What's With the Fish?
Are synthetic hormones wreaking havoc with nature?
HighGrader Magazine May/June 1998
by Brit Griffin
"Humans also carry PCBs and other persistent chemicals in their body fat, and they pass this chemical legacy on to their babies. Virtually anyone willing to put up the $2,000 for the tests will find at least 250 chemical contaminants in his or her body fat, regardless of whether he or she lives in Gary, Indiana or the South Pacific."
- from Our Stolen Future by Theo Colborn et al
Something is wrong with the fish. And the birds. And the frogs. The fish, it seems aren't as manly as they once were. The birds are shacking up female with female. The frogs, well, all kinds of things are going on with the frogs. And according to the proponents of a major environmental campaign, endocrine disruptors are to blame. The problem is that endocrine disruptors seems to be in everything but eye of newt. Is the environmental sky falling or has Chicken Little picked up some lingo about hormones, health and plastics?

In 1995, World WildLife Foundation (WWF) scientist Theo Colborn organized the groundbreaking Wingspread conference on endocrine disruptors. For the first time, a wide variety of scientists, working in diverse fields, were brought together to compare notes on the possible effects of chemical and synthetic "disruptors" of hormonal systems in wildlife and human health.
Hormones regulate many bodily functions, including reproduction, immune systems and organs such as the liver, kidney and brain. Endocrine disruptors, either through direct exposure or indirect exposure via the food chain, can derail the precise and finely-tuned workings of the body's hormonal system. Potential disruptors include well-known bad boys like PCBs and dioxins, to some laundry detergents, plastics, pesticides and even urine discharged into sewage systems from women on the "pill".
Colborn followed this conference up with the book Our Stolen Future (co-authored by Dianne Dumanoski and John Peterson Meyers) and since then, in the words of one WWF organizer, endocrine disruption has become the darling of the `American chat shows'.

In the vast world of endocrine disruptors, there is no shortage of fodder for the chat circuit. Studies finding frogs with legs growing out of their stomachs or eyes in their mouths, declining panther and alligator populations or fish suffering from definite gender identity questions have caught the public's attention. In humans, endocrine disruptors have been linked in the press to declining male sperm count, increased rates of breast cancer in women, birth defects and depressed immune systems. A few sessions of these mutated frogs in the hands of Oprah and company and the average person will be checking into one of those environmental bubbles.
Among the stories that came out at the Wingspread Conference was the chilling discovery made by Boston scientists Dr. Ana Soto and her colleague Carlos Sonnenschein while investigating what made cells multiply. Soto and Sonnenschein were trying to find proof of cell inhibitors which serve to keep cell growth in line and they were testing this theory on breast cancer cells.
In 1987 their experiment took a curious turn - out of the blue the cancer cells that had all along been inhibited started to reproduce at a frantic pace. Looking exhaustively for what they believed was an estrogen contamination, they finally traced it to a new brand of lab tubes used to hold the serum. It was an alarming discovery as it meant that the plastic contained some chemical that could change human cells.
The company producing the lab tubes refused to disclose what chemicals were involved, citing concern over trade secrets. Soto and Sonnenschein finally isolated the culprit as p-nonlyphenol, a fairly common synthetic chemical used to make plastics more flexible. It is also found when detergents and pesticides begin to break down and interact with bacteria in animals or the environment.
The problem with endocrine disruptors is their pervasiveness. It was at first assumed that the endocrine disruption was due primarily to detergents and industrial discharges. Recent studies reveal even more complex possibilities. Urban sewage, for instance, contains enough natural and synthetic steroids to cause serious gender bending. This would include natural steroids present in pregnant women and synthetic steroids from estrogen replacement therapies and oral contraceptives. Similar problems are turning up in some U.S. rivers and Environment Canada has initiated its own studies on fish downstream from sewage plants.
Concerns also persist around the presence of endocrine disruptors in the fatty tissue of certain fish. When humans step into the food chain, effects can be passed on, as studies of fish-eaters near the Great Lakes have suggested. A 1996 study by a team of psychologists in Detroit revealed learning deficits in children with exposures to PCB's in the womb. Other studies looked at links between behavioral problems and fish-eating parents.

