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We are conducting a vast toxicological experiment in which our children and our children's children are the experimental subjects. - - Dr. Herbert Needleman
Remember the movie The Graduate? Dustin Hoffmann plays Benjamin Braddock, a confused young man just out of college and uncertain about his future. In one scene a family friend, Mr. McGuire, pulls him aside and says, "I want to say one word to you. Are you listening to me? Plastics. There's a great future in plastics."
Well, as a predictor of the future, Mr. McGuire could not have been more wrong … at least about the "great future".
Our lives are immersed in plastics. Plastics are everywhere.
Everywhere.
Each day we are awash in an ocean of more than 1000 synthetic chemicals. They are in our clothing, our bedding, our food, our cosmetics … and they are in our bodies. And the truth is we know very little about how these chemicals impact life on earth. Of the more than 80,000 manmade chemicals that have been invented by chemical companies, fully 85% have never been tested on humans.
However, emerging scientific evidence is showing us that these chemicals may be much more dangerous than we could ever have imagined.
Industrial wastes like mercury, benzine, and dioxin are known to negatively impact human reproduction. And while some of these dangerous chemicals occur in nature, most of them are man-made from petroleum. These chemicals can be structurally similar to human and animal hormones, and they appear to be particularly damaging to young males. Because they are structurally similar to human hormones they have the capacity to block the testosterone receptors in the body, preventing the healthy development of the male sex organs. And this is not just happening to humans. The males of many other species, including reptiles, are showing alarming increases in malformed reproductive organs.
Of particular concern are petrochemicals called phthalates. Prevalent in women, phthalates have been linked to sexual aberrations in male fetuses. Ironically, many of the so-called "safe toys" that children put in their mouth contain phthalates. Phthalates are also common in cosmetics. 75% of shampoos, skin creams, lipsticks, deodorant, hair gel, and perfumes contain phthalates.
One phthalate, found in PVC vinyl is called DEHP. DEHP has been classified as a reproductive toxin and yet it and is found in hospital birthing wards around the country. PVC vinyl is used to make blood bags, intravenous tubing, and catheters. PVC vinyl is known to leech from medical equipment into children.
The average person takes in 30 micrograms/kg of phthalates per day. A patient in a hospital can absorb up to 200 times that amount, sometimes for days or weeks at a time. Male children are particularly vulnerable.
One infamous toxic petrochemical is called Bisphenol A (BPA). BPA is used in making polycarbonate, one of the most commonly used plastics. Used to make CDs and DVDs, it is also an ingredient in baby bottles. BPA functions in the body as a synthetic estrogen, sometimes called a "xenoestrogen". Through the use of BPA in baby bottles, we have essentially been feeding our infant children synthetic hormones. BPA has been linked to cryptorchidism (undescended testicles), a congenital condition in which boy's testicles do not drop down into the scrotum. Boys with undescended testicles are 7 times more likely to experience infertility and 8 times more likely to be victims of testicular cancer.
In the last 20 years the incidence of testicular cancer has doubled. In the last 50 years, sperm counts in men worldwide have been cut in half. Today, college age males produce only half the number of sperm that their fathers did. And of the sperm that they do produce, 80% of them are abnormal.
But rather than addressing the problem directly, our government and their corporate masters have seen fit to "lower the bar"; they have simply changed the definition of "infertility". The World Health Organization previously defined male infertility as sperm counts that fell below 60 million per milliliter. When sperm counts began to drop worldwide they changed the definition to 40 million per milliliter, then to 20 million per milliliter. They are now considering dropping it to 10 million per milliliter.
This is the moral and logical equivalent of a cardiologist treating heart disease by calling it "normal" and walking away.
The chemicals in our environment are particularly dangerous to a developing fetus. A child in the womb is much more sensitive to toxic chemicals than adults, and the negative effects, when they do occur, are permanent. Petrochemicals are transmitted to the child at first through the umbilical cord and later via the mother's breast milk. Once they enter the body of the fetus they can create irreversible damage to that child's reproductive system. Male genital birth defects have roughly doubled in recent years.
Male fetuses are being miscarried in ever increasing numbers. In more than 20 industrialized countries the birth of males has declined. In communities near petrochemical plants male fetuses are miscarried at twice the rate of females.
