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Pioneering Scientist Theo Colborn Dies At Age 87

TEDX

Last weekend, Theo Colborn passed away at the age of 87.  She was the founder of TEDX in Paonia, and a leader in research into endocrine disruption. 

She had what TEDX executive director Carol Kwiatkowski called a varied life.  Starting as a pharmacist in New Jersey, she moved to Colorado to be a sheep rancher with her family.  After raising her four children, she went back to school in her early 50’s, earning her PhD at age 58.  She then started working on the relationship between certain chemicals and the endocrine system. 

“She really became the driving force behind this work,” said Kwiatkowski, who worked with Theo for the past six years, “by being the one who initially identified the convergence, or she caused the convergence, of science that was being conducted in wildlife, humans, laboratories, recognizing that there are chemicals in the environment that at very low concentrations can get in our bodies and affect the endocrine system." 

"The loss is great but the impact will continue to reverberate"

“The reason that’s so important is that hormones operate at extremely low concentrations.  This was about things in our everyday lives: our homes, our workplaces, in the air, the water.  Really part of the fabric of society.  And yet by getting into our bodies and affecting the endocrine system, they’re causing a whole variety health problems.  Mostly along the lines of chronic disease.”

The following is a clip of an interview that Theo did at KVNF a while back, where she talks about a focus of her later work: fracking.

interview_clip.mp3
Theo Colborn

“The irony of all of this,” said Colborn, “is that every single one of the chemicals that we know and are on the list of endocrine disruptors either were derived from processing natural gas, believe it or not, or from the cracking of crude oil, some of the byproducts of that, and the burning of coal.  Many of the metals that go up the stack now, we’ve learned [they’re harmful] at very very low doses, much lower doses than we though they were when we were looking at them from a toxicological approach than from the endocrinological approach.  So this, to many of us who have been working in this field for many years, is a real breakthrough.

“Her legacy,” says Kwiatkowski, “it’s really reflected in the hundreds of scientist whose careers were changed because of what she introduced them to, and opened their eyes to, the hundreds of activist who jumped onboard with trying to help change the laws.  As well, she mentored many women scientists, several generations of women scientists.  She really just touched the hearts of so many people.  At TEDX we constantly get phone calls from people, often young people, who say, ‘I read Theo’s book and it changed my life.’  People are referring to the book titled “Our Stolen Future,” which was written in 1996 and it tells the story of endocrine disruption.”

“She’s inspired so many people that have taken off in their own directions with this work and this message that there’s a huge hole.  It’s hard to sometimes even image a world without the energy of Theo in it.  At the same time, I think she is ever present in a way.  People are driven by her work and her being, and I think that will continue.  The loss is great but the impact will continue to reverberate for many many generations to come,” says Kwiatkowski.

Anyone with stories about Theo is invited to share them on the TEDX website.  

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