Feminized to Extinction

Tyrael · #1 23rd-May-2007

Quote:

Feminized to Extinction

By Erik Stokstad
ScienceNOW Daily News
21 May 2007

All across the world, people are polluting waterways with estrogen. Excreted in urine, the hormone passes through most wastewater plants and ends up in streams and lakes, where some studies suggest it is feminizing male fish. Now a large experiment has shown that even a very low level of estrogen in a lake can cause enough reproductive harm to wipe out an entire population of minnows in 2 years.

Extra estrogen isn't good for male fish. Laboratory studies have shown that chronic exposure to low doses causes males to produce eggs in their testes and takes away their secondary sex characteristics, such as darker coloration and tubercules on their noses. The big question was what those levels mean for populations in the wild. To find out, researchers led by Karen Kidd of the University of New Brunswick, Canada, performed an experiment in a lake in western Ontario. Each summer for 3 years, they spiked the lake with a few parts per trillion of 17α-ethynylestradiol--the active ingredient in birth-control pills--in concentrations like those found in streams and lakes elsewhere. The experiment took place in a remote area set aside for research.

Within weeks of the first doses, male minnows started making vitellogenin, a protein that helps eggs mature in females. They wound up with levels 8000 to 10,000 times normal. (Females increased production to 8 to 80 times their usual levels, and the estrogen somehow slowed egg development.) Sexual development was delayed in the males, and fewer and fewer fish were found; apparently, the fish had stopped reproducing. After the second year, the researchers couldn't find any fathead minnow nests. "We didn't expect to see such a dramatic and quick response," Kidd says. It took more than 2 years after researchers stopped adding estrogen for the population to begin to recover.

Other male fish in the lake, such as suckers and trout, also produced vitellogenin, but their populations were not as hard hit, presumably because these larger species have longer natural life spans. However, chronic exposure might cause similar effects, the researchers speculate. They report their results this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"These are dire consequences," says Dave Epel of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. "This is a red flag." But it is difficult to gauge the impact of estrogen on populations of fathead minnows across North America, Kidd notes. The fish are still found in rivers receiving treated sewage, so apparently some populations survive the hormonal onslaught. And without baseline data, it's impossible to know whether populations have fallen. Still, given the wide range of fish affected by estrogen, Kidd says it would be prudent for cities to adopt modern treatment systems that remove up to 95% of the estrogen.

Link to the article.

**chevalier** · #2 23rd-May-2007

I knew estrogen was a poison look what it does to some women they become feminists. So clearly it is a diabolical poison and mind control drug.
It is kinda scary that estrogen can impact wild animals that way!

**MikeT** · #3 22nd-October-2007

Oddly enough Tyrael,
I happened to see a documentary yesterday about the proliferation of estrogen in the water supply system.
Don't forget, once this estrogen gets into the water table it will also be absorbed by plants (like fruit and vegetables) when the water is used to irrigate crops.
There was a toxicologist on the programme talking about the effects this could have on humans, especially men, given that the media and health groups are encouraging people to eat lots of "healthy" fruit and vegetables.
I'll stick to meat, thanks.

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