Birth Control Pills Threaten Fish Stocks

BarbaraHudson writes Experimental research has shown that small amounts of estrogen in waste water can lead to rapid large-scale changes in fish populations. From the article: "The lead researcher of a new study is calling for improvements to some of Canada's waste water treatment facilities after finding that introducing the birth control pill in waterways created a chain reaction in a lake ecosystem that nearly wiped out a freshwater fish. 'Right away, the male fish started to respond to the estrogen exposure by producing egg yolk proteins and shortly after that they started to develop eggs,' she said in an interview from Saint John, N.B. 'They were being feminized.' Kidd said shortly after introducing the estrogen, the number of fathead minnow crashed, reducing numbers to just one per cent of the population. 'It was really unexpected that they would react so quickly and so dramatically,' she said. 'The crash in the population was very evident and very dramatic and very rapid and related directly to the estrogen addition.'" Estrogen pollution in waterways has been an issue for over a decade now.

Comments

That's just bullshit, not estrogen from the "Pill"

[Demonoid-Penguin]

"Estrogens ain't estrogens (Sol)"
http://www.arhp.org/publicatio...

@butchersong
And why is this not "the best source" - peer reviewed... did I miss some bad science?

I thought an experiment based on a false belief that estrogen from the Pill is the same estrogen that is found in waterways was bad science - like the flawed UK research it was "based on".

The researcher refers to "estrogen-like" in the science press, but the term "birth control pills" is quoted in the non-science press. Need for publicity, bad reporting, or both?

cough*Dairy farmers*cough(??)

Re:Can't be good for humans either

[Jason Levine]

The "much diminished" wasn't referring to population levels of the fish, but the effect that the hormone had on human males. The average human male is much bigger than a fish so it should take a lot more of the hormone to have an effect. Even then, the effects might not be the same. The hormone's effect on fish and humans might vary wildly.

As for human males "behaving feminized", I'm not sure what you mean by this. Are you referring to guys who actually express feelings, cook, and clean up around the house? If so, I'd call this progress and not "acting feminized." The days of a guy coming home, ordering his barefoot and pregnant wife to get him a beer, and demanding that she wait on him hand and foot are long gone. (Thank goodness.)