Comments on the opinions published by Bergman et al. (2015) on Critical Comments on the WHO-UNEP State of the Science of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (Lamb et al., 2014)

Recently Bergman et al. (2015) took issue with our comments (Lamb et al., 2014) on the WHO-UNEP1 report entitled the “State of the Science of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals – 2012” (WHO 2013a). We find several key differences between their view and ours regarding the selection of studies and presentation of data related to endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) under the WHO-IPCS2 definition (2002). In this response we address the factors that we think are most important: 1. the difference between hazard and risk; 2. the different approaches for hazard identification (weight of the evidence [WOE] vs. emphasizing positive findings over null results); and 3. the lack of a justification for conceptual or practical differences between EDCs and other groups of agents.