Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Sperm counts and industrial pollution



Sam!

In answer to your summary post:


Following on the report this weekend citing the Independent of London
regarding decreasing sperm counts and industrial pollution:

20 III 02

From a conversation with Prof. Katherine Hammond, Professor of
Environmental Health Sciences UC Berkeley: the problem with the report in
the London Independent is that the data on sperm counts over several
decades taken by different individuals, with different methods, using
different counting protocols, on different populations, leave it unclear
that the effect reported, diminishing sperm counts, is at all conclusively
established.
The teaching point is that great care must be exercised in the design
of such studies rather than just taking data collected for a variety of
purposes at face value.
Prof. Hammond says that the definitive study is yet to be done.
Increasing levels of trace industrial chemicals and drug residues in
the nation's water supplies as reported in the Washington Post 13 March
2002 and scheduled for publication that day in Environmental Science and
Technology, do seem to be well-established, however.

**********************************************
**********************************************
** John N. Cooper **
** Chemistry Department **
** Bucknell University **
** Lewisburg PA 17837 **
** jcooper@bucknell.edu **
** http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/jcooper **
** Vox 570 577 3673 Fax 570 577 1739 **
**********************************************
**********************************************

The Progressive Review wrote:

UNDERNEWS
Mar 18, 2002


cut



||| INDEPENDENT, LONDON - Sperm counts are falling dramatically across
Britain and the rest of industrialised world, and scientists are
increasingly convinced that pollution is to blame. Studies around the
world have shown that average sperm counts in men have dropped by more
than half over the past 50 years ? from about 160 million per millilitre
of semen to 66 million. . .

Other research by the US Government's Environmental Protection Agency
shows that, proportionately, a man now produce only about a third as
much sperm as a hamster. Scientists increasingly blame a whole class of
hormone-disrupting chemicals. Evidence suggests that they cause cancer
and damage the immune system, as well as impairing fertility. And they
are ever more ubiquitous.

DDT and other pesticides disrupt hormones, as do PCBs, used in countless
products worldwide, from plastics and paint to electrical equipment.
Other components of plastics have been found to leach hormone-disrupters
including phthalates, which have been found in a wide range of foods
including baby milk.

Furthermore, an investigation by the BBC's Country File and the
Independent has revealed research, to be published this month, that
shows that artificial oestrogens, used in contraceptive pills and
emitted through sewage works, appear to be changing the sex of half the
fish in Britain's lowland rivers. Scientists and environmentalists fear
that the powerful chemicals are getting into drinking water and
affecting human fertility. One third of Britain's drinking water comes
from rivers; most of it is taken from below sewage works.

MORE
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=275396


cut