Won't Someone Tell Us the Truth?

Andrei Sakharov once wrote, “intellectual freedom is essential to human society -- freedom to obtain and distribute information, freedom for open-minded and unfearing debate and freedom from pressure by officialdom and prejudices. Such a trinity of freedom of thought is the only guarantee against an infection of people by mass myths, which, in the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues, can be transformed into bloody dictatorship.” Unlike Sakharov, we currently live in a non-dictatorial state that does not oppress its people. Yet, society continues to suffer mass myths at the public level which affect everyday lives.

For example, in 1998, the Natural Resources Defense Council, an organization that works to “ensure a safe and healthy environment for all living things” published on its website the following statement on the exposure of endocrine disruptors in the mass market:

“The majority of the more than 2,000 chemicals that come onto the market every year do not go through even the simplest tests to determine toxicity. Even when some tests are carried out, they do not assess whether or not a chemical has endocrine interfering properties.”

Our scientific community has proven this to be verifiably false. The FDA carries out four phases of studies and tests to determine the toxicity of products on the mass market. Study after study, it has been proven that risks of endocrine disruptors in plastics and other everyday items are non-existent. Yet, this “nationally-renowned” organization strives to confuse the public and create panic. They will argue that it is a simple fact of intellectual freedom: they are allowed to say whatever they want to say.

The question herein lies: where does intellectual freedom stop and verified evidence begin? Certainly, intellectual freedom has gone excessively far in the controversy over endocrine disruptors on the mass market. Won’t someone simply tell us the truth?