Sludge Watch ==> Female Troubles for Wildlife Raise Human Worries

[Maureen Reilly]

Female Troubles for Wildlife Raise Human Worries



http://www.womensenews.org:80/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2999



Run Date: 12/18/06   By Molly M. Ginty         WeNews correspondent



Across the U.S., female animals exposed to toxic chemicals are suffering 
from a flurry of health problems. As scientists examine the impact of 
environmental pollution, some are pondering what the results may mean to 
female humans. First of two parts.

(WOMENSENEWS)--In California, female sea lions are spontaneously aborting 
their fetuses.

In the Great Lakes area, mother gulls are sharing nests and raising eggs 
together because their male partners have forgotten how to parent.

In upstate New York, female frogs have as much testosterone in their bodies 
as males.

Scientists say these aberrations all share a common link: exposure to toxic 
chemicals called "endocrine disruptors," which pollute the air, soil and 
water.

"At the rate this pollution is going, we will likely have population 
decreases in many wildlife species, especially amphibians and fish that are 
more susceptible to toxins because their skin is constantly exposed to these 
chemicals in an aquatic environment," says Sarah Janssen, a science fellow 
at the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council. "These animals 
serve as canaries in the coal mine for human females, teaching us how 
synthetic chemicals might affect our nervous system development, immune 
function, fertility and other health outcomes."

In the past six decades, U.S. manufacturers have unleashed an estimated 
100,000 synthetic compounds into the environment.

When animals come into contact with these pollutants, which have been 
detected in rainwater and in the rivers and soil of even the most remote 
areas, they absorb synthetic chemicals into their bloodstreams and their 
bodies. Researchers are finding that the female halves of many species are 
displaying biological reactions.

Earthworms Dosed With Prozac
Synthetic compounds have been detected in even the simplest life forms. 
According to a 2006 study by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), earthworms 
now have an average 31 pollutants in their bodies, including perfumes, 
household disinfectants and the antidepressant Prozac.

"As you go up the food chain, the numbers or relative amounts of synthetic 
chemicals can be even higher," says Diana Papoulias, a USGS biologist in 
Columbia, Mo. "Mammals, in particular females, have more fat in their bodies 
than other animals and therefore can have more toxins in their fat."

Years after they were created and put into common use, many synthetic 
chemicals were found to be endocrine disruptors, which means they interfere 
with the action of hormones that regulate animals' growth, development and 
fertility. These chemicals are of particular concern to female animals, 
since their hormones, like those of human females, fluctuate more than those 
of males.

Common endocrine disruptors include pesticides, phthalates (which make 
plastic flexible and make cosmetics adhere to the skin) and polychlorinated 
biphenyls (PCBs, industrial cooling agents banned in the United States in 
1979 but still present in the environment.) Individual chemicals such as 
these--or groups of them working together--are making animals' hormones go 
haywire.

In Washington state, endocrine disruptors have been tied to the deaths of 
mother orcas, whose orphans have been adopted by other female whales.

In Alaska, they have caused female polar bears' ovaries to shrink.

In Massachusetts, they have lowered the over-winter survival rates of female 
tree swallows.

In Florida, they have accumulated in the milk of mother dolphins, poisoning 
and killing their calves.

In addition to harming female animals, endocrine disruptors can cause the 
"feminization" of males. In Arizona, these chemicals have shrunken the 
gonads of largemouth bass and common carp. In the Midwest, they have spurred 
male waterfowl to grow female organs. In Washington, D.C., they have caused 
male fish to produce eggs.

Small Amounts, Big Impact
Just as alarming as these problems is the low level of exposure at which 
they are occurring. When Tyrone Hayes, an assistant professor of biology at 
the University of California, Berkeley, studied the endocrine-disrupting 
properties of atrazine, a common weed killer, he discovered reproductive 
abnormalities in affected leopard frogs at 0.1 parts per billion parts 
water, 30 times less than the Environmental Protection Agency's limit for 
atrazine in drinking water.

Though proof that endocrine disruptors can harm female wildlife is mounting, 
scientists say it is difficult to assess the total damage.

"In the wild, subtle outcomes such as length of gestation, litter size and 
the age of onset of puberty are difficult to ascertain," says Janssen. "You 
would have to know exactly when these females became pregnant and gave 
birth. You would have to anesthetize them to take blood samples. You would 
have to carefully observe and measure life events that are difficult to 
track in the field. Measuring these effects would ideally involve more 
controlled studies."

In laboratory settings, studies have repeatedly shown the adverse effects of 
some of the most prevalent endocrine disruptors.

Consider phthalates, those chemicals that help prevent makeup from smudging. 
In 2003, an Environmental Protection Agency study found these substances 
could reduce fertility in rodents, causing female rats to bear 50 to 90 
percent fewer offspring.