Beating the Drum
Recently, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) launched a major publicity campaign on the issue of endocrine disruption. Julia Langer, Director of Wildlife Toxicology at WWF, believes that endocrine disruption could be a catch-all cause for all sorts of health problems. "For people doing behavioral development, brain development work or cancer work are seeing this as a useful hypothesis for what they are seeing. That was the sort of penny that dropped at the Wingspread conference: people from all different disciples felt that there was this common etiology, a common mechanism that explained the things that they were seeing."
According to Langer, WWF is pushing the endocrine disruptor issue because they believe Canada is lagging behind the international community when it comes to both public awareness and government action.
And yet, the list of studies being done on the issue is overwhelming. The Internet is jammed with sites pertaining to endocrine disruption. Langer credits her own organization for this awareness. "It's an issue that has to a large extent been moved up the science and policy agenda because of the work of WWF."
Recently they sponsored a special seminar for journalists to counter the `under-reporting' in Canada on the issue and have loaded up their web-site with spine-tingling accounts of hormonal chaos. WWF is also pushing Canada to comply with forthcoming bans on certain products as well as pressing for substantive initiatives for alternative products.
In their publication "Reducing Your Risk" WWF provides a list of do's and don'ts for the consumer. They advise consumers to stay away from animals higher on the food chain (since disruptors are likely to be accumulative) but then provide a discouraging list of fruits and vegetables to avoid at the lower end (pesticide use). Plastic cling-wrap and containers are a no-no. The list of things to avoid is enough to make one feeling paranoid about breathing (no licking golf balls or touching window sills). It's as if the Michigan Militia went on a health binge.

How Serious
Langer says she is frustrated that despite all that WWF is doing, Health Canada isn't jumping onto the bandwagon fast enough. "We have Health Canada saying this is not an issue for the population of Canada. They know that Environment Canada is seeing effects in wildlife populations but Health Canada is saying, well that's fine but we don't see it in the general population. My response to that is, "what are we waiting for?"
Dr. Warren Foster of Reproductive Toxicology at Health Canada makes it clear he isn't dragging his heels. In fact, he counters that Health Canada was active on the issue of endocrine disruption long before it became `the flavour of the day'. Foster acknowledges the adverse impacts on wildlife but isn't so certain this can simply be extrapolated to the human population.
"In the general population there is an absence of evidence that says there are adverse effects at this stage. Now we do know that chemicals, in the case of occupational exposure or accidental poisonings, where you have very high levels of exposures, can cause adverse affects. But in the general population, we have alot of suggestive data but a lot of it is equivocal or conflicting. So our position is that this is still a research area, though there is a definite need to carry out the epidemiological studies to determine what role environmental pollutants might play in disease outcomes."
Foster is wary of a single catch-all culprit. "There is no question that there are fish populations and wildlife populations that are showing adverse health effects, but the question is what is the cause? In some cases, and in some geographic regions not all of them the argument could be made that we are seeing chemically induced effects. In other regions it could be something else. In the case of the frog populations there is no consensus in the scientific community, and there are different ideas, one being it could be ultra violet rays, or an infectious agent, or another that it is pesticides or environmental pollutants."
Dr. Warren Foster maintains that the jury is still out on the issue of adverse effects of humans. But the impact on wildlife is enough to justify regulatory action from the government.
In a world that is overwhelmed with bad news, Foster believes it is important not to over-react. "We have people out there screaming the sky is falling, and the Chicken Little phenomenon is having the effect that the population is no longer listening. And there is going to come a time when they will have to stand up to pay attention and we will have abused their trust so much that they won't listen and they will miss it. My job as a scientist is human health, and I have to look at the data and ask where's the truth. And only when I can see an answer of where the truth lies can I speak definitely. We're not at that stage as far as adverse effects on human health."
Langer , on the other hand, is wary about waiting for scientific consensus. "Health Canada is caught between what we would call the drive for scientific certainty, which we don't believe is ever possible to achieve, and second-guessing the politicians. They believe they need absolute certainty before they go to the politicians but that isn't true, politicians work on concerns, its their whole metier."

It is well within the realm of common sense that the sheer volume of industrial and pharmaceutical chemicals are likely to have significant adverse impacts on both health and environment. Whether endocrine disruption can account for the majority of what ails us is another matter.
The implications are staggering. For instance, it is one thing to tackle the plastics industries, after all, we have all become accustomed to pointing the figure at industrial products, but whether we will be equally willing to examine lifestyle issues such as the use of pharmaceutical hormones for birth control and estrogen therapy is another thing. Campaigns like those launched by WWF are useful in sounding the alarm bells - it is up to Canadians to decide whether to push the panic button.

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