Man-made chemicals are all around us - from plastic wraps on food to pesticides on the lawn. Now, some some scientists believe they pose grave threats to human fertility and intelligence. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, how chemicals may sabotage our bodies. Also a proposal for regulating pesticides.

SEGMENT 1

Science writer Diane Dumanoski tells Steve Paulson that the scientific evidence suggests that the chemicals we take for granted in the twentieth century may harm the human hormone system to such an extent that they pose a threat to human reproduction. Dumanoski is the co-author (with Theo Colborn and John Myers) of "Our Stolen Future."

SEGMENT 2:

Jack Berkson, a trial lawyer in Hagerstown, Maryland and author of "A Canary's Tale," tells Jim Fleming that having his house fumigated for termites led to a nightmare of ill health until doctors finally accepted the diagnosis of "multiple chemical sensitivity." The chemical used, Dursban, has subsequently been linked to Gulf War Syndrome. Also, John Wargo tells Steve Paulson that children are especially vulnerable to exposure to pesticides and suggests new regulatory standards to protect us all. Wargo teaches political science and environmental studies at Yale and is the author of "Our Toxic Legacy: How Science and Law Fail to Protect Us from Pesticides."

SEGMENT 3:

Chemist Alfred Bader founded a company that evolved into the world's largest supplier of research chemicals. He tells Judith Strasser that while chemicals can be dangerous, our society has unjustly made chemistry a dirty word. Bader has published a memoir of his remarkable life from his flight to England on the eve of WWII, to his internment in a Canadian prisoner of war camp, his career in chemisty, and his present activity as an art collector and gallery owner, called "Adventures of a Chemist Collector."

Distribution dates:

• week of 01/12/97 - hour 2
• week of 06/01/97 - hour 2