Take bisphenol-A, a compound used to make everything from computer keyboards 
to dental sealants to food-can lining. A 2005 study by the National 
Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park, N.C., 
found that exposure to this chemical can spur obesity in female rats. In 
August 2006, researchers at Tufts University in Boston found it can also 
cause breast cancer in female rodents.

There's also dioxin, a byproduct of paper manufacture and waste 
incineration. In 1998, researchers at the Washington-based Environmental 
Protection Agency found this chemical could trigger spontaneous abortions in 
rhesus monkeys. In 2003, a University of Ottawa study found it could also 
cause female primates to develop endometriosis, a disease that causes 
endometrial tissue normally found in the uterus to grow outside the womb.

More Questions Than Answers
As lab studies on endocrine disruptors continue, questions about what's 
happening in the wild persist. Why are mother sea ducks in Alaska producing 
fewer offspring? What's causing female dolphins in the Southeast to develop 
tumors in their reproductive tracts? Why are loon hatchlings in Wisconsin 
emerging deformed from their eggs?

Since only 10 percent of the synthetic chemicals in our environment have 
been tested on animals, scientists have yet to offer answers to these 
questions.

While research continues, some environmental advocates recommend that women 
avoid consuming fish and meat from the wild (such as carp caught in rivers 
or deer or pheasant shot by hunters) to avoid ingesting endocrine disruptors 
found in these animals' bodies.

Others recommend political action: calling for reduced emissions of 
synthetic chemicals, and calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to 
beef up its study of endocrine disruptors, a step Congress mandated in 1996 
but one that the EPA has yet to take because it says setting up the research 
is proving more difficult than expected.

Because these chemicals also surround people, concern is building about 
their effect on humans.

"Animals don't use computers, apply makeup or use chemical solvents in their 
homes every day," says Theo Colborn, former director of the Wildlife and 
Contaminants Program at the Washington-based World Wildlife Fund. "In the 
end, female humans may be at even greater risk than female animals."

On Dec. 19, Women's eNews will run the second of this series, looking at the 
efforts taken to study the effects of these toxins on women.

Molly M. Ginty is a freelance writer based in New York City.

Women's eNews welcomes your comments. E-mail us at editors at womensenews.org.

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http://www.womensenews.org:80/article.cfm/dyn/aid/3000/context/archive



Run Date: 12/19/06     By Molly M. Ginty  WeNews correspondent



Synthetic chemicals that pervade the environment and the bodies of mothers 
and their children are attracting scientific inquiry. Next year, two major 
studies may help peg how exposure to these pollutants is related to disease. 
Second of two parts.



(WOMENSENEWS)--It starts in the first weeks of life.

As the umbilical cord sends nutrients to the fetus, pumping 300 quarts of 
blood per day, it also delivers what nature never intended: synthetic 
chemicals that may wreak havoc with development and cause health problems 
later in life.

The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which tests 
the "body burden" of chemicals every two years, finds the average American 
now has 116 synthetic compounds in her body, including dioxin (produced by 
burning plastic), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (found in auto exhaust) 
and organochlorine pesticides (found in farming areas).

Recent studies have detected these pesticides, plastics and polymers not 
only in umbilical cord blood, but in the placenta, in human milk and in the 
bloodstreams and body fat of infants.

Though some of these chemicals pass through body systems in a matter of 
days, they maintain a long-term presence because exposure is constant.

Scientists say women are especially sensitive to synthetic chemicals because 
these substances can interfere with female hormone cycles and because they 
adhere to body fat that is more prevalent in women than in men.

In 2007, California will launch the nation's first statewide, voluntary 
biomonitoring program to measure chemical contaminants in people and find 
out which pollutants are most common in the state's residents.

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development next year will 
also begin a $2.5 billion study to track children's exposures from birth to 
age 21, examining which chemicals are building up in the bodies of U.S. 
children and how they relate to individuals' susceptibility to different 
diseases.

Precautions Recommended
While waiting for the results of these and other studies, health advocates 
are encouraging consumers to shun pesticides, remove outdoor shoes in the 
house, choose fragrance- and toxin-free products, use baby bottles that are 
free of a carcinogenic chemical called bisphenol-A and press authorities for 
stricter laws and more studies.

"Manufacturers are producing new chemicals all the time with little 
government oversight," says Julia Brody, director of the Silent Spring 
Institute, based in Newton, Mass. "We need tighter restrictions, like those 
in Europe, if we hope to protect the next generation."

One toxin threatening mothers and children is mercury, which can spur breast 
cancer, autism and attention deficit disorder. In 2002, a study found that 1 
in 6 U.S. women of reproductive age has enough of this contaminant in her 
blood to endanger a developing fetus.

