{{Short description|American biologist (1927–2014)}} {{Infobox scientist | name = Theo Colborn | image = Theo Colborn (1927-2014).jpg | caption = Theo Colborn in 2010 | birth_name = Theodora Emily Decker | birth_date = {{birth date|1927|03|28}} | birth_place = Plainfield, New Jersey, U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|2014|12|14 |1927|03|28}} | death_place = Paonia, Colorado, U.S.<ref>[http://endocrinedisruption.org/assets/media/documents/TEDX%20Theo%20formal%20obit%20v2.pdf THEODORA (THEO) EMILY DECKER COLBORN (Age 87)] TEDX, Obituary, 2pp, 2014</ref> | field = Zoology | work_institutions = University of Florida | alma_mater = Rutgers University<br />Western State Colorado University<br />University of Wisconsin–Madison | doctoral_advisor = | doctoral_students = | known_for = Pioneer in the field of endocrine disrupting chemicals | prizes = }} '''Theodora Emily Colborn''' (née '''Decker'''; March 28, 1927 – December 14, 2014) was Founder and President Emerita of The Endocrine Disruption Exchange (TEDX), based in Paonia, Colorado, and Professor Emerita of Zoology at the University of Florida, Gainesville. She was an environmental health analyst, and best known for her studies on the health effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals. She died in 2014.<ref name="About TEDX"/>

==Academic career== In 1947, Colborn obtained a B.S. in Pharmacy from the College of Pharmacy at Rutgers University and became a pharmacist. In 1981, she graduated from Western State College of Colorado, Gunnison, with an M.A. in Science in freshwater ecology. In 1985, Colborn received a Fellowship from the Office of Technology Assessment, U.S. Congress. From there, in 1987, she joined the Conservation Foundation to provide scientific guidance for the 1990 book, ''Great Lakes, Great Legacy?'' in collaboration with the Institute for Research and Public Policy, Ottawa, Canada.<ref name=CV>{{cite web|author1=Theo Colborn|title=CURRICULUM VITAE THEODORA (THEO) EMILY DECKER COLBORN|url=http://endocrinedisruption.org/assets/media/documents/Theo%20CV%2020150127.pdf|publisher=TEDX|accessdate=11 March 2015|pages=16|date=20 September 2014|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402154955/http://endocrinedisruption.org/assets/media/documents/Theo%20CV%2020150127.pdf|archivedate=2 April 2015}}</ref>

In 1985, at age 58 and as a grandmother, Colborn earned a PhD at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in Zoology (distributed minors in epidemiology, toxicology, and water chemistry).<ref name=CV/><ref>{{cite web |url=http://endocrinedisruption.org/assets/media/documents/Theo%20CV%2020150422.pdf |title=Archived copy |accessdate=2015-10-05 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20151005213544/http://endocrinedisruption.org/assets/media/documents/Theo%20CV%2020150422.pdf |archivedate=2015-10-05 }}</ref><ref name=ehp>{{cite journal|author1=Elizabeth Grossman, Laura N. Vandenberg, Kristina Thayer, and Linda S. Birnbaum|title=Theodora (Theo) Colborn: 1927–2014| journal=Environmental Health Perspectives|date=March 2015|volume=123|issue=3|page=A54|doi=10.1289/ehp.1509743|pmid=25730706|pmc=4348749}}</ref> In 1993,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Oral history interview with Theo Colborn |url=https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/37z6yqb |access-date=2025-08-30 |website=Science History Institute Digital Collections |language=en}}</ref> she established and directed the Wildlife and Contaminants Program at World Wildlife Fund, US.<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=LEMONICK |first=MICHAEL |date=2007-10-17 |title=Heroes of the Environment |url=https://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1663317_1663323_1669901,00.html |access-date=2025-08-30 |magazine=Time |language=en-US |issn=0040-781X}}</ref> She also held a chair for three years, starting in 1990, with the W. Alton Jones Foundation.<ref name="About TEDX">{{cite web|last1=TEDX|title=About TEDX: Our People: Theo Colborn, Ph.D., President Emeritus|url=https://endocrinedisruption.org/about-tedx/theo-colborn-ph.d.-president/|website=endocrinedisruption.org|accessdate=10 December 2014}}</ref> In 1991, as a fellow of the W. Alton Jones Foundation, she brought a group of 21 scientists with diverse backgrounds together, to attend the first of a series of conferences at Racine, Wisconsin, that became known simply as "Wingspread", about the effects of human exposure to hormone-disrupting chemicals examined in the environment.<ref name=ehp/> In 1993, she was given a three-year Pew Fellows Award.<ref name="About TEDX"/> Colborn served on numerous advisory panels, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Science Advisory Board, the Ecosystem Health Committee of the International Joint Commission of the United States and Canada, the Science Management Committee of the Toxic Substances Research Initiative of Canada, the U.S. EPA Endocrine Disruptor Screening and Testing Advisory Committee, and the EPA Endocrine Disruption Methods and Validation Subcommittee. She published and lectured extensively on the consequences of prenatal exposure to synthetic chemicals by the developing embryo and fetus in wildlife, laboratory animals, and humans.<ref name="About TEDX"/>

