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This
is a most unusual book. The product of a collaboration by three
authors, it uses an untraditional style to present a message that
transcends traditional knowledge concerning synthetic chemicals,
their safety, and how we perceive risk. The three of us who worked
on this book—Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, and Pete Myers—each
brought different talents and experience to the task and played
a different role in getting this book to press,. We entered into
this collaboration because the increasingly complex problems facing
us at the close of the twentieth century demand such cooperative
efforts. They require more than any single individual can bring
to the challenge.
Theo
Colborn's seven years of work synthesizing the research on endocrine-disrupting
chemicals and her extensive data have provided the scientific
foundation for this effort. Dianne Dumanoski's challenge was to
take the complex science and transform it into a story that would
be accessible to everyone, including those without any scientific
background. Dianne, who has reported and written about environmental
science and policy for twenty-five years, supplemented this information
through additional research and interviews. Pete Myers brought
a background in science, as well as extensive experience in national
and international environmental policy, adding another valuable
dimension to our thinking. The authors developed and refined the
book's structure and argument together, working closely and regularly
in long sessions through much of the writing.
Since
this is still an unfolding scientific mystery, it is told as a
detective story with Theo Colborn and Pete Myers appearing as
figures in the text, as do the other scientists who have played
key roles. The first part of this story takes the reader through
Theo's process of discovery as she reviewed the scientific literature
concerning the health effects of synthetic chemicals on wildlife
and humans. Theo is the sleuth in this scientific mystery not
only because she really played such a role but also because we
think this approach will engage the reader. As the book moves
beyond Theo's early detective work, it begins to discuss the evidence
and reflects the thinking of all three of us.
We
live in a complex world that is going to require innovative approaches
to deal with the problems technology has created. It has taken
a nontraditional approach—involving extensive cooperation
among experts from many disciplines—to reveal the nature
of the chemicals that are stealing our future. Just as scientists
had to break with convention to uncover this problem, we found
we had to break with literary convention to tell the story of
their discovery.
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Our
Stolen Future
by
Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski
and John Peterson Myers
$15.00
Softcover
- 316 pages
ARE
WE THREATENING OUR FERTILITY, INTELLIGENCE, AND SURVIVAL?
A SCIENTIFIC DETECTIVE STORY
Over
thirty years ago, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring first warned
that man-made chemicals were taking a deadly toll on birds and wildlife.
Only now however, are we recognizing the full consequences of this insidious
threat, which is derailing sexual development and reproduction—not
only in a host of animal populations but, it appears, in humans as well.
Written
by two leading environmental scientists and an award-winning environmental
journalist, Our Stolen Future has already become one of the most
controversial and talked about books of the decade. Picking up where
Silent Spring left off, this groundbreaking work gives an utterly
gripping account that traces birth defects, sexual abnormalities, and
reproductive failures in wildlife to their source—synthetic chemicals
that mimic natural hormones, upsetting normal reproductive and developmental
processes. And humans appear far from immune to the effects of these
"hormone impostors." Male sperm counts have dropped as much
as 50 percent in recent decades, while women have suffered a dramatic
rise in hormone-related cancers, endometriosis, and other disorders.
By threatening the ability to reproduce, these chemicals may be invisibly
undermining the human future. Piecing together the clues, the authors
detail how these industrial pollutants have spread with ease through
the web of life from the equator to the poles, and explore what we can
and must do to combat this invasion. Timely, urgent and scrupulously
reported, this riveting story of scientific detection will have a major
impact on public debate for decades to come. It is indispensable for
those concerned about the profound human impact on the environment,
the well being of our children, and the survival of our species.
"Its
subject is so important and its story so powerful that it deserves to
be read by the widest possible audience."
—New
York Times Book Review
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