EDC Science Weekly, May 15-21, 2026

A summary of articles on endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) added to PubMed this week.

Contents: Events, Regulations/Policy, Methods/Tools/Screening, Commentaries, Reviews/Meta-Analyses, Human Health Studies, Laboratory Studies, Exposure/Environment Studies

Highlights:

Effects of fluorinated ski wax bans on PFAS concentrations in indoor dust from ski waxing workspaces.
Immune perturbations following the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment.
Chemicals in particulate matter, gas-phase pollutants, and ash from the 2025 Los Angeles fires.
PFAS toxicity: What’s true, what’s not, and what really matters.

Science summaries and highlights

Events

May 21 webinar (today!): Hidden Harms: How plastics & chemicals in plastics impact children’s developing brains [CHE Alaska]

May 26 webinar: Virtual control groups in pre-clinical toxicity studies [ECHA]

May 29 conference: HEEDS EDC-North Carolina Annual Scientific Meeting (in person in Raleigh NC) [HEEDS]

June 2 webinar: Why highly persistent chemicals are always a hazard [ChemSec]

June 8-10: National PFAS Conference (in Tucson, AZ)

June 10: TSCA Reform: 10 years later (hybrid) [Environmental Law Institute]

June 15 due date for RFI: Facilitating Evidence Synthesis to Improve Decision-Making on Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals [Pew Charitable Trusts]

June 25 webinar: Reporting on Toxics & Health: Lessons from covering “forever chemicals” [CHE]

June 28 – July 3: New and emerging threats, approaches, and mitigation strategies for environmental endocrine disruptors [Gordon Research Conference] and accompanying Gordon Research Seminar June 27 – 28, Harnessing interdisciplinary evidence for endocrine disruption.

July 8-10: U.S. Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) annual meeting (Raleigh NC); Trainee day July 8.

July 15 due date: Call for papers: Bridging Human and Animal Studies to Better Understand How Environmental Factors Impact Human Reproductive and Developmental Health: Celebrating Professor Shanna H. Swan for Her Outstanding Achievements in the Field [Reproductive Toxicology]

Regulations/Policy

PFAS Policies and Reductions in Drinking Water Contamination Across the United States: Incorporated Policy Perspectives from Los Angeles Residents.

Wildfire smoke PM_2.5 as a growing source of emission and the challenges for current air quality regulations.

A study of liver toxicity within harmonised classifications under REACH.

Identifying the Gaps and Opportunities for NAMs Application in Regulatory Toxicology

More EDC policy, FPF’s regulations open for comment, and Science’s Trump-Tracker.

Methods/Tools/Screening

Towards advanced in vitro models of testicular steroidogenesis for endocrine disruption testing.

PlasticAnalytics: A Deep Learning-Powered Spectral Library and Analytical Suite.

Communicating Confidence in the Reliability of Micro- and Nanoplastic Identification in Human Health Studies.

Accelerating AOP Development in the AOP-Wiki with AI: A Practical Road Map for the Community.

ToxiGuard: an AOP-guided mechanistically interpretable framework for multi-organ toxicity prediction.

Workflow for Statistical Analysis of Environmental Mixtures.

Commentaries

PFAS Toxicity: What’s True, What’s Not, and What Really Matters.

Mapping The Forever Chemical Problem: Why PFAS Needs a Usable Data Atlas.

Moving past size in nanoplastics research.

Reviews/Meta-Analyses

Numerous Chemicals/Mixtures

Reducing exposure to non-persistent endocrine-disrupting chemicals and their impact on human health: Evidence from dietary, behavioral, and residential interventions.

The diabetes exposome: interplay of environmental and genetic determinants in diabetes.

Environmental Stress-Induced Mitochondrial Metabolic Reprogramming as a Central Driver of Endocrine Dysfunction: A Food and Chemical Toxicology Perspective.

Non-chemical, chemical, and biochemical, endocrine disruptors: biphasic health effects and pathophysiological insights

Exposomics as a discovery engine for emerging contaminants and hidden biological risks.

Bisphenols

Transgenerational exposure to plastics-derived endocrine‐disrupting bisphenol A and its analogs on male infertility: impact of gut dysbiosis and epigenetic regulation

Association between bisphenols A and the risk of endometriosis: results from an updated meta-analysis.

