I would say that right now these kinds of models are not as good as testing it in a life system, but it's coming. I would suspect that in the next decade we're going to find computer simulations that are going to give a very good analysis of the potential of a specific chemical to do harm or not, especially in the area of environmental hormone connections.
I can't predict the future. I know that it sounds to you like one side says this and one side says that, but that is unfortunately how it is in this business. There's the old story where an arbitrator was listening to two people discuss things, and he listens to one side and he listens to the other side. A third person asks how they can both be right. The answer to that is, “You know what? You're right too.”
That's the way it works. Science rarely gives absolutely conclusive answers. But I think we're going in the right direction, and based on the science available to us today, we're going to be able to make better predictions on what substances to worry about and what ones to worry less about.
I know that you'd like a more concrete answer. Unfortunately, I don't think that a more concrete answer is possible at this point.
The chemical complexity of life is so immense that to try to model it in the laboratory or on a computer is a tremendous challenge. The human body is the most complex machine that exists on the face of the earth. It is far more complicated than any computer, and we're not going to be able to model it on a one-to-one predictive basis.