Catfish in MD River Have High Cancer Rates

[MountainLaurel]

Catfish from Maryland's South River have a skin cancer rate as high as any found in the nation and the second-highest liver cancer rate in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and both are probably caused by polluted runoff, a study released yesterday says.

In the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service study, more than half the brown bullheads -- a type of catfish -- sampled from the South River had skin tumors, the highest incidence in 14 years of bay watershed testing. The rate matches that found in Great Lakes bullheads, which had the nation's highest.

One-fifth of the South River bullheads tested had liver cancer, a rate second only to that of the Anacostia River, where studies in 2001 showed nearly 70 percent of bullheads had liver tumors.

"The fish are clearly exposed to cancer-causing agents, and at this point, we really don't know what chemicals are responsible," said Fred Pinkney, the Fish and Wildlife Service biologist who conducted the study. "We suspect it's from runoff."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/24/AR2006012401395.html

A 70-percent cancer rate? The Anacostia runs into the river I get my drinking water from.

:scared:

[marmar]

1. Freshwater fish in the U.S. - bad!

:scared:

[MountainLaurel]

3. You said it!

Another serious problem that's been discovered recently in the DC area, specifically in various places along the Potomac, are male fish that also have female reproductive organs. Which makes me wonder if the number of children who are born hermaphroditic (sp?) in the Potomac watershed is likewise increasing.

[Boomer]

6. We may never know

I don't think hospitals keep records on reproductive "errors" of that kind, and families are extremely unlikely to discuss this issue because of the social stigma. So there's no way to track if rates are rising.

[MountainLaurel]

7. Actually some statistics are kept

This is from a 2003 article from "Georgetown Law Journal" on who gets to make the decision about treating an intersex infant:

Is it a boy or a girl? This question, routinely asked prior to or immediately following the birth of a baby, may not always have an obvious response. The multiple factors used to determine sex often provide inconsistent answers. It is not uncommon for an individual's chromosomes, hormones, internal sex structures, gonads, and external genitalia to vary from the dimorphic male-female mold. Thus, each year approximately seventeen out of every 1,000 children are born outside this dimorphic mold and are labeled "intersexuals." Of those, between one in 1,000 and one in 2,000 may be subjected to surgery because they have ambiguous-looking genitals that need to be "normalized." In one large U.S. hospital, four or five of these genital reconstructions occur each year; five such surgeries occur each day in the United States.

If you want to learn more, someone named Anne Fausto-Sterling is apparently one of the experts in this area.

[Oerdin]

5. Depnds on if it is in

an area with heavy industry or not. Remember Bush lowered clean water standards and made it so polluters don't have to actually inform the public about what chemicals they were dumping into water sheads. In the short run these environmental laws do cost money up front but we win in the long run due to healthier people and healthier animals.

[papau]

2. Reagan "invented" it is OK to polute as long as you dilute - or at least

the idea exploded under Reagan and became the method of choice.

Remember clean air became really tall smoke stacks instead of scrubbers?

:-(

[MrPrax]

4. Ah...poor fish...

Maybe we should organize a telethon. :sarcasm:

(actually has any thought about doing a mock ad in the syrup-y style of McPukes or Wal-Mart...kids can get cancer the same way after all...might be 'cute' to jar folks out of their 'specism' on this subject and point out that things like those 'OTHER' Ronald McDonald houses cause cancer)