Phthalates

The impact of Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate on human organ development: mechanisms and clinical relevance review.

PFAS

Effects of Legacy PFAS and Novel Alternatives on Thyroid Function in Mother‒Child Populations: A Systematic Review.

Pesticides

Factors contributing to health outcomes from pesticide exposure among farmers: A systematic review.

Psychiatric risk implications from behavioral and neural effects of adolescent exposure to environmental insecticides: a systematic review of rodent studies.

Metals/Metalloids

Toxic Metals and Their Emerging Role as Risk Factors in Hormone-Related Reproductive Cancers.

Microplastics/Nanomaterials

Micro/Nanoplastic-induced Alterations in Cellular Fate and Full-cycle Spermatogenesis: A Mechanistic Review and Perspective on Intergenerational Risks.

Reproductive toxicity and transgenerational effects of microplastics: evidence from experimental models and underlying epigenetic mechanisms.

Diverse origins and chemical complexity of nanoplastics.

Micro- and nanoplastics in human biological materials: a systematic review of detection methods and methodological challenges.

Probing Interactions of Plastic Nanoparticles with Biomolecular Systems via Molecular Simulations.

Formation and Transformation of Micro(nano)plastics: Mechanisms and Environmental Health Implications.

Human Health Studies

Numerous Chemicals/Mixtures

Characterizing immune perturbations in peripheral blood following the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment.

Suspect Screening of Urinary Neurotoxicants in Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder.

Associations of PFAS and phthalate/DINCH metabolites with metabolic regulation in teenagers from the HBM4EU aligned studies.

Blood environmental chemical exposure levels among adults with chronic kidney disease: a cross-sectional NHANES study.

Co-Exposure to PFAS, PFAS Alternatives, and Metals and Liver Function in Chinese Adults.

Bisphenols

Association of maternal bisphenol exposure during pregnancy with spontaneous preterm birth and preliminary mechanistic exploration in a prospective cohort.

An exploratory study on exposure to bisphenol A analogues and breast cancer risk.

Phthalates

Prenatal exposure to phthalates, maternal oxidative stress, and early childhood neurobehavior: a pathway modeling approach.

Persistent Organic Pollutants: PCBs, Dioxin, OCPs

Prenatal exposure to persistent organic pollutants and body mass index trajectories from birth to age 13.

PFAS

PFAS Across the Placenta and Its Potential Impact on Glucose Imbalance and Infant Growth and related Beyond a Barrier: Placental PFAS Transfer and Early-Life Metabolic Programming.

Associations of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) exposure and thyroid hormone concentration during pregnancy in the LIFECODES cohort.

Profiles and Maternal-to-Fetal Transfer of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances in Paired Maternal-Infant Biological Matrices: A Birth Cohort Study in Chengdu, China.

Longitudinal modeling of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance exposure in relation to changes in oxidative DNA damage in Taiwanese youth: A 10-year prospective cohort study.

Associations between perfluoroalkyl substances and multiple sclerosis in U.S. cohorts compared with NMOSD, MOGAD, and healthy controls.

Associations between maternal exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances and functional constipation in children at 3 and 4 years: the Japan Environment and Children’s Study.

PFAS is associated with perineural invasion in triple-negative breast cancer with a potential role for Cathepsin D dysregulation: a multi-omics and experimental study.

Pesticides

Residence Near Agricultural Crops at Birth and Risk of Adult Testicular Germ Cell Tumors: A French Nationwide Case-Control Study Using Historical Aerial GIS Data.

County-Level Ecological Association Between Glyphosate Exposure and Chronic Disease Mortality in Midwestern US Agricultural Communities.

Metals/Metalloids

Time-Varying Exposure to Element Mixtures and Children’s Cognition at 5 Years of Age: Findings from the New Hampshire Birth Cohort Study.

Association between blood potentially toxic metals/metalloids exposure and pubertal status in US children.

Neurocognitive consequences of occupational heavy metal exposure among electronic waste sorting workers in Thailand.

Toxic Metal Exposure and Biomarkers of Neurotoxic Effects: A Study in Metal Recycling Workers.

