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Low Sperm Counts and Deformed Penises: The Chemical Industry Has a Hold on Your Reproductive Future 6-28-08
By Joshua Zaffos
Colorado Spring Independent
I am half the man my father is.
This disturbing fortune came to me about five years ago, but not from an odd
relative or a sadistic girlfriend. Instead, this dinner-table diagnosis came
from Theo (short for Theodora) Colborn, an internationally known scientist who
has helped develop the field of research exploring how chemical compounds
interfere with the hormones that guide human development.
Known as endocrine disruption, chemicals found in computer screens and car
seats, shower curtains and shampoo, plastic water bottles and prophylactics are
skewing our odds against cancers and causing developmental delays and
reproductive roadblocks, including declining sperm counts.
So, when Colborn informed me of my inferior manhood, I took consolation in the
fact that she was indicting my entire generation -- and her own -- for loading
our natural environment, our workplaces and our homes with tens of thousands of
chemical compounds without really having a clue about what we're doing. Our
Stolen Future, the book Colborn co-authored in 1996, first delivered this bad
news to the general public.
More than a decade later, scientists are still conducting experiments and
measuring results, from cramped basement labs at universities to expansive
high-country lakes in the wilderness. The hypotheses generally aren't questions
of whether chemicals are pervading and persisting in the environment, but rather
how severely they are stunting our development and health. The federal
government has investigated these questions with timidity, if not contempt,
operating a regulatory system practically beholden to the chemical industry.
With half of my manhood at stake and hopes for a better assessment in the
future, I'm wondering how we can heed the warning signs and reverse our chemical
course.
A day in my half-life
For years, I started off each day drinking coffee out of a metallic cup, likely
coated with bisphenol-A, a chemical commonly used to line plastic bottles and
other food and beverage cans and containers. Anyone who has lugged around a
Nalgene bottle made of polycarbonate plastic, trying to save the Earth one paper
cup at a time, has gotten his or her share of bisphenol-A, which leaches from
containers into liquids to enter our bodies. A U.S. Centers for Disease Control
study detected bisphenol-A in 93 percent of all Americans.
Inside us, bisphenol-A mimics estrogen, plugging into hormone receptors; this is
endocrine disruption. In pregnant or breastfeeding mothers and young and
prepubescent children, it can have critical impacts, rewiring our developmental
profiles and opening up our risks for cancers and physical and behavioral
abnormalities. Lab tests suggest that chronic, low-dose exposure to bisphenol-A
-- like drinking out of a coated cup or polycarbonate bottle daily -- may cause
women to have greater chances of breast cancer and polycystic ovary syndrome, a
leading cause of infertility, and men to have increased odds of prostate cancer
and reduced sperm counts.
That's a lot to think about during the day's first cup of coffee or sip of
water. Now I try to stick to ceramic mugs and glasses.
As my body starts to properly caffeinate in the mornings, I usually sit in front
of a laptop and do whatever it is writers do to put off writing -- checking
e-mails and box scores -- until I'm warmed up. As a computer warms up, particles
inside start to fly and some catch a ride on dust. For years, I breathed in
polybrominated biphenyl ethers (PBDEs) from my laptop.
These compounds are flame-retardants, nearly universally used in couch cushions,
televisions, cars and carpets. PBDEs have similar chemical structures to thyroid
hormones, and, according to lab tests, they can lower our bodies' production of
the real thing.
Over time, thyroid-hormone deficiencies can hurt metabolism. Hypothyroidism
causes fatigue, depression, anxiety, hair loss and a waning libido. Women with
low thyroid-hormone counts are five times more likely to have children with IQs
that qualify them as mildly retarded, according to one study. A 2005 experiment
found that a single low dose of a common PDBE given to rats in utero resulted in
a class of hyperactive rodents with persistent low sperm counts.
Contemplating my future as a fat, bald, sad, edgy, dull and dim-witted bachelor
isn't necessarily cause for perilous concern. Still, a generation's lacking
aesthetics and sex drive is a wicked trade-off for the low combustion factors of
our workspaces, living rooms and vehicles.
On the mornings when words don't flow from my fingertips, I know it's time to
take a shower, an effective and healthy distraction. I used to have a vinyl
shower curtain and wash with whatever shampoo was cheapest from the supermarket.
Both those products generally contain phthalates (pronounced "tha-lates"),
compounds that add flexibility and plasticity to fragrances and cosmetics and
almost anything made out of vinyl, including children's toys and IV bags.
Phthalates are especially tenacious when it comes to tweaking with men's
development, affecting androgen, as compared to estrogen, receptors. One of the
first low-dose studies on phthalates, from 1999, found that exposure of pregnant
female rats led to a dramatic increase in male offspring with sexual
abnormalities.
