Study Suggests Pesticide Link To Sperm Count
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Study Suggests Pesticide Link To Sperm Count
Date:
Tue, 12 Nov 2002 08:23:00 -0500
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
Tuesday, November 12, 2002 - Print Edition, Page A16 - The Globe and Mail
Study suggests pesticide link to sperm count
By MAGGIE FOX -Reuters News Agency
WASHINGTON -- In findings that renew a debate over whether chemicals or other environmental factors influence sexual development, U.S. researchers said some rural men have lower sperm counts than their big-city counterparts.
Men living in rural Missouri had lower sperm counts than men living in New York, Minneapolis and Los Angeles, the researchers said in a report released yesterday.
It joins a collection of studies that have shown conflicting results on whether a man's sperm count is affected by where he lives and the kind of things he is exposed to.
"What we found is that men from Columbia, Mo., which is an agricultural community, have significantly lower sperm density and sperm motility [movement] related to the three urban centres we looked at," said Shanna Swan, who led the study.
Dr. Swan, an epidemiologist at the University of Missouri in Columbia who has devoted her career to this issue, believes agricultural chemicals may be to blame. "A lot of agricultural chemicals are used around here and are known to get into drinking water," she said.
Writing in the December issue of Environmental Health Perspectives, Dr. Swan and colleagues across the United States said they studied 512 couples, interviewing the men and taking blood and semen samples.
Semen quality was equally high in Minneapolis and New York, and slightly lower in Los Angeles. Men from around Columbia had sperm counts and quality that were significantly lower than men from any of the three cities.
Dr. Swan's team is now looking for clues in the men's blood. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is analyzing the blood for chemicals to see whether there are differences between the city and country dwellers.
The team also will examine hormone levels. Besides chemicals, stress is a factor that could affect sperm, Dr. Swan said.
"In another study [looking at stress], the only thing related to semen quality was loss -- the death of a close family member or divorce," she noted. "One hypothesis is that population density itself might be increasing semen quality. There are some indications that in some animal species that are crowded, the dominant males become more fertile."
But most compelling to Dr. Swan was the idea that certain chemicals can act as endocrine disruptors, changing the way hormones work in the body.
They include pesticides such as dichloro diphenyl trichlorethane (DDT), and industrial chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Such "gender- bending" chemicals are blamed for causing genital abnormalities in animals such as frogs and alligators.
Fears that humans could be suffering similar, albeit more subtle, effects emerged in 1992, when Danish researchers reported that sperm counts were falling around the world
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Copyright © 2002 Bell Globemedia Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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 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 Insitute - quoted by Dixie Lee Ray, Trashing the Planet, p.166
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