By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
(Feb. 22, 2008) Another study has confirmed that the synthetic estrogen found in birth control pills, when leaked into waterways through municipal sewer systems, can decimate wild fish populations. While concerns rise about the long-term effects of these chemicals on the environment – and human beings – the mainstream media continues to ignore the story.
Dr. Karen Kidd, a biology professor at the University of New Brunswick and an expert on the effects of pharmaceuticals and personal care products on the environment, conducted the latest study after an exhaustive seven-year research effort and presented the findings at the prestigious 2008 American Association for the Advancement of Science Conference.
“We’ve known for some time that estrogen can adversely affect the reproductive health of fish, but ours was the first study to show the long-term impact on the sustainability of wild fish populations,” said Dr. Kidd. “What we demonstrated is that estrogen can wipe out entire populations of small fish – a key food source for larger fish whose survival could in turn be threatened over the longer term.”
Researchers conducted the study at the Experimental Lakes Area in Northwestern Ontario. For three summers, they added tiny amounts of the synthetic estrogen used in birth control pills to the lake at levels similar to what would be found in treated wastewater from cities of about 200,000 people.
During that period, they observed that chronic exposure to estrogen led to the near extinction of the lake’s fathead minnow population along with significant declines in larger fish populations.
Male fish were also found to have become feminized by exposure to the estrogen, a phenomenon that has been recorded in several other studies. Apparently, increased estrogen exposure caused male fish to begin producing egg protein normally synthesized by females. Female fish were also adversely affected because estrogen often retards sexual maturation, including egg production.
Kidd’s research found that after removing the estrogen from the lake, the fish population was able to recover and return to former levels.
The Canadian study is one of many reports from around the world which have found that synthetic birth control hormones being excreted into water systems is wreaking havoc on the sex of fish stocks.
One of the most recent studies in the U.S. was in 2005 when scientists from the University of Colorado discovered fish with both male and female characteristics in a waterway downstream from a Boulder sewage treatment plant. One of the biologists, John Woodling, told the Denver Post that the discovery of trans-gendered fish was “the first thing that I’ve seen as a scientist that really scared me.”
Scientists know very little about what affect modern pharmaceuticals, such as birth control pills, may have on the environment. They only know from collecting environmental samples that a potential toxic soup of chemicals, including pain killers, antibiotics, cholesterol reducing, blood pressure regulating and chemotherapy drugs, is entering the ecosystem after being excreted by people.
“The drugs enter the wastewater, where treatment of sewage can be completely ineffective or very effective at removing them, depending on the type of drug and on the type of sewage treatment plant,” said Dr. Kidd.
Concern is also rising in the scientific community about the possible carcinogenic effects of the build up of synthetic estrogen in drinking water and its affect on the human population.
For instance, there have been studies showing a link between environmental and estrogen-like chemical pollutants and early onset of puberty in girls.
Only a decade ago, breast development in girls at age eight was considered abnormal, but a 1997 study of 17,000 girls from North Carolina found significant numbers of breast development by age eight. The phenomenon is so pervasive in American girls that the Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society is urging a change in the definition of abnormal development. Studies in the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand have shown similar results.
It is already known that increased lifetime exposure to estrogen has caused world cancer rates to jump by 26 percent since 1980 and the Columbia Environmental Research Center is already studying whether estrogen-contaminated water may be affecting human males.
Studies have shown that the sperm count in healthy males has dropped by half in the past 50 years, according to a global review of 61 studies involving nearly 15,000 men.
With an estimated 100 million women worldwide taking some form of hormonal contraceptive, this problem will persist for years to come.
And yet the normally environmental-friendly media, and even some environmental groups, have almost completely ignored it.
“If you’re killing mosquitoes to save peple from the West Nile virus, you can count on secular environmentalists to lay down in front of the vapor truck, claiming some potential side effect,” George Harden of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists told the National Catholic Register last year.
“But if birth control deforms fish – backed by the proof of an EPA study – and threatens the drinking supply, mum will be the word.”
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