For humans, studies show that as many as one in 125 newborn boys in the U.S. now
arrives from the womb with a hypospadia, a condition in which the urethra does
not properly extend to the end of the penis, necessitating surgery. Data
suggests the incidence has doubled since the 1970s, and scientists believe
phthalates or other endocrine-disrupting chemicals are responsible.
Recent research on phthalates by Rao Veeramachaneni of Colorado State University
has used rabbits, which are better human surrogates than rats because they have
infant and adolescent life stages; rodents basically start puberty once they're
born. The results show rabbits with in utero exposure to one class of phthalate
experienced a 43 percent drop in sperm count compared with healthy animals.
Rabbits exposed to phthalates in utero or during adolescence had almost twice as
many abnormal sperm as normal cases. These declines in sperm quality and
quantity are among the signs of "testicular digenesis," which also includes
increased rates of undescended testicles and, most severely, testicular cancer.
Yet another study, led by Shanna Swan of the University of Rochester, suggests
prenatal exposure to phthalates correlates with shorter "anogenital distance"
(the space from the anus to the testicles, less clinically known as the taint)
and greater probability of improper testicular descent and smaller penile
volume.
In other words, size does matter, just not necessarily the way we act like it
does.
Beast of body burden
I can try to avoid plastic bottles and vinyl shower curtains. I can seek out a
computer that doesn't use PBDEs; a number of companies have voluntarily phased
them out. My few consumer actions are roughly equivalent to fending off an
infectious disease with a Kleenex.
One reason is that the federal government doesn't do much to monitor or regulate
chemical concentrations in the environment.
Congress passed the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in 1976, the same year I
was born. Under the law, manufacturers register commercial chemicals and the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency can test the safety of chemicals --
produced after 1979 -- and regulate their use. Or at least that's how it's
supposed to work.
From 1979 to 2004, the EPA received more than 32,000 chemical applications, but
agency personnel performed some level of review on fewer than one in eight
cases. Eight out of every 10 applications are approved with no restrictions,
often in less than three weeks. The agency has implemented restrictions on only
five chemical classes, even though in the 1990s it reported that 16,000
compounds warranted concern because of their chemical structure or volume of
use.
"TSCA really doesn't have the teeth to ban chemicals," says Sonya Lunder, senior
analyst with Environmental Working Group, a D.C.-based watchdog organization.
Another catch is something called bioaccumulation. Some chemicals persistently
build up inside us, a tally called a body burden. Mothers pass theirs onto
babies in utero and through breast milk. I inherit, so to say, the body burdens
of animals every time I eat a cheeseburger or splurge on sushi. In 2001, a
Canadian health official estimated the average person consumes about half a
microgram of PBDEs every 10 days just through meat and dairy. When it comes to
endocrine disruption, you are what you eat.
I have roughly 700 different synthetic chemicals in my body. That number
probably won't be going down any time soon. Every single day, the United States
produces or imports 42 billion pounds of chemicals, about 140 pounds for every
American. I also am what I eat out of, and with, and around.
The same compounds that bioaccumulate in our bodies also linger in the
environment. The heavy-duty pesticide DDT earned its notoriety -- and nearly
worldwide prohibition -- because its lethal toxicity could kill off dozens of
birds after an application. It is also a "persistent organic pollutant" that
remains in the environment for a long time and can mimic estrogen and lead to
birth defects. It's probably fair to call DDT the O.G. of endocrine-disrupting
chemicals.
Bans on DDT and other persistent organic pollutants led to the engineering of
the new class of chemicals we use today. It's obvious how they've improved our
lifestyles, if not our lives. But studies suggest we have traded obvious poisons
for insidious ones.
Pollution in the park
Situated in the ice-sculpted Colorado valley of Glacier Gorge, Mills Lake is
considered one of the most stunning features in Rocky Mountain National Park. At
nearly 10,000 feet and fed by snowmelt from the Continental Divide, Mills should
be among the purest pools of mountain water in existence. But the presence of
"intersex" rainbow trout, males with some very female characteristics, suggests
otherwise.
This February, the National Park Service issued a report through its Western
Airborne Contaminants Assessment Project (WACAP) detailing measurable levels of
chemicals and heavy metals throughout "pristine" corners of our national parks.
"The transsexual fish was really something we hadn't anticipated," says Dixon
Landers, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency research scientist who
participated in the WACAP.
Based on the project's findings, Landers says most parks' contaminant counts
correlate with the local pollution measured in the surrounding snow pack. In
Rocky Mountain National Park, that means mercury from power plants along the
Front Range and chemicals from agricultural pesticides. Researchers also
reported levels of persistent organic pollutants, including DDT, once again
proving the compounds' lasting risks.
