The first few weeks went to background research, as Spivak and Kissinger came up to speed on the history of endocrine disruptors and what government had done to regulate it. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was the government body charged with regulating chemicals in commercial use. The 1996 Food Quality Protection Act required EPA to screen the effects of pesticides on the human endocrine system, and to take action as necessary if it found harmful effects. To do this, the reporters learned, the EPA in 1998 had established an Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program (EDSP).

Through the month of June, the Journal Sentinel team read systematically through minutes of EDSP meetings dating back a decade. They also analyzed the agency’s budgets to see how its time and money were being spent. They discovered a treasure trove of data on a website maintained by the Endocrine Disruptor and Screening Testing Advisory Committee (EDSTAC), a federal committee formed in 1996 to recommend to EPA how to develop the screening and testing program.

Simultaneously, they started to contact government researchers, industry officials and scientists. They made phone calls both individually and as a team. This strategy allowed them to progress on separate tracks while also supporting one another as they gained expertise. “They [Spivak and Kissinger] were still trying to get on board and figure out what was going on, so it just seemed like we should all be together so that we could all hear what so-and-so was saying,” recalls Rust. They had no particular system for deciding who would be in on which call, recalls Spivak: “It was more common sense.” Spivak took the lead on business or political interviews; Rust on the science interviews; and Kissinger on the human-interest interviews.

At the EPA, for example, they reached spokesperson Enesta Jones. To speak for the industry, they turned to the American Chemical Council (ACC), the Arlington, VA-based trade group for the plastics industry. From both, they asked for references to studies they should consult. At first, recalls Spivak, “they were actually very innocent-type interviews. You know, give me your side and tell me what’s going on here.”

Spivak and Kissinger also read a landmark 1996 book by Theo Colburn, a zoologist and leading anti-BPA campaigner trained at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In her book, Our Stolen Future , Colburn documented abnormalities in wildlife along the Great Lakes, such as female gulls nesting together and a frog with an eye growing in its mouth. She blamed endocrine disruptors in the environment. The book caused a tremendous stir. Some scientists branded it “junk science,” but many regarded it as breakthrough research.

The team learned that Colburn’s message had started to percolate through to lawmakers—but very slowly. A handful of states—Maine, Massachusetts and Minnesota, for example—had introduced legislation to prohibit the manufacture or sale of toys made with certain endocrine disruptors. But to date, no law had passed.

The reporters also looked into what other countries were doing. To their surprise, they learned that concern was widespread—in Europe, Japan, South America, the Middle East and Mexico. The European Union, for example, had banned from cosmetic products 1,100 chemicals thought to cause cancer or reproductive harm. In early 2007, the EU passed a law requiring chemical companies to prove that their products were safe before bringing them to market. [1]

By late June, the reporters were coming to suspect that EPA had done nothing, or very little, to screen endocrine disruptors. Then-EPA Administrator Carol Browner in 1998 had appointed a panel of scientists to build a framework for screening the chemicals, but she left with the change of presidential administration in early 2001. In subsequent years, the EPA had appointed two more committees of academic and industry scientists to tackle the issue. But it clearly was not a Bush Administration priority. N ine years later, little had changed.

Kissinger increasingly felt it important to talk to Colburn—in a sense the grandmother of the anti-BPA faction. So in early July, she arranged a trip to remote Paonia, Colorado, where the 82-year-old scientist lived. When Spivak heard about it, he decided to go along. Rust was happy to send them off—she had met Colburn several times over the years, and was sure the other two reporters would learn a great deal from her. Colburn might also help to dispel some of their skepticism over Rust’s views. She explains:

I knew Cary, at least, if he didn’t believe that there was something actually going on with these chemicals, at least he would believe that there might be somewhat of a cover-up that was analogous to the tobacco situation.