In 2003, at age 76, she founded a non-profit, The Endocrine Disruption Exchange (TEDX), a research organization devoted to understanding how environmental exposures to endocrine disruptors interfere with development and health,<ref name=ehp/> for academicians, policy makers, government employees, community-based and health support groups, public health authorities, physicians, the media, and individuals.<ref name="TEDX Introduction">{{cite web|last1=TEDX|title=About TEDX: Introduction|url=https://endocrinedisruption.org/about-tedx/guiding-principles|date=n.d.|accessdate=10 December 2014}}</ref>

In 2005, she first talked about public health issues regarding gas development.<ref name=CV/>{{rp|6}} Two years later she testified in the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform about "the need for full disclosure of chemicals used to produce and deliver natural gas".<ref name=CV/>{{rp|6}}<ref>[https://s3.amazonaws.com/propublica/assets/natural_gas/colburn_testimony_071025.pdf Written testimony of Theo Colborn, PhD, President of TEDX, Paonia, Colorado before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, hearing on The Applicability of Federal Requirements to Protect Public Health and the Environment from Oil and Gas Development, October 31, 2007].</ref> She continued to work on this topic until her last year of life, when she published a study on air quality near natural gas operations<ref name=CV/>{{rp|2}} and developed a continuing medical education course titled "Natural Gas Operations, Air Emission Exposure, and Recommendations to the Healthcare Community."<ref name=CV/>{{rp|6}}<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLTCTM0f0CGVK_DJhTSSj44oee39ZQh6_g&v=Ri7dR8hSUHU] Theo Colborn, April 2014, Physicians Scientists and Engineers for Healthy Energy (PSE)</ref>

==Endocrine disruption== Colborn's 1988 research on the state of the environment of the Great Lakes revealed that apex predator female birds, fish, mammals, and reptiles transferred persistent, man-made chemicals to their offspring, which undermined the development and programming of their youngsters' organs before they were born or hatched.<ref name="Great Lakes, Great Legacy">{{cite book|last1=Colborn|first1=Theo|title=Great Lakes, Great Legacy?|date=1990|publisher=The Conservation Foundation, Institute for Research on Public Policy|location=Washington, D.C., Ottawa, Ontario|isbn=978-0-89164-115-5|display-authors=etal}}</ref> In 1991, in light of this evidence, Colborn convened 21 international scientists from 15 different disciplines to share their research relevant to transgenerational health impacts.<ref name="Markey et al.">{{cite journal|last1=Markey|first1=Caroline M.|title=Endocrine disruptors: from Wingspread to environmental developmental biology | journal=Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology |date=2002| volume=83|issue=1–5| pages=235–244| doi=10.1016/S0960-0760(02)00272-8|pmid=12650721|s2cid=32048106}}{{subscription required}}</ref> The Wingspread statement<ref>[http://endocrinedisruption.org/assets/media/documents/wingspread_consensus_statement.pdf Wingspread Consensus Statement] 8pp excerpt from Chemically induced alterations in sexual and functional development: The wildlife/Human connection. Editors Theo Colborn and C.Clement. 1992, Princeton Scientific Publishing.</ref> contains participant and specialty information.<ref name="the wildlife/human connection" /> During that meeting, the term “endocrine disruption” was coined.

