And I used to go boogie-boarding in that ocean... Posted by Samarkand (Member # 8379) on :
It's more and more common all the time. A lot of pesticides etc. mimic sex hormones. It's dangerous to humans too - remember, meat-eaters are at the top of the food chain. One more reason to eat a diet low in meat and suppport sustainable farming practices.
Actually, they think this is part of why puberty is happening earlier. Scary stuff.
Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
Gee, I hope it doesn't spread to humans...
Edit to add: Er, I hit post, it errored out (probably a problem with our Sri Lankan ISP and their DNS servers or their caching problems - it's a recurring problem that drives us mad) and then finally reposted a few minutes later. So, uh, in the grand scheme of things, this post wouldn't have been out of order . . .
Posted by kwsni (Member # 1831) on :
Also, most wastewater treatment plants don't treat thier sewage enough to neutralize the estrogen and progesterone from birth control products, so it gets pumped out with the treated water.
Ni!
Posted by Samarkand (Member # 8379) on :
*Sneaks Seasonale off of bedside table and slips it behind pillow" See - it's only four periods a year . . . and . . .
Actually, I have a question about that: I know that all kinds of drugs are indeed finding their way into our water supply, both through people throwing them away. flushing them down the toilet (stop doing this; it's based on outdated advice, although finding an alternative method for disposal is tricky) and because some of them are not fully broken down by our bodies. But would estrogen and progesterone really fall into that last category? Our bodies are very efficient at handling and utilizing these hormones; we make them, after all.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
So... is the prevalence of transsexuality due to chemicals in the water?
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Quite possibly. Besides the animal studies, a survey of Canadian medical records spanning many years showed a LARGE increase -- I think it was on the order of 50 times -- in the number of boys born with their urethral openings far away from and under the natural position at the tip of the penis.
As far as I am aware, there was no attempt to pinpoint causation: not even as a hypothetical proposal. Nor for that matter, to determine whether the apparent increase was an artifact caused by an increase in the reporting of the malformations due to the lessening of the stigma attached to transexualism and because of the creation of more effective medical intervention techniques.
However, it did raise the question in my mind inre boys being affected by pseudo-estrogens taken in by their mothers during the fetal formation stage of pregnancy. As does the ever earlier age at which girls begin breast development and menstruation. And the increasing number of cases of micropenis.
[ November 15, 2005, 11:39 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
I read somewhere that soybeans are high in "phyto-estrogens". Maybe the popularity of soy products has had an effect as well.
Posted by human_2.0 (Member # 6006) on :
This is all so sick. We should all just quit using drugs. Just say no.
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
hey, ya know bodies make hormones all the time And they end up in the water!
We should kill all life to stop this pollution!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
....
Come on guys, do we have to get hysterical over everything?
So there was an intersexed fish found. Certain fishes change sex on their own if there aren't enough males around. Are we going to freak out over that? Not to mention intersexed people and animals are born all the time. It doesn't come from pollution. It's just a birth defect like so many others.
Still, if you're worried about all this, stop eating soy. Your man-boobs will thank you.
I'd be surprised if natural hormones or phyto-estrogens are the problem: animals have co-evolved in that particular "sea". What animals haven't had time to adapt to is the flood of new chemicals which have an estrogenic effect into their environment, when those pseudo-estrogens showed up in only the minutest of traces if at all prior to a couple of hundred years ago, before the petrochemical/IndustrialRevolution occurred.
[ November 15, 2005, 11:43 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by Hamson (Member # 7808) on :
I know we tend to over-analyze everything here, but this stuff is kind of disturbing and unnerving.
Posted by ssywak (Member # 807) on :
Is there a link to a photo of this thing? I have this nasty image in my head of an "intersex fish" that badly needs dispelling.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Sexual organs in fish are internal. Wouldn't be much to see except feminized size and coloring in sexually dimorphic species. And in those cases, usually the feminization would become obvious only after a fish was opened up for inspection of internal organs.
Posted by human_2.0 (Member # 6006) on :
So how did they find out about the fish? Are people randomly kidnapping fish?
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Fish are normally cleaned before eating. And the internal sexual organs usually look quite different between sexes. Though I don't know enough about the specifics of the research in this case. As far as I know the discovery could have been made while the scientists were doing genetic testing for species health studies.
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