same with herbicides
hell yes, it creeps me out!!!
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/4220UCB: Popular Weed Killer Demasculinizes Frogs, Disrupts Sexual Development
2002-04-16
Berkeley - The nation's top-selling weed killer, atrazine, disrupts the sexual development of frogs at concentrations 30 times lower than levels allowed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), raising concerns about heavy use of the herbicide on corn, soybeans and other crops in the Midwest and around the world.
A restricted herbicide, atrazine is used primarily on crops, not around the home, and can be purchased and applied only by certified applicators.
In an article in the April 16 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, developmental endocrinologist Tyrone B. Hayes, associate professor of integrative biology, and his colleagues report that atrazine at levels often found in the environment demasculinizes tadpoles and turns them into hermaphrodites - creatures with both male and female sexual characteristics. The herbicide also lowers levels of the male hormone testosterone in sexually mature male frogs by a factor of 10, to levels lower than those in normal female frogs.
As Hayes later discovered, many atrazine-contaminated ponds in the Midwest contain native leopard frogs with the same abnormalities.
..snip
http://aspatula.blogspot.com/2008/03/environmental-idiocy.htmlAnother disturbing trend is the increasing problem with interrupting fish reproductive cycles as well as a growing number of male fish becoming "feminized" (that is, either lacking or having poorly developed male sex organs). According to "Collapse of a Fish Population after Exposure to a Synthetic Estrogen," in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (21 May 2007), abnormally high levels of estrogen and estrogen mimics (mostly from the decomposition of certain pesticides) in a number of Canadian lakes led to the virtual extinction of one breed of fish within seven years (
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/104/21/8897?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=%28Collapse+AND+of+AND+a+AND+fish+AND+population+AND+after+AND+exposure+AND+to+AND+synthetic+AND+oestrogen%29&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT). Natural hormones, in particular estrogen, and hormonal mimics, particularly from pesticides, are the sources of much of reproductive maladies in a number of animal species.
The two major sources of estrogen in our water supply is the urine of cows treated with estrogen (
http://thegreenguide.com/reports/product.mhtml?id=39) and in the urine of women taking birth control pills (
http://www.insiderreports.com/storypage.asp?StoryID=20009617).
The ability of pesticides to mimic hormones, including estrogen, is behind male Florida alligators experiencing various sexual abnormalities (
http://www.rgp.ufl.edu/publications/explore/v11n3/story1.html ).
We should care about the sex problems of amphibians, fish, and reptiles because there are disturbing links between the maladies experienced by aquatic animals and worldwide problems including testicular cancer and low sperm quality in human males (
http://www.rachel.org/bulletin/bulletin.cfm?Issue_ID=609 ).
For an excellent overview of the problems caused by the various pollutants on the endocrine and reproductive hormones, see, "Our Stolen Future" (
http://www.ourstolenfuture.com/index.htm). In addition, see the article by Ian R. Falconer, “Are Endocrine Disrupting Compounds a Health Risk in Drinking Water?" in The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (June 2006) which argues for the negative influence of estrogen mimickers (and, to a lesser extent, estrogen itself) in municipal water supplies (
http://www.mdpi.org/ijerph/papers/ijerph2006030020.pdf).
If we put all these observations together, we must realize that pesticides, chemical pollutants, and hormones in the water supply are killing us far more quickly than moderately warmer summers. We might want to point this out to the government. In the meantime, you might want to adjust your own choices by eating more organic foods trying to eliminate pesticides and hormones from your diet. With three daughters, my wife and I have made the switch. In particular, we have switched to organic dairy products in an effort to avoid increased estrogen from the cows' milk. This is something we can control, or at least influence -- think about it.