Claim: Some grocery store receipts contain chemicals linked to infertility and hormone-related cancers.
Verdict: SUPPORTS

Retrieved passages:
title: Deborah Cadbury
text: interviews she conducted with scientists around the world and outlines the process of scientific investigation into how chemicals such as DDT, PCBs, alkyl phenols, bi-phenols, phthalates, and dioxins may be contributing to phenomenon such as increased breast cancer rates, decreased sperm counts, and abnormalities in male genital development whose full impact "has yet to be realized." However, scientists in the book caution that more evidence is needed to confirm the exact causes and effects of the phenomenon being observed. In their estimation, it is too early in the process to make definitive statements as to the dangers exposure to these

title: Risk factors for breast cancer
text: amines have been found to cause mammary cancer in rats. Studies have shown that women who eat higher amounts of overcooked meat, meaning more exposure to heterocyclic amines, have also been diagnosed with more post-menopausal breast cancer. Heterocyclic amines also have the ability to copy estrogen and in laboratory studies have been found to encourage the growth of cancerous tumors on human tissue. Benzene is a petrochemical solvent. Benzene exposure mostly originates from air pollution resulting from industrial burning, exhaust and gas fumes, as well as cigarette smoke. Petroleum, its distillates such as gasoline, auto and truck exhausts also contain

title: Pinkwashing (breast cancer)
text: and toluene. The "pinkwashing" issue is not limited to Komen and its sponsors. In 2007, the Estée Lauder Pink Ribbon Collection series used a donation to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) to promote products containing parabens, chemicals linked to breast cancer. In 2012, the Food and Drug Administration had connected 5-Hour Energy drinks, a caffeinated energy shot promoted using a Living Beyond Breast Cancer (LBBC) sponsorship as cause marketing, to thirteen deaths and serious injuries, including heart attacks. In 2008, Think Before You Pink launched an online campaign against Yoplait, the national sponsor of Susan G. Komen's annual walk.

title: Sandra Steingraber
text: ideals that Rachel Carson expressed in her seminal book, "Silent Spring". Carson discusses a woman with bladder cancer and investigates research how and why cancer is linked to the environment. Steingraber stresses issues such as how chemical pesticides find their way into human bodies. She states, "in 1996 a study investigated six-fold excess of bladder cancer among workers exposed years before to o-toluidine and aniline in the rubber chemicals department of a manufacturing plant in upstate New York. Levels of these contaminants are now well within their legal workplace limits and yet blood and urine samples collected from current employees

title: Susan G. Komen for the Cure
text: A longitudinal study found that women employed in the automotive plastics industry are almost five times as likely to develop breast cancer prior to menopause, compared to women in a control group. In April 2010, Komen paired with fast food restaurant chain KFC to offer "Buckets for the Cure," a promotion in which fried and grilled chicken was sold in pink branded buckets. The collaboration garnered criticism from media outlets, including "The Colbert Report" and "Bitch" magazine, and raised criticisms about the promotion of unhealthy eating habits, as KFC chicken is known to contain carcinogenic chemicals. KFC contributed over $4.2

title: Ovarian cancer
text: surgeries that affect risk for ovarian cancer. Cohort studies have found a correlation between dairy consumption and ovarian cancer, but case-control studies do not show this correlation. There is mixed evidence regarding the effect of red meat and processed meat in ovarian cancer. Tentative evidence suggests that talc, pesticides, and herbicides increase the risk of ovarian cancer. The American Cancer Society notes that as of now, no study has been able to accurately link any single chemical in the environment, or in the human diet, directly to mutations that cause ovarian cancer. Alcohol consumption does not appear to be related

title: Whole Foods Market
text: companies' failure to warn consumers the fish contained potentially dangerous levels of cancer-causing chemicals known as PCBs. In February 2006, shareholders of Whole Foods filed a resolution asking Whole Foods to report toxic chemicals found in its products. Substances such as Bisphenol A (BPA), found in products such as baby bottles and children's cups, are controversial. Whole Foods no longer sells baby bottles and children's cups made with BPA. In the wake of concern over the safety of seafood imports from China, on July 10, 2007, "The Washington Post" reported that Whole Foods imports a small amount of frozen shrimp

title: Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976
text: and female fertility can be compromised from exposure to toxic chemicals. For example, farm workers including a large number of seasonal migrant workers are exposed to variety of occupational risks and hazards. Communities near agricultural farms may be at higher risk for exposure to pesticides. Farm workers are exposed to pesticide-related illness from the use of chemicals that can have delayed health effect such as cancer and reproductive dysfunction. Among the chemicals farmers get exposed, Dibromochloropropane (DBCP), a soil fumigant used to control nematodes can lead to "testicular toxicity and human reproductive dysfunction." Other health problems from their exposure to

title: Human reproductive ecology
text: hormones found in the environment and plastics such as Bisphenol A (BPA) have been thought to affect sexual development in humans at the prenatal or postnatal stage. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), BPA found in plastic bottles and containers leaches into foods and liquids when warmed up, as in the case of plastic baby bottles, and traces of the chemical were found in more than 90% of the U.S. population studied. BPA is of concern because it interferes with the actions of estrogen which is needed as a developmental and reproductive regulator. Most of the

title: Villejuif leaflet
text: East, and Africa. Journalists working for newspapers distributed the list of alleged carcinogens verbatim; even a 1984 book written by a medical doctor aiming at informing the general public about the dangers of cancer included the substances in the flyer in a list of carcinogens, without checking the flyer's accuracy. It was reproduced many times by many individuals as friends sought to inform other friends of the harmful chemicals in their food, and in the course of uncontrolled copying a version of the leaflet included the name of the Villejuif Hospital, making victims to the rumour believe that the list