Researchers say infants and children are also at high risk, because at the 
time of early and rapid growth, susceptibility to pollutants can be 
greatest.

How these pollutants wound up in babies' bodies--and what impact they may 
have on the next generation--are the subjects of inquiry by a growing number 
of concerned scientists.

According to federal records, U.S. companies produce an estimated 75,000 
chemicals; of those, 3,000 are produced in amounts of more than a million 
pounds per year.

All told, more than 100,000 chemicals--some of them toxins that were banned 
decades ago--persist in the soil, air and water. Whenever people come into 
contact with these substances, they can pass through the skin, nostrils or 
mucus membranes and into bloodstreams and body fat.

Some compounds can linger for decades after a single exposure. Take DDT, a 
pesticide that can damage the nervous system. In May 2006, the Seattle-based 
Toxic-Free Legacy Coalition tested Washington residents and found 80 percent 
had detectible levels of the chemical in their bloodstreams 34 years after 
it was banned in the United States.

'Increased Susceptibility' to Illness
"Our increased susceptibility to a variety of illnesses may be related not 
just to our exposure to these chemicals, but to exposures our mothers and 
grandmothers experienced during pregnancy," says Theo Colborn, president of 
the Endocrine Disruption Exchange, an environmental advocacy group based in 
Paonia, Colo.

The Washington-based Environmental Working Group in May tested 
mother-and-daughter pairs and found that each daughter had more chemicals in 
common with her mother than with other women. Because the mothers had 
decades more exposure, they had levels of lead, mercury and flame retardants 
in their bodies up to 5.2 times higher than their daughters.

To date, most studies on mother-to-child transmission--and on these 
chemicals' long-term effects--have been done on laboratory animals.

"It's unethical to experiment with these chemicals on people," says Shanna 
Swan, director of the Center for Reproductive Epidemiology at New York's 
University of Rochester. "And that's just one reason we don't have clear 
answers. There are hundreds of chemicals involved here, and studying just 
one of them costs upwards of $1 million."

Representatives of the petro-chemical industry say that until studies prove 
otherwise, there is little reason to worry about these compounds' negative 
effects.

"Finding a chemical in the body doesn't tell you anything about the source 
of the exposure, what caused the exposure or what risk it might pose at that 
level," says Sarah Brozena, a senior director at the American Chemistry 
Council, an industry trade association in Arlington, Va.

Some scientists are more cautious.

"There is extensive evidence of harm in animals and growing evidence of harm 
in humans," says Frederick vom Saal, a professor of biology at the 
University of Missouri-Columbia.

Four-Generation Legacy
He points to an October 2006 study from Washington State University that 
showed damage caused by some pollutants could last for four generations.

Though scattered, studies on humans who were accidentally exposed to high 
levels of synthetic chemicals give a glimpse of their possible effects.

In 2000, a University of Michigan study found breast-fed girls exposed in 
utero to polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs, a type of flame retardant) started 
menstruating at an earlier-than-average age.

In 2002, a Taiwanese study examined men born to mothers who were exposed to 
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs, coolants banned in the U.S. in 1979). 
Researchers discovered the men's sperm were misshapen and could not swim as 
quickly or strongly as those of other men.

In 2005, Swan lead a University of Rochester study that examined phthalates, 
chemicals that soften plastic and help cosmetics adhere without smudging. 
She discovered that exposure to these compounds in utero resulted in the 
"feminization" of baby boys, who had smaller penises, shorter distances 
between the anus and genitals, and a higher risk for undescended testicles.

Health advocates suspect synthetic chemicals such as these may be linked to 
a whole flurry of health problems that have grown more common since 
industrialization surged in the past century.

They say pollutants may be partly responsible for the rising incidence of 
breast cancer, up 90 percent in 50 years and triggered in lab studies by 
organochlorine pesticides, mercury, PAH (found in auto emissions) and 
polyvinyl chloride (PVC, found in plastics).

Other health problems that researchers say may be linked to environmental 
toxins include male infertility, which has increased twelvefold in the past 
80 years; prostate cancer, up 75 percent in 30 years; diabetes, which has 
doubled in the past 25 years; and obesity, which has doubled in the past 15 
years.

This is the second of two parts looking at the impact of environmental 
pollutants on females.

Molly M. Ginty is a freelance writer based in New York City.

Women's eNews welcomes your comments. E-mail us at editors at womensenews.org.


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For more information:
"Female Troubles for Wildlife Raise Human Worries":
http://womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2999/

"Women at Center of Consumer Eco-Push":
http://womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2784/

"Reproductive Rights Fight Moves to Environment":
http://womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/1498/

Environmental Working Group
"Body Burden: The Pollution in People":
http://www.ewg.org/bodyburden/