Did you know that the chemicals you use in everyday products could be your hormones biggest enemy ?

Like the glint of a knife in the dark, a laboratory accident in 1998 helped scientists realize that some chemicals commonly used to make life more convenient can be health hazards.

Since what they till call 'the disaster' in geneticist Pat Hunt's lab, more scientists have come to suspect that, even in tiny amounts, some of the chemicals that keep our food fresh, our hair stylish, our floors shiny and our fabrics stain-free might be confusing our hormone systems and derailing fetal development.

Hunt says she's not the only researcher who has come to study these chemicals - called endocrine disruptors - because she got "smacked in the face" by an unexpected result. "Almost everybody in this field was drafted into this, but we feel we can't leave this area, because if this stuff is dangerous, then we need to know a whole lot more about it."

Here's what happened seven years ago at Hunt's lab at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland:

While researching why women miscarry because of chromosomal abnormalities in the fetus, Hunt found that the eggs of the mice she was studying were inexplicably developing serious chromosomal problems.

It took months for Hunt to realize that the problem was caused by a temporary employee's error. "He had two bottles of detergents, one for the floor and one for the cages, and he picked up the wrong one."

The harsh alkaline floor detergent caused the plastic in the cages to begin to disintegrate, which leached a chemical called bisphenol. A into the animals' food the water. Suddenly, 40 percent of the eggs had chromosomal abnormalities.