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Chemical Pollution Is Destroying Masculinity
myrdos2 writes "A host of common chemicals is feminizing males of every class of vertebrate animals, from fish to mammals, including people. Many have been identified as 'endocrine disruptors' or gender-benders because they interfere with hormones. Communities heavily polluted with gender-benders in Canada, Russia, and Italy have given birth to twice as many girls as boys, which may offer a clue to the mysterious shift in sex ratios worldwide. 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. 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 feminized genitals. 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 milliliter of sperm fluid to 60 million over 50 years."
This makes me think about a period after a war with Brazil and Argentina when Paraguay's government actually encouraged polygamy.
I could be happy in a place like that.
Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.
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This is a common misconception. Think about a society were there is no tea or car (somewere in africa). Do you think their children would choose tea set and car toys based on gender?
-- dnl
IANOB but in the womb at some point there is a trigger of testosterone that causes the male characteristics to appear. If that trigger fails or for some reason the testosterone doesn't do its job, the foetus remains in the default mode which is female.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Mormons have not had plural marriages in well over a century.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
And Latin American cultures (and many other ones as well) are where mother-in-laws living in the house with you is the norm. (Shudders)
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
Here's a point by point list of environmental legislation that Clinton signed. Just off the top of my head, Clinton signed the law that allowed lands held in the public trust by the federal government to NOT be used for ranching is the winning lease winner choses not to. Clinton also signed the law making federal agency net zero polluters, meaning all waste from federal labs is cleaned up. Clinton signed the bill requiring paper mills to recycle their waste paper. Clinton improved the rules on wetlands conservation. Clinton upgraded many of the pollutant standards in the Clean Water and Clean Air acts. Clinton established the Staircase-Escalante National Monument. He accelerated cleanup of superfund sites. He signed the sustainable fisheries act. He signed the legislation to restore the everglades.... I'm only at 1996 here!
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
Some Mormons have polygamous marriages today. Just not members of the largest sects, LDS and RLDS. When you say, "Mormons have not had plural marriages in well over a century" what you really mean is that the LDS sect within Mormonism has not had plural marriages in well over a century.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Terry Collins: Persuasive Communication about Matters of Great Urgency: Endocrine Disruption: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es800079k
Shanna Swan: Decrease in Anogenital Distance among Male Infants with Prenatal Phthalate Exposure http://www.ehponline.org/members/2005/8100/8100.html
My understanding is that *endocrine disruptors* are the chemical pollutants responsible for these gender shifts. EDs cause shifts in cellular development, which is particularly important because it is a very fragile process. For example, the fundamental difference (from a molecular perspective) between testosterone and estrogen is very subtle. Therefore minor mistakes can cause drastic changes depending upon the timing and dose of exposure. You don't want things to disrupt *how* your maleness cells develop. What scientists are beginning to find is that babies (in the womb) who have exposure to EDs during development are showing significant differences in the finalized male genitals.
Today two types of endocrine disruptors: Bisphenol A and Phthalates are ubiquitous in our lives, namely in vinyl, PVC, and polycarbonate (plastics 3 and 7). Regulatory committees struggle to monitor the impact of these chemicals because of their ubiquitous application and the tiny size of what constitutes an *exposure* (something like 4 parts per trillion). Supposedly there have been lots of discussions in the scientific community about EDs since these findings started to come out in the mid 90s. However, its been a lot more talk than it has research and action.
But I can't sell everybody short. There was a big Nalgene bottle recall last year for this exact reason. The state of California has banned EDs from pesticides. Companies like BornFree make baby products without EDs. It feels like its coming, awareness just isn't there yet.
The EPA has, so far, failed utterly.
You must not have been around before the EPA was established. I grew up in Cahokia, Il and you had to drive past Monsanto and Cerro Copper (and some other factories) through Sauget to get to St. Louis.
You had to roll your windows up driving past Monsanto, even if it was 95F and you had no air conditioning. The air would burn your eyes and lungs and throat if you didn't; you literally could not breathe. I don't know how anyone worked there, but I imagine the cancer rate among Monsanto workers was sky high.
Runoff into the creek by it (it was named "Dead Creek iirc) polluted it so badly the creek caught fire one summer.
All the vegetation from Collinsville to Dupo was sickly looking. There were no frogs or fireflies (some toads). Today the vegetation is healthy and green, it doesn't stink driving past Monsanto, and there are fireflies almost every summer.
So I wouldn't say the EPA has failed, although it could certainly be a whole lot better.
Free Martian Whores!