title: Human sex ratio
text: Inuit villages in Greenland and Canada, and attributed this imbalance to high levels of endocrine disruptors in the blood of inhabitants, including PCBs and DDT. These chemicals are believed to have accumulated in the tissues of fish and animals that make up the bulk of these populations' diets. However, as noted in the Social factors section below, it is important to exclude alternative explanations, including social ones, when examining large human populations whose composition by ethnicity and race may be changing. A 2008 report provides further evidence of effects of feminizing chemicals on male development in each class of vertebrate

title: Endocrine disruptor
text: Falkenberg asking for the criteria to be removed. The European Commission had been to set criteria by December 2013 identifying endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in thousands of products — including disinfectants, pesticides and toiletries — that have been linked to cancers, birth defects and development disorders in children. However, the body delayed the process, prompting Sweden to state that it would sue the commission in May 2014 — blaming chemical industry lobbying for the disruption. “This delay is due to the European chemical lobby, which put pressure again on different commissioners. Hormone disrupters are becoming a huge problem. In some

title: Endocrine disruptor
text: phthalate (DBP) has also disrupted insulin and glucagon signaling in animal models. PFOA exerts hormonal effects including alteration of thyroid hormone levels. Blood serum levels of PFOA were associated with an increased time to pregnancy — or "infertility" — in a 2009 study. PFOA exposure is associated with decreased semen quality. PFOA appeared to act as an endocrine disruptor by a potential mechanism on breast maturation in young girls. A C8 Science Panel status report noted an association between exposure in girls and a later onset of puberty. Some other examples of putative EDCs are polychlorinated dibenzo-dioxins (PCDDs) and -furans

title: Risk factors for breast cancer
text: growing body of evidence indicates that exposures to certain toxic chemicals and hormone-mimicking compounds including chemicals used in pesticides, cosmetics and cleaning products contribute to the development of breast cancer. The increasing prevalence of these substances in the environment may explain the increasing incidence of breast cancer, though direct evidence is sparse. Bisphenol A (BPA) is a chemical compound used in the production of plastics found in numerous commercial products, including laptops, baby bottles, food containers, water main pipes, and laboratory and hospital equipment. BPA was first produced in 1891, but its estrogenic properties went undiscovered until the mid-1930s. Today

title: Risk factors for breast cancer
text: evidence to prove that any kind of Brassiere can cause cancer. The myth that breast cancer is linked with deodorant use has been widely circulated, and appears to originate from a spam email sent in 1999. There is however no evidence to support the existence of such a link. There is no persuasive connection between fertility medications and breast cancer. The results of the studies about the influence of dietary folic acid on breast cancer have been contradictory. In past centuries, the development of breast cancer was most commonly seen as divine punishment or a trial. From ancient Greek medicine

title: Health effects of pesticides
text: of cancer have been found among farm workers who apply these chemicals. A mother's occupational exposure to pesticides during pregnancy is associated with an increases in her child's risk of leukemia, Wilms' tumor, and brain cancer. Exposure to insecticides within the home and herbicides outside is associated with blood cancers in children. Evidence links pesticide exposure to worsened neurological outcomes. The United States Environmental Protection Agency finished a 10-year review of the organophosphate pesticides following the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act, but did little to account for developmental neurotoxic effects, drawing strong criticism from within the agency and from outside

title: Environmental toxicants and fetal development
text: of miscarriages. Paternal occupational exposure to toluene and formaldehyde has also been linked to miscarriage in their partners. Normal development is highly controlled by hormones, and disruption by man made chemicals can permanently change the course of development. Ambient ozone has been negatively associated with sperm concentration in men, chemicals associated with UOG operations (e.g., benzene, toluene, formaldehyde, ethylene glycol and ozone) have been associated with negative impacts on semen quality, particularly reduced sperm counts. A 2011 study found a relationship between Neural Tube Defects and maternal exposure to benzene, a compound associated with natural gas extraction. The study found

title: Gideon Koren
text: fortification of flour with folic acid in Canada has resulted in a dramatic decrease in neuroblastoma, an early and very dangerous cancer in young children. Through over 500 research papers on drugs in pregnancy, Koren has identified drugs and chemicals that are damaging to the fetus (e.g., organic solvents, corticosteroids, lithium, misoprostol), and those that are safe to take (e.g., paxil, calcium channel blockers, prozac). Koren and coauthors analyzed the estimated cost and actual burden to society caused by nausea with and without vomiting among the pregnant woman associated with the Hospital for Sick Children's Motherisk program. However, a later

title: Bag It (film)
text: Calls to the American Chemical Society prove to be fruitless. He later discovers that plastics contain chemicals such as [phthalate]s that can carry adverse effects to newborn babies, including decreased anogenital distance. Berrier reflects on the rising rates of male infertility and other such as diabetes, obesity and attention deficit disorder, linking it to the ever-present problem of plastics. The average consumer household products such as baby shampoos are also found to contain unsafe levels of phthalates. When Jeb's partner, Anne, gives birth, the film gets personal and looks at recently controversial chemicals such as Bisphenol A found in plastics.

title: Silent Spring
text: contradicted by the bulk of the scientific literature she had been studying. She also wondered about the possible "financial inducements behind certain pesticide programs". Research at the Library of Medicine of the National Institutes of Health brought Carson into contact with medical researchers investigating the gamut of cancer-causing chemicals. Of particular significance was the work of National Cancer Institute researcher and founding director of the environmental cancer section Wilhelm Hueper, who classified many pesticides as carcinogens. Carson and her research assistant Jeanne Davis, with the help of NIH librarian Dorothy Algire, found evidence to support the pesticide-cancer connection; to Carson