one in 100 children has an autism spectrum disorder 
and among boys the occurrence is one in 58; one in 
125 boys is born with hypospadias, a condition 
where the urethra does not open at the end of the 
penis; in 2007, an age-independent decline in testos-
terone levels over the past twenty years was discov-
ered in American men; and declines in male repro-
ductive health have been traced back to damage in 
the womb; 
(6) evidence from human epidemiological and 
laboratory animal studies links these disorders to 
prenatal and later life exposure to endocrine dis-
rupting chemicals (EDCs); 
(7) the endocrine system is a complex system of 
organs regulated by over eighty known hormones as 
well as hundreds of auxiliary chemical signaling sys-
tems, and it assures the perpetuity and integrity of 
human life; 
(8) recent bio-monitoring demonstrates that 
embryos, fetuses, infants, and children in the United 
States carry hundreds of synthetic chemicals in their 
blood and tissue, including EDCs, and similar re-
sults have been found for adults; 
(9) thousands of chemicals have become an in-
tegral part of confined environments (homes, 
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schools, cars, planes, offices, theaters, malls), con-
tributing to continual, ubiquitous exposure, and it is 
vital to be able to identify which are EDCs; 
(10) many plant and animal species are show-
ing signs of ill health due to exposure to endocrine 
disrupting chemicals, which can cause small, but 
critical, changes in the chemical makeup of an envi-
ronment that are enough to trigger outcomes that 
could lead to population decline and loss of biodiver-
sity; 
(11) one out of five male black bass in nine 
river basins across the United States exhibit intersex 
organs and up to 100 percent of smallmouth bass at 
some sites in the Potomac River basin during 
spawning season exhibit the same organ changes, 
which scientists say suggests they have been exposed 
to EDCs; 
(12) all vertebrates (fish, amphibians, reptiles, 
birds, and mammals, including humans) are fun-
damentally similar during early embryonic develop-
ment, so scientists can use the evidence acquired on 
other species to make predictions about endocrine 
disrupting effects on humans; 
(13) traditional toxicology and risk assessment, 
which evaluate one chemical at a time, and only at 
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high concentrations, have failed to sufficiently ad-
dress the effects of low doses of chemicals at mul-
tiple early life stages and have not prevented the 
alarming increase of endocrine disorders sweeping 
across the Northern Hemisphere; 
(14) since the early 1990s, independent govern-
ment-funded scientists in academic and institutional 
laboratories around the world have published data 
demonstrating the ability of a broad selection of 
chemicals to interfere with human development and 
function by affecting a number of endocrine mecha-
nisms, and have discovered endocrine disruptive ef-
fects for some widely used chemicals at concentra-
tions several thousand times lower than government 
‘‘safe’’ levels derived through traditional toxicological 
tests; 
(15) these scientists have developed a new para-
digm for disease, the developmental basis of disease, 
which states that disease starts during development 
and is influenced by exposures to environmental 
chemicals, stress and nutrition interacting on the de-
veloping organism; 
(16) the developmental basis of disease changes 
the focus from curing disease to prevention and to 
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understanding 
gene-environment-nutrition 
inter-
actions during development; 
(17) the National Institute of Environmental 
Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the National Toxi-
cology Program (NTP) have conducted important 
studies on the environmental connection to human 
diseases, and have in place a 5-tier scale of concern 
by which to evaluate chemicals based on the weight 
of scientific evidence and toxicity and exposure infor-
mation; 
(18) while research has established that expo-
sure to EDCs induces delayed toxicity that results in 
disease weeks, months, years, or decades later in 
life, Federal regulatory agencies generally are not 
using the results of this research to restrict produc-
tion and use of even the most egregious chemicals; 
(19) although Congress directed the Environ-
mental Protection Agency in the Food Quality Pro-
tection Act of 1996 to develop, not later than Au-
gust 3, 1998, ‘‘a screening program using appro-
priate validated test systems and other scientifically 
relevant information, to determine whether certain 
substances may have an effect in humans that is 
similar to an effect produced by a naturally occur-
ring estrogen, or such other endocrine effect as the 
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Administrator may designate’’, the Agency did not 
release test orders announcing the availability of ini-
tial standardized screens and testing protocols until 
October 21, 2009, and no chemical has been tested 
for its impact on development and function from fer-
tilization to birth, despite the expenditure of more 
than $100,000,000; 
(20) given these delays and the alarming trends 
in endocrine-related disorders, the United States 
must expeditiously take preventive action based on 
an entirely new approach to reducing children’s ex-
posure before birth to EDCs; and 
(21) the costs to society of not taking action in-
clude medical expenses of treating these chronic dis-
eases, lost productivity, impaired fertility, com-
promised quality of life for those affected, their fam-
ilies and communities, so prevention is the key. 
(b) POLICIES AND GOALS.—It is the policy of the 
United States— 
(1) to promote family health and the perpetua-
tion of the human species as a paramount national 
goal, recognizing that in order to protect the em-
bryo, fetus, and infant during their most vulnerable 
stages of development, parents’ bodies must be free 
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