In The News Chlorine Family Unsafe Scientists warn about health woes (By Glennda Chui San Jose Mercury News) Concern is growing among scientists, wildlife experts and public health officials that a widely used class of chemicals may cause serious problems in people and the environment - including breast cancer, neurological problems in children and deformities and infertility in wildlife. In the past two years, the case against chlorine compounds has prompted an international commission to set an end to their discharge into the Great Lakes and let the nation's largest group of public health professionals to recommend that many be phased out. Few man-made chemicals are as pervasive as those in the chlorine family. Chlorine is used in making 96 percent of all pesticides, 85 percent of all drugs and every computer chip that roles of the line. Chlorine compounds dry-clean our clothes, bleach our laundry, form plastics and vinyls, and disinfect our swimming pools and drinking water. Some are so persistent that they have penetrated every corner of the globe and found their way into virtually everybody on Earth. Toxic Chemical Environmentalists charge that very few of the chlorinated compounds have been adequately tested. Of those that have been, virtually all have proven toxic, said Greenpeace spokesman Jack Weinberg. Indeed, this toxicity is one of chlorine's most desirable properties: it kills pests, dissolves dirt on clothing and kill bacteria in laundry or in hospitals. But recent studies show that some of the 11,000 or more compounds known as chlorinated organics can act in a more insidious way: Rather then poisoning outright or causing cancer or major birth defects, they either mimic or block the body's natural hormones, especially the female hormone estrogen. Researchers are just beginning to unravel how these estrogenic chemicals work, how many of them exist and how widespread they are in the environment. No one yet knows whether there is such a thing as a safe level of exposure. Yet some studies indicate that even slight exposure to one of these compounds at a critical stage of development can cause subtle defects that may show up only later in life as neurological damage or inability to reproduce. Test used to check the safety of chemical, which are geared toward cancer and obvious birth defects would not catch such damage. No one is suggesting that all uses of chlorine are dangerous. But because so little is known about the thousands of chemicals that include chlorine, some suggest that the whole group should be considered suspect until proven safe - the reverse of how most chemicals are approved. Phaseout Called For Greenpeace has been calling for phaseout of chlorine compounds in every area of life - a move that critics say could cost consumers $90 billion a year and 370,000 jobs. The Chlorine Chemistry Council has vigorously opposed a phaseout, insisting that the campaign against chlorine is unfair and founded on bad science. Now, in the latest blow to chlorine's reputation, the 30,000 members of American Public Health Associaion has passed a resolution calling on industry to either prove the thousands of chlorine compounds are safe or eliminate them until substitutes are found. Although it set no timetable, the association asked for "measurable and progressive" reduction of chlorine uses in two areas: in the pulp and paper industry and in the class of chemicals that are known to deplete the ozone layer. The vote, which came late last month as the association's annual meeting in San Francisco, marked a turnaround for the chlorine industry. Several studies have linked chlorine compounds in the lakes to deformities and health problems in 14 species, including humans. For instance, children of women who had eaten Great Lakes fish had short-term memory problems and other neurological defects, as well as low birth weight and small heads. The only way to end the contamination and the damage is to stop using the compound, the commission concluded.