It dramatically compounds the hurdles that have to be passed to reach some assurances of safety. Those hurdles have implications in time and money. Under the old toxicology model, you have to bomb it. But suppose you can get one terrorist on board who substitutes for the pilot, and he can change the ship's course by a degree or two right when they take off. The new paradigm is saying you can hijack a cell's mechanisms.
Some researchers contend there is no dose of endocrine-disrupting chemicals small enough to be safe.
Detractors say this view is alarmist, absent compelling evidence of human harm and dependent on limited and flawed animal studies. Although he does not take issue with the merits of vom Saal's science, as others have done, he questions its broader significance. The human data suggest there isn't any effect of these things at all. We see wildlife effects, but the human effects, as far as I can see, don't exist. In animals, endocrine disruptors have been linked to eggshell thinning, altered sex ratios and creatures that show signs of both sexes.