The Infertility Bomb

Mar 18 06:47 UTC 1996

The 18 March issue of TIME has an article titled "WHAT'S WRONG WITH OUR
SPERM? It concerns the increasing evidence that male fertility is dropping
along with the demonstrated fact that trace synthetic chemical
contaminants can have a devastating effect on animal fertility and sexual
development. The following article appeared in the newsgroup groundwater,
following the publication of the book _Our Stolen Future_ by J.P.Myers, D.
Dumanoski and Theo Colborn. 


                      A CHEMICAL WHIRLWIND
           Foreign Substances that Act like Hormones
                Disrupt Human and Animal Biology

                                         by Donella H. Meadows

[Donella Meadows, professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth, is
co-author of Beyond the Limits]
                ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

     Over the past two generations, human sperm counts in many parts of
the world have fallen by half, and a rising percentage of sperm are
deformed and nonfunctional. 

     Testicular cancer is on the rise, as are birth defects such as
undescended testicles.  Many kinds of animals suffer from hormone
derangements that produce masculinized females and feminized males. 

     These unsettling phenomena are caused by chemicals we throw into the
environment - chemicals which behave like hormones. 

     Hormones are specific, subtle, fleet, ephemeral message- carriers in
the body.  They are made in the endocrine glands - the pituitary, for
example, or the adrenals sitting atop the kidneys, or the ovaries or
testes.  They spread through the body turning on and off different
chemical processes in different cells.  Hormones play a key role in the
function of our physiological systems, including blood pressure, growth
and development, and our immune system. 

     Particularly important are the hormones that control reproduction -
estrogen, testosterone, progesterone.  Most of us know from experience of
adolescence, pregnancy, menstruation or menopause that these hormones
affect not only our skin, body temperature, and sexuality, but our moods
and personalities as well.  They also affect, in ways we are only
beginning to understand, the growth and division of cells, which relates
to both our ability to have children and our propensity to get cancer. 

     Hormones work by fitting into special cellular receptors designed to
receive them as a lock is designed to receive a key. This is where
endocrine disrupters come in.  They are foreign chemicals - PCB's,
dioxins, many pesticides, some common ingredients in plastics, detergents,
and cleaning agents - that happen, by chemical accident, to fit into
hormone receptors.  There they may mimic hormones, turning on cellular
processes that shouldn't be turned on.  Or they may block the receptors,
preventing real hormones from getting through. 

     Bollixing up one of the main information systems of the body can be
problematic enough in an adult.  In a developing fetus, it can be
disastrous.  Infinitesimal concentrations of an endocrine disrupter
hitting a fetus at the wrong moment of unfolding can derail development,
change the sex or sexuality of the unborn child, or, most insidiously,
affect its future ability to generate sperm or egg cells.  The resulting
defects may appear only in the next generation. 

     Endocrine disrupters will probably hit a publicity climax this month
when a readable book, _Our Stolen Future_, by biologists Theo Colburn and
JP Meyers and journalist Dianne Dumanoski, is released by Dutton.  The
book meticulously describes the years of research that have led to current
understanding of endocrine disrupters. But most of us who have followed
the research are apprehensive that we are about to see another typical
media cycle of over-dramatized reports followed by industry denial. 

     The chemical industry is set to produce the denials.  Watch for the
standard responses perfected by the tobacco industry: "Those extremists
always raise false alarms . . . You can't prove what caused that effect .
. . People WANT those products . . . Regulation would cost money and JOBS
. . ." 

     Keep three facts in mind:
     [ ]  Although sperm counts make the headlines, this research
          is not just about sperm.  Endocrine disrupters affect the
          fertility of both sexes.  And they disrupt a wide variety
          of physiological functions.
     [ ]  The research has not been confined to laboratory animals
          or merely extrapolated from medical records.  The picture
          has been pieced together from symptoms expressed across
          multiple species of higher forms of life.  Theo Colburn,
          a wildlife biologist, has documented endocrine disruption
          in Great Lakes fish, Arctic bears, seabirds, alligators,
          seals, otters, etc.
     [ ]  The problem is not just chlorine.  Many potent endocrine
          disrupters such as dioxins, DDT, and PCB's are organic
          molecules with chlorine atoms attached.  They are
          especially noxious because they remain stable in the en-
          vironment for a long time and they are fat soluble (so
          they accumulate in living tissue).  But beware of a
          clarion call to "ban chlorine."  Organochlorines are not
          the only endocrine disrupters, and not all organo-
          chlorines mimic hormones.

     After the hype is over, I hope we'll see the enduring lessons in
these new biological discoveries.  Chemicals, unlike people, should be
assumed guilty until proven innocent.  When we throw them out into the
environment in million-ton quantities, we and our children are likely to
consume them.