Inquiry Turns to Humans on Pollutant, Hormone Tie

[MountainLaurel]

:hide: :scared: :hide:

Growing evidence that chemicals in the environment can interfere with animals' hormone systems -- including the discovery that male Potomac River fish are growing eggs -- has focused the attention of environmentalists and scientists on a new question: Are humans also at risk?

A decade ago, the very idea that pollutants could interfere with a body's chemical messages was near the fringes of science. But now, it is an urgent topic for lawmakers and researchers around the world, and especially in the Washington area.

In recent years, researchers have linked some common chemicals to troubling changes in laboratory rodents and wild animals, including reproductive defects, immune-system alterations and obesity.

For now, no connections to human ailments have been proved. But some studies have provided hints that people might be affected by crossed hormones, and activists wonder if this kind of pollution could contribute to diabetes, birth defects and infertility.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/03/AR2006120300992.html

[LiberalEsto]

1. Maybe * has been drinking Potomac water

That could explain a lot of things

[Miss Chybil]

2. In Britain the estrogen from birth control pills are changing the fish in the rivers.

Could be the same problem here.

[MountainLaurel]

3. That, and then some

A larger, more disturbing, problem in the Potomac watershed is believed to be runoff from chicken and dairy farms in Maryland and Virginia containing the various hormones that those animals are being fed in order to get better production.

[donsu]

4. yes - man breasts are a change - back when even fat men didn't

have breasts. now even young slender men have puffed protruding nipples.

[One_Life_To_Give]

8. Like it's bad thing

You say that like it's a bad thing. :7

[lildreamer316]

5. Dupe.

[lildreamer316]

6. Gee. Ya think?

Oh, I dunno Why on earth would you think that something that causes mutations in nature would cause mutations in humans? Don't you know we're above that sort of thing??:sarcasm:

[kestrel91316]

7. We're just one more animal species to be adversely affected

by endocrine disruptors. More proof that we evolved from our animal cousins and weren't just plunked down here as the perfect imitation of God.