Environmental Chemicals Are Feminizing Boys

pickens writes "Denmark has unveiled official research showing that two-year-old children are at risk from a bewildering array of gender-bending chemicals in such everyday items as waterproof clothes, rubber boots, bed linen, food, sunscreen lotion, and moisturizing cream. A picture is emerging of ubiquitous chemical contamination driving down sperm counts and feminizing male children all over the developed world. Research at Rotterdam's Erasmus University found that boys whose mothers were exposed to PCBs and dioxins were more likely to play with dolls and tea sets and dress up in female clothes. 'The amounts that two-year-olds absorb from the [preservatives] parabens propylparaben and butylparaben can constitute a risk for oestrogen-like disruptions of the endocrine system,' says the report. The contamination may also offer a clue to a mysterious shift in the sex of babies. Normally 106 boys are born for every 100 girls: it is thought to be nature's way of making up for the fact that men were more likely to be killed hunting or in conflict. But the proportion of females is rising. 'Both the public and wildlife are inadequately protected from harm, as regulation is based on looking at exposure to each substance in isolation, and yet it is now proven beyond doubt that hormone disrupting chemicals can act together to cause effects even when each by itself would not,' says Gwynne Lyons, director of Chem Trust."

Comments

Re:It's the chemicals!? Bollox to that!

[FlyingSquidStudios]

they'll be expected to do their share of the child rearing

What? The nerve! Everyone knows fathers are supposed to ignore their children at all times, even if they're on fire.

Re:Solution

[davester666]

Being Gay is genetic, dammit!

Re:Rednecks?

[hairyfeet]

Actually, and I'll probably get a lot of hate for saying it, but I think a lot of it can be traced back to the right wing Jebus freaks and their "no birth control or sex ed evar!" stance. When I graduated HS a good 15-25% of the females were knocked up, and by 24 I don't think there was a single female able to give birth that hadn't. Nearly all were either unmarried or had gotten divorced, and of course the "father didn't bother" so the woman has to go out and earn the bread AND raise the child, and frankly most simply aren't capable of doing both. Then add drugs into the mix, because after having a shitty day and looking at her shitty life no shit she wants to get high and forget, and there you go.

Now you have a whole nation of single parent households, most of which really aren't capable of much more than barely keeping their heads above water in dead end jobs, well what do you expect? We really need to be pushing sex ed and easy access to condoms so we don't have so many overworked single parent households, and maybe add counseling before marriage to make sure they are mature enough to take that step. Otherwise the schools are more and more gonna be filling in the role as parent, simply because there aren't any parents at home.