In 1992 a book followed entitled ''Chemically Induced Alterations in Sexual and Functional Development: The Wildlife/Human Connection'', which is a collection of technical manuscripts by those who attended the session.<ref name="the wildlife/human connection">{{Cite book|last1=Colborn|first1=Theo|title=Chemically-induced alterations in sexual and functional development: the wildlife/human connection|journal=Advances in Modern Environmental Toxicology, USA|isbn=978-0911131352| date=1992|publisher=Princeton Scientific Publishing}}</ref> The information from this volume and numerous subsequent scientific publications on the result of low-dose and/or ambient exposure effects of endocrine disruptors was popularized in her 1996 book, ''Our Stolen Future'', co-authored with Dianne Dumanoski and John Peterson Myers published in 18 languages.<ref name="Our Stolen Future">{{cite book|last1=Colborn|first1=Theo|last2=Dumanoski|first2=Dianne|last3=Myers|first3=John Peterson|title=Our Stolen Future: Are We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence, and Survival? - a Scientific Detective Story|date=1997|publisher=Abacus|isbn=9780349108780|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P7PEQgAACAAJ&q=our+stolen+future}}</ref> Colborn's work has prompted the enactment of new laws around the world and redirected the research of academicians, governments, and the private sector.{{citation needed|date=March 2015}}

==Awards and honors== Colborn received many awards and honors for her work, including: The Jonathan Foreman Award, American Academy of Environmental Medicine, October 2014; The Jean and Leslie Douglas Pearl Award, December 2013; Twenty-Seventh International Neurotoxicology Conference, Theo Colborn Award, November 2011; Honorary Doctor of Science Degree, University of Colorado Boulder, May 2011; French National Museum of Natural History, Medal, April 2011; The Swedish Goteborg Prize for the Environment and Sustainability, November 2008; TIME Global Environmental Heroes Award, October 2007; National Council on Science and the Environment, Lifetime Achievement Award, February 2007; University of California San Francisco Medical School/Collaborative for Health and the Environment 2007 Summit Award: A Woman on the Forefront: Leadership and Integrity in Science, January 2007; Beyond Pesticides, 2006 Dragonfly Award, April 2006; The Center for Science in the Public Interest, Rachel Carson Award, May 2004; Society of Toxicology and Environmental Chemistry, Rachel Carson Award, November 2003; International Blue Planet Prize, Asahi Glass Foundation, Japan, October 2000; Norwegian International Rachel Carson Prize, June 1999; Audubon Magazine: A Century of Conservation, 100 Champions of Conservation, 1998; State of the World Forum, Mikhail Gorbachev, “Change Makers Award,” November 1997; Rachel Carson Leadership Award, Chatham College, June 1997; United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Women Leadership in the Environment Award, March 1997; National Conservation Achievement Award in Science, National Wildlife Federation, 1994; Pew Scholars Award in Environment and Conservation, June 1993 – 1996; W. Alton Jones Foundation, Fellowship, June 1990 – 1993; The National Water Alliance Award for Excellence in Protecting the Nation's Aquatic Resources, June 1991; US Congressional Fellowship, Office of Technology Assessment, 1985.<ref name=CV/>{{rp|2}}<ref name="About TEDX" />

==Private life== Colborn was married and had four children. She and her husband owned pharmacies in New Jersey. In 1964, they moved to a farm in western Colorado, eventually raising sheep. She became interested in environmental health. After her marriage dissolved in the 1970s she started doing field work for the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory examining water for toxicants released by mining activity.

She developed lung disease and was oxygen dependent at age 87.<ref name=bi>[http://endocrinedisruption.org/assets/media/documents/Colborn%20bio%20short%20version.pdf Theo Colborn. A brief biography by Elizabeth Grossman.] 2014. TEDX, 7 pp</ref> For much of her life, Dr Colborn suffered from undiagnosed coeliac disease; after years of distress, it was finally identified in the 1980s (she was then in her late fifties) and she eliminated rice and potato from her diet, with immediate relief.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.scdiet.net/scdarchive/7archives/scdtheo.html|title = Letters from the SCD support group: Celiac disease}}</ref>

