Alarm At Gender-Bending Chemicals
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Alarm At Gender-Bending Chemicals
Date:
Tue, 13 Aug 2002 10:59:54 -400
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
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=323629
Alarm at gender-bending chemicals
By Lorna Duckworth
Health Correspondent
12 August 2002
The World Health Organisation will urge governments today to establish an
immediate inquiry into the effects of gender-bending chemicals on human and
animal populations.
Strong evidence links reproductive abnormalities and population declines in some species of birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians with the chemicals, known as hormone disruptors or EDCs (endocrine-disrupting chemicals).
But concerns are also being raised that EDCs have contributed to the increase in breast, testicular and prostate cancers among humans and a decline in sperm counts.
In response to the threat, the WHO will publish a report today, written by a team of scientists, calling for an international programme of research. The report details a large body of evidence pointing to the way wildlife has been harmed by exposure to EDCs, including industrial chemicals such as phthalates, alkylphenols, dioxins and PCBs, as well as herbicides, insecticides and fungicides.
But evidence that human health has been damaged by EDCs remains weak - largely because of the lack of sufficiently robust studies, the report is expected to say.
This means that the effects on adults of low-level exposure to EDCs over a long period of time, and the impact on unborn babies and young children, are poorly understood. But the WHO is expected to conclude that recent health trends are sufficient to warrant concern.
Concerns have been raised about a decline in human sperm quality in several countries, the increased incidence of a congenital malformation of the penis called hypospadias, and a trend towards earlier puberty.
Increases in the incidence of cancer in hormonally sensitive tissues such as the breast, testes and prostate have also led to suggestions that environmental chemicals could be involved. But no studies have established a link. Wildlife studies have, however, shown a link between exposure to hormone disruptors and changes in physiology, sexual behaviour and fertility.
Female fish downstream from pulp and paper mills have developed male sex organs and try to mate with other females.
After a chemical leak in Lake Apoka, Florida, male alligators developed abnormal hormone levels, small penises and feminised gonads that diminished their reproductive success. And fish-eating birds, including gulls and terns, have in the past few decades given birth to an excess of female chicks and chicks with birth defects.
From Steve - Quotes to Ponder:
"The
first task is population control at home. How do we go about it? Many of my
colleagues feel that some sort of compulsory birth regulation would be
necessary to achieve such control. One plan often mentioned involves the
addition of temporary sterilants to water supplies or staple food. Doses of
the antidote would be carefully rationed by the government to produce the
desired population size." — Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb, p.135
"A
total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present
levels, would be ideal." — Ted Turner - CNN founder and UN supporter -
quoted in The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor, June '96
"Childbearing
[should be] a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a
government license ... All potential parents [should be] required to use
contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen
for childbearing." — David Brower - first Executive Director of the
Sierra Club; founder of Friends of the Earth; and founder of the Earth Island
Institute - quoted by Dixie Lee Ray, Trashing the Planet, p.166
"Truth
is not what is; truth is what people perceive it to be." -- Adolf
Hitler, Propaganda Maxim
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