Birth control pills in the environment can lead to intersexed fish on Bordom.net

Birth control pills in the environment can lead to intersexed fish link

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/104/21/8897

by joeyo Sat Jun 16th, 2007 10:47pm (from #bor) [score: 561 | approval: 78%]

To determine the impact of estrogens in municipal wastewater, Kidd and coworkers seeded a Canadian lake with a synthetic estrogen commonly found in birth-control pills at low concentrations (5 parts per trillion) and studied the effect on fathead minnows. They found that the chemical was concentrated in the fish at 10000 times normal levels, leading to significant feminization of males and altered egg production in females, ultimately leading to the near extinction of the species from the lake in just under three years. Visit Link →

environment, estrogen, fish, green

Comments
Edits
Stats

3 Comments

joeyo said on Sat Jun 16th, 2007 11:00pm [#9351]

This has been suspected of happening for years, and here is the first proof.

mimo said on Sun Jun 17th, 2007 8:25am [#9360]

i dont understand; how is the estrogen getting into the wastewater in the first place?

joeyo said on Sun Jun 17th, 2007 10:06am [#9361]

Xenoestrogens can come from a variety of sources you would not normally think of, including plastics, pesticides and food preservatives. I suspect that in this study they used the one found in birth control pills because it is especially potent and perhaps women who are on the pill excrete it?