== Selected works == {{Library resources box|by=yes|lcheading=Colborn, Theo}} *{{Cite book | author=Colborn, Theodora E. | title=Great Lakes, Great Legacy? | publisher=Institute for Research and Public Policy | year=1990 | pages=301 p | isbn=978-0891641155}} *{{Cite book |author1=Colborn, Theo |author2=Dumanoski, Dianne |author3=Myers, John Peterson | title=Our Stolen Future: Are We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence, and Survival? A Scientific Detective Story | publisher=Dutton | year=1996 | isbn=978-0-525-93982-5| url=https://archive.org/details/ourstolenfuturea00colb_0|url-access=registration |quote=our stolen future. }} *{{cite journal|last1=Colborn|first1=Theo|title=Neurodevelopment and endocrine disruption|journal=Environmental Health Perspectives|date=2004|volume=112|issue=9|pages=944–949|doi=10.1289/ehp.6601|pmid=15198913|pmc=1247186|jstor=3838094|bibcode=2004EnvHP.112..944C }} *{{cite journal|last1=Colborn|first1=Theo|title=Natural Gas Operations from a Public Health Perspective|journal=Human and Ecological Risk Assessment|date=2011|volume=17|issue=5| pages=1039–1056| doi=10.1080/10807039.2011.605662|bibcode=2011HERA...17.1039C |s2cid=53996198|display-authors=etal}} *{{cite journal|last1=Colborn|first1=Theo|title=An Exploratory Study of Air Quality Near Natural Gas Operations|journal=Human and Ecological Risk Assessment|date=2014|volume=20 |issue=1| pages=86–105|doi=10.1080/10807039.2012.749447|bibcode=2014HERA...20...86C |s2cid=86483539|display-authors=etal}}

== References == {{Reflist}}

== Bibliography == *{{cite book|last1=Musil|first1=Robert K.|title=Rachel Carson and Her Sisters: Extraordinary Women Who Have Shaped America's Environment|date=2014|publisher=Rutgers University Press|isbn=978-0813562421|pages=Chapter 7|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IFrqAgAAQBAJ&q=Rachel+Carson+and+Her+Sisters%3A+Extraordinary+Women+Who+Have+Shaped+America%E2%80%99s+Environment}} *{{cite book|last1=Krimsky|first1=Sheldon|title=Hormonal Chaos: The Scientific and Social Origins of the Environmental Endocrine Hypothesis|date=2002|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|isbn=9780801872525|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6zY5loKKbccC&q=Hormonal+Chaos:+The+Scientific+and+Social+Origins+of+the+Environmental+Endocrine+Hypothesis|accessdate=15 December 2014}}

== External links == *[http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/ Our Stolen Future] website *[http://www.endocrinedisruption.org/ The Endocrine Disruption Exchange (TEDX)] *[https://legacy.scu.edu/ethics/architects-of-peace/Colburn/essay.html "Theo Colburn Reflects on Working Toward Peace"]- Santa Clara University Architects of Peace Essay. n.d. *[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/nature/interviews/colborn.html "Fooling With Nature] "PBS ''Frontline'' Interview by Doug Hamilton, 1998. *[https://online.chq.org/ci/search/0/query?q=Theo+Colborn Our Stolen Future: The Need for Inner Space Research]-Recorded lecture at the Chatauqua Institution, Chatauqua, NY, 20 July 2001 *[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2r2Rx8VRq48/ Letter to the president about chemicals disrupting our bodies. Theo Colborn at TEDxMidAtlantic 2012] – TEDx MidAtlantic 2012, “" *[http://www.democracynow.org/2010/4/14/world_renowned_scientist_dr_theo_colborn Dr. Theo Colborn on the Health Effects of Water Contamination from Fracking] - video report by ''Democracy Now!'' 14 April 2014 {{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Colborn, Theo}} Category:American environmentalists Category:American non-fiction environmental writers Category:University of Wisconsin&ndash;Madison alumni Category:University of Florida faculty Category:1927 births Category:Western Colorado University alumni Category:2014 deaths Category:20th-century American women writers Category:21st-century American women writers Category:People from Plainfield, New Jersey Category:People from Paonia, Colorado Category:American women non-fiction writers Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers Category:21st-century American non-fiction writers Category:American women academics