Air Pollution

Exposure to Air Pollutants and Lewy Body and Parkinson Disease–Related Dementias

Miscellaneous

A study on the association between polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) exposure and kidney function indicators in adolescents: an integrated research combining statistical mediation analysis and network toxicology.

Laboratory Studies

Numerous Chemicals/Mixtures

Cellular toxicity assessment of common plasticizers: Implications for musculoskeletal and cardiovascular health.

Bisphenols

Disruption of HOX Gene Regulation by Bisphenol A and Its Analogs: Epigenetic and Molecular Insights in Developmental Toxicity.

Investigating the Impact of Bisphenol A on Gastric Cancer Through Network Toxicology and Molecular Docking.

Bisphenol A-induced NF-κB activation enhances proliferation and migration of renal cell carcinoma cells via SLC7A11 upregulation and redox remodeling.

Curcumin alleviates BPAF-induced ferroptosis in caprine endometrial epithelial cells through inhibition of endoplasmic reticulum stress and autophagy.

Effect of taurine on the cardiotoxicity induced by bisphenol-A in male albino rats.

Protective effects of L-theanine against bisphenol A-induced oxidative stress and gut microbiota disruption in Wistar rats.

A computational analysis of multi-target mechanisms linking bisphenol A to precocious puberty.

Phthalates

MEHP exposure disrupts the self-renewal and differentiation of GC-1 cells by up-regulating m6A levels, leading to reproductive damage in immature rats.

Exposure to dimethyl phthalate induces oxidative stress and autophagy in gill of Zebrafish via the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway: Protective role of 1,8-cineole.

Parabens/Triclosan/Antimicrobials

Synergistic Toxicity Assessment of Triclosan and Co-occurring Chemicals in Household Cleaning Products: Regulatory Insights for Consumer Chemical Management.

Molecular disruption of neuroinflammatory and metabolic pathways mediates triclosan-induced depressive-like behavior in zebrafish.

Persistent Organic Pollutants: PCBs, Dioxin, OCPs

Lipid‑disrupting effects of an organochlorine mixture in Sertoli TM4 cells reveal testicular obesogen mechanisms.

PFAS

Placental Lesions in CD-1 Mouse Placenta Following Gestational Exposure to Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA) or Hexafluoropropylene Oxide Dimer Acid (HFPO-DA or GenX).

Maternal PFBS exposure disrupts oocyte meiotic prophase I and reduces primordial follicle pool.

Transcriptomics and Mendelian randomization studies reveal the critical role of Stanniocalcin-2 in linking perfluorinated compound-exposure to colorectal cancer.

Investigation of Perfluorooctanoic Acid Exposure Induced Renal Dysfunction Associated with Oxidative Stress, Fibrosis, and Impaired Angiogenic Signaling in Male Wistar Rats.

Low-dose PFOS exposure exacerbates rheumatoid arthritis via SIRT2-PAD4-mediated macrophage pyroptosis.

Carbon-chain length dictates per- and polyfluorinated substance potency as inhibitors of human and rat 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase 1.

Nonlinear Mixed-Effects modeling of the intravenous and oral kinetics of eleven perfluoroalkyl substances in female mice.

Flame Retardants

Perinatal organophosphate flame-retardant exposure alters adult stress axis and avoidance behavior in mice.

Pesticides

Developmental, behavioral, and biochemical effects of glyphosate exposure on the embryos of a freshwater molluscan model species.

Atrazine alters kisspeptin signaling and downstream neuroendocrine regulation following embryonic exposure in zebrafish.

Exposure to trietazine causes cardiovascular and liver damage and impairs neurodevelopment through oxidative stress and inflammatory mechanisms in zebrafish and transgenic lines.

Developmental and systemic toxicity of the triazole fungicide tetraconazole in zebrafish: Integrated evidence from ER stress, apoptosis, and metabolomic disruption.

Evaluating the Effects of Neburon Exposure on Ovarian Folliculogenesis Using Zebrafish and Mouse Granulosa Cell Line.

Embryotoxicity of pyrethroid insecticides and their mixtures in a human induced pluripotent stem cell-based model in vitro.

Organophosphate pesticide exerts toxic effect on the optic nerve of glaucoma rats by promoting oxidative stress and inflammation.

Reproductive toxicity induced by a repeated 28-day oral exposure to a commercial mixture of the herbicides S-metolachlor and flumioxazin in male rats.

