Environmental Chemicals Are Feminizing Boys

[Snick]

"Denmark has unveiled official research showing that two-year-old children are at risk from a bewildering array of gender-bending chemicals in such everyday items as waterproof clothes, rubber boots, bed linen, food, sunscreen lotion, and moisturizing cream. A picture is emerging of ubiquitous chemical contamination driving down sperm counts and feminizing male children all over the developed world. Research at Rotterdam's Erasmus University found that boys whose mothers were exposed to PCBs and dioxins were more likely to play with dolls and tea sets and dress up in female clothes. 'The amounts that two-year-olds absorb from the [preservatives] parabens propylparaben and butylparaben can constitute a risk for oestrogen-like disruptions of the endocrine system,' says the report. The contamination may also offer a clue to a mysterious shift in the sex of babies. Normally 106 boys are born for every 100 girls: it is thought to be nature's way of making up for the fact that men were more likely to be killed hunting or in conflict. But the proportion of females is rising. 'Both the public and wildlife are inadequately protected from harm, as regulation is based on looking at exposure to each substance in isolation, and yet it is now proven beyond doubt that hormone disrupting chemicals can act together to cause effects even when each by itself would not,' says Gwynne Lyons, director of Chem Trust."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/nov/06/health-eu

[princeshow]

A ton of similar info here including a documentary

http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/docz...appearingmale/

[rxpharm]

This has been a problem documented several time in the past - but the scale of the problem seems to be worse as the buildup of these chemicals increases at increasing rates.

What would be interesting is to find out if Thailand has a greater concentration of these chemicals than other countries. It should also be interesting about China where there is pollution on massive scales with some of the chemicals.

[princeshow]

It's certainly interesting and pollution is never good, but is the declining male birthrate really a problem at all? If fewer boys are born than girls, those boys might be in higher demand and we depend less and less on manual labour that might have been performed by males.

To me it's more like an example of the consequences of filling our environment with synthetic chemicals

[fridgemagnet]

er - I thought that in most societies, it's the women who do all the work.