Research: Males of All Species Are At Risk

[Guest guest]

>

> It's official: Men really are the weaker sex

> Evolution is being distorted by pollution, which damages genitals and the

> ability to father offspring, says new study. Geoffrey Lean reports

>

> Sunday, 7 December 2008 The Independent (U.K.)

>

>

> The male gender is in danger, with incalculable consequences for both humans

> and wildlife, startling scientific research from around the world reveals.

> The research – to be detailed tomorrow in the most comprehensive report yet

> published – shows that a host of common chemicals is feminising males of

> every class of vertebrate animals, from fish to mammals, including people.

>

> Backed by some of the world's leading scientists, who say that it " waves a

> red flag " for humanity and shows that evolution itself is being disrupted, the

> report comes out at a particularly sensitive time for ministers. On

> Wednesday, Britain will lead opposition to proposed new European controls on

> pesticides, many of which have been found to have " gender-bending " effects.

>

> It also follows hard on the heels of new American research which shows that

> baby boys born to women exposed to widespread chemicals in pregnancy are born

> with smaller penises and feminised genitals.

>

> " This research shows that the basic male tool kit is under threat, " says

> Gwynne Lyons, a former government adviser on the health effects of chemicals,

> who wrote the report.

>

> Wildlife and people have been exposed to more than 100,000 new chemicals in

> recent years, and the European Commission has admitted that 99 per cent of

> them are not adequately regulated. There is not even proper safety information

> on 85 per cent of them.

>

> Many have been identified as " endocrine disrupters " – or gender-benders –

> because they interfere with hormones. These include phthalates, used in food

> wrapping, cosmetics and baby powders among other applications; flame

> retardants in furniture and electrical goods; PCBs, a now banned group of

substances

> still widespread in food and the environment; and many pesticides.

>

> The report – published by the charity CHEMTrust and drawing on more than 250

> scientific studies from around the world – concentrates mainly on wildlife,

> identifying effects in species ranging from the polar bears of the Arctic to

> the eland of the South African plains, and from whales in the depths of the

> oceans to high-flying falcons and eagles.

>

> It concludes: " Males of species from each of the main classes of vertebrate

> animals (including bony fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals) have

> been affected by chemicals in the environment.

>

> " Feminisation of the males of numerous vertebrate species is now a

> widespread occurrence. All vertebrates have similar sex hormone receptors,

which have

> been conserved in evolution. Therefore, observations in one species may serve

> to highlight pollution issues of concern for other vertebrates, including

> humans. "

>

> Fish, it says, are particularly affected by pollutants as they are immersed

> in them when they swim in contaminated water, taking them in not just in

> their food but through their gills and skin. They were among the first to show

> widespread gender-bending effects.

>

> Half the male fish in British lowland rivers have been found to be

> developing eggs in their testes; in some stretches all male roaches have been

found to

> be changing sex in this way. Female hormones – largely from the

> contraceptive pills which pass unaltered through sewage treatment – are

partly

> responsible, while more than three-quarters of sewage works have been found

also to be

> discharging demasculinising man-made chemicals. Feminising effects have now

> been discovered in a host of freshwater fish species as far away as Japan and

> Benin, in Africa, and in sea fish in the North Sea, the Mediterranean, Osaka

> Bay in Japan and Puget Sound on the US west coast.

>

> Research at the University of Florida earlier this year found that 40 per

> cent of the male cane toads – a species so indestructible that it has become

a

> plague in Australia – had become hermaphrodites in a heavily farmed part of

> the state, with another 20 per cent undergoing lesser feminisation. A similar

> link between farming and sex changes in northern leopard frogs has been

> revealed by Canadian research, adding to suspicions that pesticides may be to

> blame.

>

> Male alligators exposed to pesticides in Florida have suffered from lower

> testosterone and higher oestrogen levels, abnormal testes, smaller penises and

> reproductive failures. Male snapping turtles have been found with female

> characteristics in the same state and around the Great Lakes, where wildlife

has

> been found to be contaminated with more than 400 different chemicals. Male

> herring gulls and peregrine falcons have produced the female protein used to

> make egg yolks, while bald eagles have had difficulty reproducing in areas

> highly contaminated with chemicals.