Metals/Metalloids

Probing the Biological Plausibility of Fluoride as an Endocrine Disruptor.

Microplastics/Nanomaterials

Lifecycle Implications of Poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) Micro(nano)plastics (MNPs): Interactions with Coexposed Environmental Pollutants (EPs) and Impact on Their Toxicity and Bioavailability.

Exploring the mechanism of plastic additives on reproductive disorders based on network toxicology and molecular docking.

Evaluation of the potential toxicity of microplastics released from soft beverages packaging under different storage conditions.

Polystyrene microplastic exposure induces hepatic damage via immune-modulated autophagy and ferroptosis in Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus).

Polyethylene terephthalate nanoplastics promote gastric cancer progression by inhibiting the TNF-α/JAK1/STAT1 signaling pathway and shaping an immunosuppressive microenvironment.

Polystyrene Microplastics Drive Chondrotoxicity in Osteoarthritis through Inducing ER Stress and Apoptosis via NFKB1 Activation.

Gut Microbiome and Metabolic Responses of Adult Zebrafish (Danio rerio) to the Co-exposure of Polyethylene Microplastics and Levofloxacin.

Nanoplastics impair antitumor NK and CD8⁺ T cell cytotoxicity and antiviral B cell antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2.

Nanoplastic exposure induces mitochondrial dysfunction-driven inflammation and senescence in renal tubular epithelial cells.

Gestational and lactational exposure to phthalates and nanoplastics induces inflammation and oxidative imbalance in the prostate of adult rats.

Miscellaneous

6PPD metabolic activation by CYP3A initiates cytotoxicity in mouse primary hepatocytes.

Exposure/Environment Studies

Numerous Chemicals/Mixtures

Characterization of Representative Plasticizer Exposure Mixtures in NICU Neonates: A Non-negative Matrix Factorization Approach for Mixture Toxicity Assessment.

Development and validation of a GC-MS method for the simultaneous determination of bisphenols, phthalate monoesters, and triclosan in human meconium for comprehensive prenatal exposure assessment.

Differential prevalence of PFAS, PCBs and pesticides in liver of hunted game.

Bisphenols

Is BPA only the tip of the iceberg? Occurrence and risk assessment of 32 bisphenol analogues in landfill leachate.

Parabens/Triclosan/Antimicrobials

Biomonitoring of parabens in human milk and placenta and estimated daily intake in northern Taiwan.

PFAS

Effects of fluorinated ski wax bans on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) concentrations in indoor dust from ski waxing workspaces.

Sociodemographic and Reproductive Correlates of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substance Concentrations in a Preconception Cohort Study.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in e-waste dust.

Mobile phone cases as hotspots for perfluoroalkyl substances and pathogenic bacteria: An analysis based on user habits.

Analysis of Ultrashort Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) in Fruits and Vegetables.

Global Burden and Estrogenic Risk of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances in Cetaceans.

Spatial and seasonal changes in levels of perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs) in surface water and sediment from a typical paper-recycling area in Vietnam.

Novel LC-MS/MS Method for Monitoring Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances in Companion Animal Blood Plasma and Serum: Environmental and Health Implications.

Pesticides

Exposure of Belgian children to multiple classes of currently used pesticides.

Microplastics/Nanomaterials

Clear aligners for beautiful smiles create a challenge for the dental management of recycling and microplastics.

A novel blood biomarker for plastic ingestion in fledgling Procellariiform seabirds.

Air Pollution

Chemical complexity and enrichment in wildland-urban interface fire emissions: A case study of particulate matter, gas-phase pollutants, and ash from the 2025 Los Angeles fires.

Miscellaneous

Three-dimensional distribution of roadside airborne/tire-wear particles and implications for pedestrian exposure.

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This list is not meant to be exhaustive, and generally does not include studies on detection, remediation, or treatment of EDCs. Industry-funded articles are included without notation. Note that journal publication dates may be different from dates added to PubMed. To see the searchable archives, please email me and ask to join the EDC Science Weekly group EDC_research@googlegroups.com. There are searchable archives. Compiled by Sarah Howard of Healthy Environment and Endocrine Disruptor Strategies (HEEDS), a program of Environmental Health Sciences.

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