DDT, which hasn't been used in the U.S. since 1972, could plausibly be
responsible for transsexual fish in the middle of the continent. Scientists also
point out that airborne pollution moves around the world, so organic pesticides
could be coming from countries that still use them. Then again, the project also
detected levels of PBDEs in parks, suggesting another pathway.
In 2004, University of Colorado scientists surveyed fish in Fountain Creek,
downstream of Colorado Springs' wastewater-treatment facilities, and found
intersex flathead chubs and other sexual deformities.
Around the same time that James Dobson was raising questions over Sponge Bob's
sexual preferences, a much more serious case of sexual deviancy was brewing in
his backyard stream.
The Fountain Creek results mirror earlier findings from around the state. The
same researchers have identified intersex fish swimming below sewage plants in
Boulder and Denver; they couldn't find a single male white sucker in the South
Platte River downstream of the state capital. The scientists reported many more
female than male fish, female fish with poor reproduction rates, stunted gonads
in both sexes, and males producing vitellogenin, the main ingredient of yolks
for offspring.
Concentrations of chemicals and steroid hormones, including synthetic estrogen
used in birth control and synthetic testosterone used to bulk up livestock, are
typically higher in streams below treatment plants because the contaminants
accumulate at the facilities. That is one of the reasons for treatment, but the
various processes used in most wastewater plants don't effectively remove many
of these compounds.
A forthcoming study from the University of Colorado scientists and their
colleagues has more specifically analyzed why the fish in these locations are
suffering these maladies. The researchers report a "complex mixture of
endocrine-active chemicals" in Boulder Creek, including bisphenol-A, steroid
hormones and alkylphenols, which are estrogen-mimicking compounds used in air
fresheners and laundry detergents, and as a spermicide on condoms, diaphragms
and other contraceptives.
Other studies are advancing our understanding of chemicals' impacts on life. A
group of Colorado State University researchers led by Thomas Borch, professor of
environmental chemistry, is looking at measurable amounts of androgens and
estrogens along the Cache la Poudre River, upstream and downstream of Fort
Collins, to see what happens to the compounds over time.
"This particular study stands out because we've tried to address the question:
What are the present compounds being broken down to?" Borch says. "It's beyond
the fact that these could have endocrine-disrupting effects."
Borch refers to other research suggesting synthetic chemicals can impact
animals' levels of pheromones, a class of hormones that cue behavioral responses
in other members of a species.
"We're just being able to reliably detect these compounds," he adds.
Meanwhile, the mix of pharmaceuticals, including antibiotics and mood
stabilizers, steroid hormones and other compounds passing through standard
wastewater treatment processes -- and into drinking water supplies -- was the
focus of a recent Associated Press investigation. A Senate committee has
announced it will hold hearings on the topic.
A dangerous double standard
Congress, actually the U.S. House of Representatives, is investigating the
federal government's regulatory behavior regarding chemicals. An ongoing inquiry
should help reveal the extent of industry influence over recommended rules for
synthetic compounds.
Rather than yielding a regulatory hammer, the EPA generally allows the chemical
industry to set its own standards voluntarily and conduct its own evaluations on
endocrine disruption and chemical impacts on children. In cases where chemicals
have gone through formal reviews, the results haven't always panned out for
public health and safety.
The Environmental Working Group recently exposed that the EPA had removed a
government scientist from an external-review panel of deca-brominated diphenyl
ester, one of the fire-retardant PBDEs, after the American Chemistry Council
complained about her "appearance of bias."
Other PBDEs have been outlawed in the U.S. since 2004 because of their effects
on human thyroid systems and brain development, and their rates of
bioaccumulation; body burdens drop when we stop using these chemicals. The
impacts of deca weren't as conclusive a few years ago, but recent studies show
the compound can break down into other PBDEs and cause endocrine disruption.
Deborah Rice, an environmental toxicologist with the Maine Center for Disease
Control and Prevention and a former EPA scientist, has testified, to her state
Legislature, in favor of banning deca.
That was enough for the chemical industry to claim she was unqualified to serve
as the deca panel chair. The EPA complied with the industry's complaint last
summer, citing the "perception of a potential conflict of interest."
"The American Chemistry Council's strong support of science was the basis for
its recent letter to the Environmental Protection Agency regarding a member of
the agency's external peer-review panel for [PBDEs]," says Tiffany Harrington, a
spokeswoman for the council. "The chairperson's pre-existing bias advocating the
ban of deca-BDE is not consistent with the scientific standards of an
independent peer review."
Even with an IQ possibly deflated by flame retardants, Rice's prior
recommendations, based on peer-reviewed research, don't sound like "bias" to me.
