Precocious Puberty Linked With DDT Exposure
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Subject: Precocious Puberty Linked With DDT Exposure
Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 10:13:31 -0400
From: Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State
of California, Department of Pesticide Regulation
cc: Christine Whitman whitman.christine@epa.gov
Dear Mr. Helliker, I thought you might like to read: Precocious Puberty Linked With DDT Exposure>
LONDON (Reuters Health) May 16 2001 - Children in developing countries may be reaching puberty early because of exposure to DDT, which has been banned for decades in Europe and the United States, Belgian researchers said last week.
Scientists at the University of Liege believe the chemical, which is still used in the developing world to fight mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, may accelerate puberty in young girls.
In a study of 39 immigrant girls from countries that use DDT, which mimics the effects of estrogen, researchers found high levels of the DDT derivative DDE in girls who began to menstruate very early.
"A possible relationship with exposure to DDT is suggested," team leader Jean-Pierre Bourguignon said.
All of the girls, who came from 22 developing countries, began menarche before the age of 10 and began to develop breasts by the age of 8.
Researchers had suspected that undernourishment followed by rapid weight gain after immigration could have contributed precocious puberty, but Bourguignon and his team said the girls had a normal weight and height when they arrived in Belgium.
The researchers found that most of the girls had blood levels of DDE that were 10 times higher those in native children. DDE is usually undetectable in children born in Belgium.
"The prevalence of precocious puberty was found to be 80-fold higher in foreign children than in Belgian natives," Bourguignon said in the paper published in the journal Human Reproduction.
He called for further research to confirm the findings and to determine the mechanism through which the chemical could cause precocious puberty.
Copyright © 2001 Reuters Ltd
Well Mr. Helliker, It is too bad that this research was not done before this terrible "registered" POISON contaminated the entire world.
Respectfully, Stephen L. Tvedten
{Editor's Note: Precocious puberty is not only a developing country issue. It is becoming epidemic in the US as we so tragically found out when our granddaughter entered puberty at 4 years old in California. We suspect it was the Diazinon used for ants around the home while her mother was pregnant.)
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