As if this were not enough, recent evidence shows that increased levels of stress may increase the reproductive impact of these petrochemicals on the human body. Stress hormones, glucocorticoids, when combined with the common petrochemicals found in our bodies strongly increase the likelihood of reproductive birth defects.
So becoming stressed about the negative impacts of petrochemicals may help to create those negative impacts.
That our male dominated planet has created an industry of pollution and a way of life that may eventually destroy the male gender is ironic in the extreme.
References:
University of Edinburgh (2009, October 22). Fetal Study Highlights Impact Of Stress On Male Fertility. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 27, 2009, from www.sciencedaily.com- /releases/2009/10/091021101814.htm
The Disappearing Male video hosted by Anne-Marie MacDonald on DocZone video.google.com/videoplay
www.greenpeace.org.uk/files/p...5988.pdf
www.ehponline.org/members/2...9/8479.pdf
www.psr.org/site/PageServer
www.protectingourhealth.org/news...w.htm
www.healthandenvironment.org/inf...ents
www.ehponline.org/members/2...a00670.pdf
www.healthyenvironmentforkids.ca/e...df
www.nrdc.org/OnEarth/06win/chem1.asp
Remember the movie The Graduate? Dustin Hoffmann plays Benjamin Braddock, a confused young man just out of college and uncertain about his future. In one scene a family friend, Mr. McGuire, pulls him aside and says, "I want to say one word to you. Are you listening to me? Plastics. There's a great future in plastics."
Well, as a predictor of the future, Mr. McGuire could not have been more wrong … at least about the "great future".
Our lives are immersed in plastics. Plastics are everywhere.
Everywhere.
Each day we are awash in an ocean of more than 1000 synthetic chemicals. They are in our clothing, our bedding, our food, our cosmetics … and they are in our bodies. And the truth is we know very little about how these chemicals impact life on earth. Of the more than 80,000 manmade chemicals that have been invented by chemical companies, fully 85% have never been tested on humans.
However, emerging scientific evidence is showing us that these chemicals may be much more dangerous than we could ever have imagined.
Industrial wastes like mercury, benzine, and dioxin are known to negatively impact human reproduction. And while some of these dangerous chemicals occur in nature, most of them are man-made from petroleum. These chemicals can be structurally similar to human and animal hormones, and they appear to be particularly damaging to young males. Because they are structurally similar to human hormones they have the capacity to block the testosterone receptors in the body, preventing the healthy development of the male sex organs. And this is not just happening to humans. The males of many other species, including reptiles, are showing alarming increases in malformed reproductive organs.
Of particular concern are petrochemicals called phthalates. Prevalent in women, phthalates have been linked to sexual aberrations in male fetuses. Ironically, many of the so-called "safe toys" that children put in their mouth contain phthalates. Phthalates are also common in cosmetics. 75% of shampoos, skin creams, lipsticks, deodorant, hair gel, and perfumes contain phthalates.
One phthalate, found in PVC vinyl is called DEHP. DEHP has been classified as a reproductive toxin and yet it and is found in hospital birthing wards around the country. PVC vinyl is used to make blood bags, intravenous tubing, and catheters. PVC vinyl is known to leech from medical equipment into children.
The average person takes in 30 micrograms/kg of phthalates per day. A patient in a hospital can absorb up to 200 times that amount, sometimes for days or weeks at a time. Male children are particularly vulnerable.
One infamous toxic petrochemical is called Bisphenol A (BPA). BPA is used in making polycarbonate, one of the most commonly used plastics. Used to make CDs and DVDs, it is also an ingredient in baby bottles. BPA functions in the body as a synthetic estrogen, sometimes called a "xenoestrogen". Through the use of BPA in baby bottles, we have essentially been feeding our infant children synthetic hormones. BPA has been linked to cryptorchidism (undescended testicles), a congenital condition in which boy's testicles do not drop down into the scrotum. Boys with undescended testicles are 7 times more likely to experience infertility and 8 times more likely to be victims of testicular cancer.
In the last 20 years the incidence of testicular cancer has doubled. In the last 50 years, sperm counts in men worldwide have been cut in half. Today, college age males produce only half the number of sperm that their fathers did. And of the sperm that they do produce, 80% of them are abnormal.