Meanwhile, 17 scientists with financial or other ties to the chemical industry
currently serve on seven EPA review panels, according to the Environmental
Working Group.
"There's a dangerous double standard coming out of the EPA about who is biased,"
Lunder says.
So far, these cases haven't warranted the agency to remove any panelists. The
U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce is now gathering agency documents on
the issue as part of another investigation into regulations on the use of
bisphenol-A, specifically in children's products, and the chemical industry's
possible manipulation of public opinion relating to chemical safety.
"The public depends on EPA peer-review panels to help ensure the products they
use every day are safe," says Rep. John D. Dingell, D-Mich., the committee
chair. "The EPA seems to have a backwards way of composing these panels. The EPA
is disallowing scientists who have valid public-health concerns about products,
while encouraging participation by so-called experts who are paid by the
chemical industry."
In the midst of the congressional investigation, bisphenol-A has gotten another
once-over, even if U.S. regulators aren't changing their stances. The Canadian
government announced it will likely label bisphenol-A as a toxic compound.
Wal-Mart declared it would remove baby products with the substance from its
shelves in Canada and eventually the U.S. Nalgene stated it would remove
bisphenol-A from its water-bottle products.
Perhaps most telling, officials at the U.S. National Toxicology Program released
an April report that concluded the use of bisphenol-A, even at low levels,
should cause "some concern" toward health risks for fetuses, babies and
children. Despite the wave of scientifically informed reports and consumer
actions, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, another agency with regulatory
oversight over chemicals, claimed there was no reason for Americans to worry
themselves over bisphenol-A.
The Environmental Working Group is pushing for TSCA reform and is also
supporting private and local- and state-level efforts to more effectively
regulate potentially harmful chemicals. Many computer companies no longer use
PBDEs, partly a result of tougher chemical restrictions in Europe.
Corporations and academics are advocating for and following through on "green
chemistry" practices, a comprehensive rethinking of manufacturing processes.
Some cities are promoting their own pharmaceutical "takeback" programs, to limit
the flushing of unused pills. The federal government's takeback guidelines are
considered weak and confusing; in some cases, they encourage flushing pills to
avoid drug abuse.
In February, the EPA announced it would try to eliminate a backlog of 8,000
untested chemicals through a new "computational toxicology" initiative. Robert
Kavlock, director of the agency's National Center for Computational Toxicology,
says the program will use molecular and cellular tests performed by automated
robots, instead of animal testing in labs. Whereas a chemical review through
animal-toxicology studies can take five years and cost between $5 million and
$10 million, the computational program can test thousands of compounds at
several concentrations in a single afternoon.
The breakthrough sounds encouraging, but critics question if molecular and
cellular tests can capture health effects that impair entire organisms. Kavlock
says the program's first phase will measure results against existing
animal-toxicity data for chemicals to address that concern.
Global warning
During my conversation with CSU's Thomas Borch, I ask him to compare our
understanding and acceptance of endocrine disruption with that of another
subtle, global environmental epidemic: climate change. Borch says the analogy is
apt, believing that the impacts of endocrine-disrupting chemicals we see today
are comparable to the signs of global warming that people began to acknowledge
in the 1990s. He recognizes this assessment might be conservative; some
colleagues, Borch adds, would say the consequences of our society's chemical
romance are already measurable and apparent, and they demand appropriate policy
changes.
I started surfing through the evidence five years ago.
After first meeting Theo Colborn, I began spending time with her, asking lots of
questions and reading whatever she handed me. I even worked for her for a short
while, organizing files and sorting through research papers and reports.
Today, at 81, Colborn is sharp as a tack and president of TEDX, Inc., an acronym
for The Endocrine Disruption Exchange that rhymes with a certain
overnight-delivery company. The nonprofit research clearinghouse compiles and
circulates peer-reviewed studies on low-dose chemical exposure, allows
scientists to compare results, and helps the media and the public understand
what we are doing to our planet and our bodies.
One day, while I was helping Colborn at her home, where a massive file cabinet
piled high with draft studies and award plaques sits in her kitchen, she opened
a drawer to find a report. Instead, she discovered a folder, filled with poetry.
"Oh! You need to have this," she told me and pulled out a photocopy of a poem,
which is frequently attributed to Goethe and closes with the oft-quoted couplet:
"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and
magic in it. Begin it now."
The inspirational verse on mind over matter is intriguing, coming from Colborn.
Backed by decades of research and exchanges with fellow scientists, she firmly
believes chemicals amassing in our bodies may not only outweigh, but be
diminishing, our minds' capabilities.
The words are a testimony to the ideal that if we are willing to inform
ourselves and commit to intelligent decisions about our use of chemicals, it's
not too late to affect change and avert a global crisis.
Begin it now.