Evolution is being distorted by pollution, which damages genitals
and the ability to father offspring, says new study. Geoffrey Lean
reports
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 Charles
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.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/its-official-men-really-are-the-weaker-sex-1055688.html
I was surfing online then I saw this article. Guys beware of what
you are using and consuming. O.O
P.s. The title of the article is a bit misleading thought. =X