But rather than addressing the problem directly, our government and their corporate masters have seen fit to "lower the bar"; they have simply changed the definition of "infertility". The World Health Organization previously defined male infertility as sperm counts that fell below 60 million per milliliter. When sperm counts began to drop worldwide they changed the definition to 40 million per milliliter, then to 20 million per milliliter. They are now considering dropping it to 10 million per milliliter.
This is the moral and logical equivalent of a cardiologist treating heart disease by calling it "normal" and walking away.
The chemicals in our environment are particularly dangerous to a developing fetus. A child in the womb is much more sensitive to toxic chemicals than adults, and the negative effects, when they do occur, are permanent. Petrochemicals are transmitted to the child at first through the umbilical cord and later via the mother's breast milk. Once they enter the body of the fetus they can create irreversible damage to that child's reproductive system. Male genital birth defects have roughly doubled in recent years.
Male fetuses are being miscarried in ever increasing numbers. In more than 20 industrialized countries the birth of males has declined. In communities near petrochemical plants male fetuses are miscarried at twice the rate of females.
As if this were not enough, recent evidence shows that increased levels of stress may increase the reproductive impact of these petrochemicals on the human body. Stress hormones, glucocorticoids, when combined with the common petrochemicals found in our bodies strongly increase the likelihood of reproductive birth defects.
So becoming stressed about the negative impacts of petrochemicals may help to create those negative impacts.
That our male dominated planet has created an industry of pollution and a way of life that may eventually destroy the male gender is ironic in the extreme.
References:
University of Edinburgh (2009, October 22). Fetal Study Highlights Impact Of Stress On Male Fertility. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 27, 2009, from www.sciencedaily.com- /releases/2009/10/091021101814.htm
The Disappearing Male video hosted by Anne-Marie MacDonald on DocZone video.google.com/videoplay
www.greenpeace.org.uk/files/p...5988.pdf
www.ehponline.org/members/2...9/8479.pdf
www.psr.org/site/PageServer
www.protectingourhealth.org/news...w.htm
www.healthandenvironment.org/inf...ents
www.ehponline.org/members/2...a00670.pdf
www.healthyenvironmentforkids.ca/e...df
www.nrdc.org/OnEarth/06win/chem1.asp
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Hawaii
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Re: Boys Will Be Boys ... Or Will They?
Thu, November 5, 2009 - 7:01 AMthanks, especially the sperm count thing is another reason to keep looking at food resource information, and shopping at my co-op for organic fruits and veggies.
It's amazing to think that most people no longer wear more than, say 15% natural fiber in their wardrobe -
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Re: Boys Will Be Boys ... Or Will They?
Fri, November 6, 2009 - 1:11 PMI for one would love to wear more environmentally friendly clothing, which I checked out last year, but found them to be ultra-expensive due to the surge in the 'Green Movement'.
On a more personal level, within the last few years, before the Dawn of the Green /movement, per se ... we have eliminated most of the plastic containers in the house, we don't buy food packages in plastic, we dont use the plastic bags at the stores, will not buy coffe in stryo-foam, and we are eating for the most part, a bio-regional diet from within 100 miles; as much as we can. Somethings come from outside that 100 miles, but still within our bio-region.
Plastic is poison to be sure and dont forget about styro-foam. Equally as caustic. I see people where I work all the time re-heating their food or coffes in styro-foam containers...yuck! Styrio-foam puts off acetate when heated, not sure about when it gets heated in a micro-wave! -
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Re: Boys Will Be Boys ... Or Will They?
Sat, November 7, 2009 - 11:58 PMfor every action there is a reaction.... it has been found that a number of fungi actually break down and use many of these horrible chemical chains we create as a food source, processing the compounds and breaking apart the raw elements rendering them inert and returning them to the cycle....
in the meantime we need to do our individual part and recognize the need to help clean the beds we have made...... -
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Re: Boys Will Be Boys ... Or Will They?
Sun, November 8, 2009 - 12:47 AMthe plastic of milk jugs has a compound that mimics estrogen, giving our young men, boy boobies. being parked being the video game doesnt help either.
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Yet More Data
Wed, November 11, 2009 - 6:33 PM
