Decline of the real man is no joke ... Evolution is being distorted by pollution ... It's official: Men really are the weaker sex

[Guest guest]

The study is on the bottom, its to bad they didn't include the estrogen effects

of moulds.

Decline of the real man is no joke

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-decline-of\

-the-real-man-is-no-joke-1055541.html

According to our report of the threat to the more testosterone-charged of the

species, some of us may live to see the last of the real men. What a good idea,

one thinks. Toothpaste tube caps always screwed back on. Garages used for cars,

rather than snooker tables. No more women being embarrassed by their partners

showing off on the beach. No more men of a certain age sucking in their stomachs

at the swimming pool when a pretty new lifeguard wanders by. No more comb-overs.

No more dirty socks on the floor. It will be goodbye to road rage, hello

consideration.

Hang on, though. Do we really want a world where everyone is from Venus and no

one is from Mars? Where Frenchmen no longer have any différence to vivre? A land

where the man of the house is more Mrs Doubtfire than Mr Atlas? Where pubs no

longer echo to loud-mouthed arguing over the merits of back fours and deep-lying

strikers, but where, instead, hair-netted old men clack their knitting needles

over glasses of lukewarm sherry?

Boating accidents where the cry goes up: " Hermaphrodites and children first! "

Editions of Top Gear fronted by Jemima son?

Still, at least there will be no more leading articles on the foibles of the

sexes written by men. And most of these difficulties were foreseen and solved by

the visionaries of the radical feminist movement in the 1970s. But how are we

going to spend our way out of recession if every customer realises they are

expected to pay only after they have packed their carrier bags, and only then

starts to rummage for a purse? And can you imagine the queue for the toilets?

We may be joking, but this is also serious. As Geoffrey Lean, our environment

editor, reports today, a host of common chemicals is feminising the males of

every class of vertebrate animals, including humans. For some time scientists

have been concerned about the " gender-bending " effects of some artificial

chemicals, especially phthalates, used to soften plastics. The latest research,

however, suggests that the scale of the problem is greater than anyone had

realised.

The new report is a reminder that the challenge of environmental sustainability

goes much wider than climate change, which is understandably front and centre of

green concerns. The pressures on natural ecosystems of human industrial activity

go far beyond the release of billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the air –

which, as we reported last week, will not reverse naturally for hundreds of

thousands of years. Wildlife programmes on television, once the representations

of an innocent world free of humans, have become an unremitting campaign against

human overpopulation. But these documentaries tend to focus on the threats to

the viability of individual species. Gender-bending chemicals pose a threat to

the very mechanism – sexual reproduction – that sustains almost all

multi-cellular life forms.

As we report today, and have reported before, the British Government has a

record of obstructing the more stringent controls proposed at EU level. This

week, our representatives will lead opposition in Brussels to proposed new

European controls on pesticides. Many of these chemicals have been found to have

gender-bending effects, and it would make sense, on the precautionary principle,

to restrict them where possible.

Britain is leading a small group of countries (the others are Ireland and

Romania) trying to block a regulation that would phase out their use. Ministers

say this would harm British agriculture, but the regulation would specifically

allow British farmers to opt out if they had no practical alternative.

The Independent on Sunday does not want to fall into the trap that caught

several Conservative MPs saying that a recession is a good thing. But the pause

in the relentless growth of global industrial activity provides an opportunity

to reconsider our priorities. And the inauguration of Barack Obama as president

of the United States next month provides some optimism that the most powerful

nation in the world will be working to help the environmental cause.

The declining fertility of males is a phenomenon that produces a nervous

reaction, especially among men. But the Government's refusal to adopt a

precautionary approach to potentially gender-bending chemicals is no joke.

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

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/its-official-men-really-are-the-weaker\

-sex-1055688.html

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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