Abboud, Alexis J. (Author)
Maienschein, Jane A. (Advisor)
Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that interact with the hormone system to negative effect. They ‘disrupt’ normal processes to cause diseases like vaginal cancer and obesity, reproductive issues like t-shaped uteri and infertility, and developmental abnormalities like spina bifida and cleft palate. These chemicals are ubiquitous in our daily lives, components in everything from toothpaste to microwave popcorn to plastic water bottles. My dissertation looks at the history, science, and regulation of these impactful substances in order to answer the question of how endocrine disruptors appeared, got interpreted by different groups, and what role science played in the process. My analysis reveals that endocrine disruptors followed a unique science policy trajectory in the US, rapidly going from their proposal in 1991 to their federal regulation in 1996, even amid intense and majority scientific disagreement over whether the substances existed at all. That trajectory resulted from the work of a small number of scientist-activists who constructed a concept and category as scientific, social, and regulatory. By playing actors from each sphere against each other and advancing a very specific scientific narrative that fit into a regulatory and social window of opportunity in the 1990s, those scientist-activists made endocrine disruptors a national issue that few could ignore. Those actions resulted in the Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program, a heavily-criticized and ineffective regulatory program. My dissertation tells a story of the past that informs the present. In 2018, the work of researchers, public media, and policymakers in the 1990s continues to play out, evident in the deep scientific division over endocrine disrupting effects and the inability of the European Union to settle on even a definition of endocrine disruptors for regulation purposes.
...More
Article
Gail Davies;
(2021)
Locating the ‘culture wars’ in laboratory animal research: National constitutions and global competition
(/isis/citation/CBB369219796/)
Article
Andrey Vozyanov;
(June 2018)
Solution into problem: Ukrainian Marshrutka and Romanian maxi-taxi at the fall of planning paradigms after 1990
(/isis/citation/CBB504216233/)
Article
Jennie L Durant;
(October 2020)
Ignorance loops: How non-knowledge about bee-toxic agrochemicals is iteratively produced
(/isis/citation/CBB459611870/)
Book
Mario Daniels;
John Krige;
(2022)
Knowledge Regulation and National Security in Postwar America
(/isis/citation/CBB238236707/)
Book
Mark Aldrich;
(2018)
Back on Track: American Railroad Accidents and Safety, 1965–2015
(/isis/citation/CBB660965999/)
Article
Gwen Ottinger;
(2022)
Misunderstanding Citizen Science: Hermeneutic Ignorance in U.S. Environmental Regulation
(/isis/citation/CBB618398697/)
Article
Arlen, Gary;
(Spring 2010)
Broadband Velocity
(/isis/citation/CBB896401008/)
Article
Arthur Daemmrich;
(2019)
Welcoming (Newbie) Scholars to the Field
(/isis/citation/CBB904595256/)
Article
Sarah Babb;
(2021)
The Privatization of Human Research Ethics: An American Story
(/isis/citation/CBB733380502/)
Article
Evan Hepler-Smith;
(July 2019)
Molecular Bureaucracy: Toxicological Information and Environmental Protection
(/isis/citation/CBB364814374/)
Book
Paul A. Vanden Bout;
Robert L. Dickman;
Adele L. Plunkett;
(2023)
The ALMA Telescope
(/isis/citation/CBB223292385/)
Book
Altenstetter, Christa;
(2014)
Medical Technology in Japan: The Politics of Regulation
(/isis/citation/CBB001422095/)
Chapter
Jas, Nathalie;
(2013)
Adapting to “Reality”: The Emergence of an International Expertise on Food Additives and Contaminants in the 1950s and early 1960s
(/isis/citation/CBB001420171/)
Article
Colleen Lanier-Christensen;
(September 2021)
Creating Regulatory Harmony: The Participatory Politics of OECD Chemical Testing Standards in the Making
(/isis/citation/CBB606231580/)
Article
Kristrún Gunnarsdóttir;
Kjetil Rommetveit;
(2017)
The Biometric Imaginary: (dis)trust in a Policy Vacuum
(/isis/citation/CBB939896615/)
Book
Andrew Jennks Andrew Jenks;
(2021-11-02)
Collaboration in Space and the Search for Peace on Earth
(/isis/citation/CBB262469655/)
Article
Marcin Krasnodębski;
(2022)
Lost Green Chemistries: History of Forgotten Environmental Trajectories
(/isis/citation/CBB872447698/)
Book
Rothenberg, Albert;
(2015)
Flight from Wonder: An Investigation of Scientific Creativity
(/isis/citation/CBB001510110/)
Book
Shobita Parthasarathy;
(2017)
Patent Politics: Life Forms, Markets, and the Public Interest in the United States and Europe
(/isis/citation/CBB986453775/)
Book
Andrés Luque-Ayala;
Simon Marvin;
(2020)
Urban Operating Systems: Producing the Computational City
(/isis/citation/CBB430857803/)
Be the first to comment!