Guardian: Man-made chemicals blamed as many more girls than boys are born in Arctic

[Mrs. Overall]

Paul Brown in Nuuk, Greenland
Wednesday September 12, 2007

Twice as many girls as boys are being born in some Arctic villages because of high levels of man-made chemicals in the blood of pregnant women, according to scientists from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (Amap). The scientists, who say the findings could explain the recent excess of girl babies across much of the northern hemisphere, are widening their investigation across the most acutely affected communities in Russia, Greenland and Canada to try to discover the size of the imbalance in Inuit communities of the far north.

In the communities of Greenland and eastern Russia monitored so far, the ratio was found to be two girls to one boy. In one village in Greenland only girls have been born.

The scientists measured the man-made chemicals in women's blood that mimic human hormones and concluded that they were capable of triggering changes in the sex of unborn children in the first three weeks of gestation. The chemicals are carried in the mother's bloodstream through the placenta to the foetus, switching hormones to create girl children.

Lars-Otto Reierson, executive secretary for Amap, said: "We knew that the levels of man-made chemicals were accumulating in the food chain, and that seals, whales and particularly polar bears were getting a dose a million times higher than that existing in plankton, and that this could be toxic to humans who ate these higher animals. What was shocking was that they were also able to change the sex of children before birth."

More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,330722948-110592,00.html

I think this story may have been posted several months ago, but this article just came out yesterday with some additional information/research. The Arctic is in trouble.

[Le Taz Hot]

1. Natural selection.

Survival of the fittest and all.

:hide:

I kid! I kid!

[Warpy]

2. Again, this article doesn't answer too many important questions

First, have they tested the DNA of these children? Sex is determined at conception. Are there XY children, boys with female genitalia, or are they all XX children, naturally girls? If the latter is the case, have they examined the semen of the men for damaged or absent Y sperm?

These are incredibly important questions that were not addressed in the article, an article that rushes to judgment without real evidence.

It seems clear that something is going on to affect birth ratios. It is not clear who is being affected.

[Katherine Brengle]

3. Wow, that's really disturbing.

I don't even know what to say.