>

> Scientists at Cardiff University have found that the brains of male

> starlings who ate worms contaminated by female hormones at a sewage works in

> south-west England were subtly changed so that they sang at greater length and

with

> increased virtuosity.

>

> Even more ominously for humanity, mammals have also been found to be widely

> affected.

>

> Two-thirds of male Sitka black-tailed deer in Alaska have been found to have

> undescended testes and deformed antler growth, and roughly the same

> proportion of white-tailed deer in Montana were discovered to have genital

> abnormalities.

>

> In South Africa, eland have been revealed to have damaged testicles while

> being contaminated by high levels of gender-bender chemicals, and striped mice

> from one polluted nature reserved were discovered to be producing no sperm at

> all.

>

> At the other end of the world, hermaphrodite polar bears – with penises and

> vaginas – have been discovered and gender-benders have been found to reduce

> sperm counts and penis lengths in those that remained male. Many of the small,

> endangered populations of Florida panthers have been found to have abnormal

> sperm.

>

> Other research has revealed otters from polluted areas with smaller

> testicles and mink exposed to PCBs with shorter penises. Beluga whales in

Canada's St

> Lawrence estuary and killer whales off its north-west coast – two of the

> wildlife populations most contaminated by PCBs – are reproducing poorly, as

are

> exposed porpoises, seals and dolphins.

>

> Scientists warned yesterday that the mass of evidence added up to a grave

> warning for both wildlife and humans. Professor Tyler, an expert on

> endocrine disrupters at the University of Exeter, says that the evidence in

the

> report " set off alarm bells " . Whole wildlife populations could be at risk, he

> said, because their gene pool would be reduced, making them less able to

> withstand disease and putting them at risk from hazards such as global

warming.

>

> Dr Pete Myers, chief scientist at Environmental Health Sciences, one of the

> world's foremost authorities on gender-bender chemicals, added: " We have

> thrown 100, 000 chemicals against a finely balanced hormone system, so it's

not

> surprising that we are seeing some serious results. It is leading to the most

> rapid pace of evolution in the history of the world.

>

> Professor Lou Gillette of Florida University, one of the most respected

> academics in the field, warned that the report waved " a large red flag " at

> humanity. He said: " If we are seeing problems in wildlife, we can be concerned

that

> something similar is happening to a proportion of human males "

>

> Indeed, new research at the University of Rochester in New York state shows

> that boys born to mothers with raised levels of phthalates were more likely

> to have smaller penises and undescended testicles. They also had a shorter

> distance between their anus and genitalia, a classic sign of feminisation. And

a

> study at Rotterdam's Erasmus University showed that boys whose mothers had

> been exposed to PCBs grew up wanting to play with dolls and tea sets rather

> than with traditionally male toys.

>

> Communities heavily polluted with gender-benders in Canada, Russia and Italy

> have given birth to twice as many girls than boys, which may offer a clue to

> the reason for a mysterious shift in sex ratios worldwide. Normally 106 boys

> are born for every 100 girls, but the ratio is slipping. It is calculated

> that 250,000 babies who would have been boys have been born as girls instead

in

> the US and Japan alone.

>

> And sperm counts are dropping precipitously. Studies in more than 20

> countries have shown that they have dropped from 150 million per millilitre of

sperm

> fluid to 60 million over 50 years. (Hamsters produce nearly three times as

> much, at 160 million.) Professor Nil Basu of Michigan University says that

> this adds up to " pretty compelling evidence for effects in humans " .

>

> But Britain has long sought to water down EU attempts to control

> gender-bender chemicals and has been leading opposition to a new regulation

that would

> ban pesticides shown to have endocrine-disrupting effects. Almost all the

> other European countries back it, but ministers – backed by their

counterparts

> from Ireland and Romania – are intent on continuing their resistance at a

> crucial meeting on Wednesday. They say the regulation would cause a collapse

of

> agriculture in the UK, but environmentalists retort that this is nonsense

> because the regulation has get-out clauses that could be used by British

farmers.

>

>

>

>

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