Toxic Warning for the Chemical Industry

Potential bad news for the chemical industry. At The New York Times, Nicholas Kristof reports on a study%u214published in the peer-reviewed journal Current Opinion in Pediatrics%u214suggesting a link between %u21Cenvironmental exposures experienced prenatally%u21D and autism.

Even more troubling, at Slate, there%u219s a piece explaining that the Danes believe (the research was published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism) their penises are shrinking compared to those of their neighbors%u214and again researchers are suggesting that pre-natal expose to environmental toxins might be the problem.

I%u219m sure chemical companies are already tracking this issue, and are weighing possible strategies. If history is any guide, the industry response will follow the familiar path (initially devised by the tobacco industry, currently deployed by climate change deniers) that begins with denial and proceeds through efforts to portray the science as %u21Cuncertain%u21D until eventually some sort of compromise can be negotiated.

It%u219s an approach that might still work. On the plus side (from the industry perspective) autism is a subject that has attracted all kinds of paranoid pseudoscience in the past%u214and the anti-vaccine crowd is so invested in its cause that it%u219s unlikely to embrace a new villain%u214which has the potential to cloud the issue. On the other hand, even the hard-line GOP anti-science crowd might get a little nervous if they think the pee-pees of their sons and heirs are shrinking. Surely American penis size is an issue of national pride?