“6/30/2009, 11:04am EST”
Chemicals linked to increasingly common deformities
The “We humans are different!” crowd needs to take a whiff of the smelling salts, and their latest opportunity comes courtesy of Nicholas Kristof in today’s New York Times:
In heavily polluted Lake Apopka, one of the largest lakes in Florida, male alligators developed stunted genitals. In the Potomac watershed near Washington, male smallmouth bass have rapidly transformed into “intersex fish” that display female characteristics. This was discovered only in 2003, but the latest survey found that more than 80 percent of the male smallmouth bass in the Potomac are producing eggs.
Now scientists are connecting the dots with evidence of increasing abnormalities among humans, particularly large increases in numbers of genital deformities among newborn boys. For example, up to 7 percent of boys are now born with undescended testicles, although this often self-corrects over time. And up to 1 percent of boys in the United States are now born with hypospadias, in which the urethra exits the penis improperly, such as at the base rather than the tip.
Apprehension is growing among many scientists that the cause of all this may be a class of chemicals called endocrine disruptors. They are very widely used in agriculture, industry and consumer products. Some also enter the water supply when estrogens in human urine — compounded when a woman is on the pill — pass through sewage systems and then through water treatment plants. …
The scientific case is still far from proven, as chemical companies emphasize, and the uncertainties for humans are vast. But there is accumulating evidence that male sperm count is dropping and that genital abnormalities in newborn boys are increasing. Some studies show correlations between these abnormalities and mothers who have greater exposure to these chemicals during pregnancy, through everything from hair spray to the water they drink.
Chemical companies aren’t preparing for the possibility that their products are eminently harmful, even though science is building an ever-stronger case to the point. Corporations are placing their extremely short-term interests over the very foundations of biology on our planet. Of course this is disgusting, but should we really expect anything more from legally sanctioned thieves? Corporations and corporatist social groups such as ours steal everyday. Thievery is our way of life. The difference between those we protect from theft and those we do not is a matter of craven self-interest, masquerading as any of the numerous weak rationalizations that are given a free pass within our cultural mythos. But even those of us who ideologically embrace that craven self-interest should realize their own endangerment (assuming they have the mental capacity to do so, which is increasingly dubitable as the signs become ever more obvious).
Hey Nicholas Kristof — you did pretty well today, so I’m linking to you again. Thank you.
Never leave home without it.
