obvious/acute symptoms include diarrhea, nausea and vomiting, etc..

Workers who use pesticides in the field are frequently without the appropriate safety equipment, and/or have not received the proper training in how to apply them effectively. The U.S. Department of Labor, in a survey, found that water for washing is unavailable in 16% of all fields. This increases the time that workers are in contact with these toxins.