It’s quite an intense and damning paper by authors Carol Duh-Leong, Christopher D. Kassotis, Laura Vandenberg et al. in the current issue of Nature about the extent of the Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals catastrophe facing the biosphere, yet, astonishingly, these scientists have also proposed solutions.

“This Review describes a set of evidence-based policy actions to manage, minimize or even eliminate the widespread use of these chemicals and better protect human health and society. A number of specific challenges exist: defining, identifying and prioritizing EDCs; considering the non-linear or non-monotonic properties of EDCs; accounting for EDC exposure effects that are latent and do not appear until later in life; and updating testing paradigms to reflect ‘real-world’ mixtures of chemicals and cumulative exposure.”—Carol Duh-Leong, Christopher D. Kassotis, Laura Vandenberg et al.,”The regulation of endocrine-disrupting chemicals to minimize their impact on health,”Nature Reviews Endocrinology, August 8, 2023

The  question is, what kind of tipping point may have already been reached because of the non-linear and cumulative effects of EDCs?  You can test animals for EDC exposure but the bulk of the biosphere is virus/microbe.

“The entire evolution of the microbial world and the virus world and the interaction between microbes and viruses and other life forms has been left out of the Modern Synthesis. . . . So indeed, the new understanding of evolution needs to integrate what we now know about viruses and virus-host interactions, which from my own perspective has been absolutely one of the key factors of all evolution since the emergence of cells — well, actually even before the emergence of cells.”—Eugene Koonin in 2015 conversation with me, The Paradigm Shifters:  Overthrowing ‘the Hegemony of the Culture of Darwin‘

“But part of the reason why such viruses linger in the news, [virologist Luis] Villarreal says, is the fact that we are spinning our wheels by regarding evolution as a linear process when it is clearly non-linear. In fact, Villarreal thinks we need a new language to deal with the dynamic of viruses, which exist as non-linear collective entities, i.e., consortia. He considers viruses active organisms that are not only the biggest component of the biomass but comprise 10% of the human genome. Villarreal goes as far as saying that “all living habitats . . . have and must operate in a virosphere” — Ex virus omnia (from virus everything) is his motto.”—Suzan Mazur, The Paradigm Shifters:  Overthrowing ‘the Hegemony of the Culture of Darwin‘

More on the EDC policy paper to come. . .

This originally appeared on Oscillations.net.