Estrogen Pollution: A Potential Human-Health Disaster
A commentary by Rex Sexton
United Church of God pastor, Tacoma and Olympia, Washington
Richard, a good friend of mine who raised Holstein milking heifers
in eastern Washington, told me in the late 1980s that something
was wrong with almost his entire herd of "precious girls"—"precious" because
each heifer was worth about $2,000. The problem: their udders were
abnormally large.
His veterinarian did blood tests and concluded that the abnormalities
were caused by too much of the female hormone estrogen. A further
test demonstrated that the source of the estrogen was the water
they were drinking.
The small river running through his farm was only one mile downstream
from a small town's sewage treatment plant. The vet concluded
that the high level of estrogen in the water was likely a result
of women taking birth control pills. The powerful estrogen was being
passed through their bodies into the sewage system, and subsequently
discharged into the river. Richard fenced off the river and began
giving his heifers well water. Within a few months the animals were
normal again.
A quick search on the Internet will turn up some alarming news
articles about estrogen pollution in our waterways, not just in
the USA but also in other western nations where birth control pills
are widely used. Over the last ten years scientists have documented
the impact of endocrine disrupters—a broad description of
estrogen pollution—on everything from British trout to Florida
alligators to Arctic polar bears.
In 2004 the Denver Post printed an article entitled, "Boy
Fish Turning into Girl Fish found in sewage treatment plant." The
article describes researchers who found fish in the South Platte
River and Boulder Creek that had "deformities never seen before—both
male and female tissue."
The fish, white suckers, were found downstream from one of Denver's
largest sewage plants. The fish sampling results on Boulder Creek
were disturbing. Just below the sewage plant the team collected
102 females, 12 males, and 10 "intersex" fish. Upstream
of the plant the team found 42 females, 37 males, and zero "intersex" fish.
The article also stated, "Among the leading suspects in the
gender-bending fish phenomenon: excreted birth-control hormones…" then
added that "Woodling's Colorado fish study began after
he read about the discovery of intersex trout below sewage plants
in Europe."
Deformed fish are cause enough for alarm, but much more so are
the effects humans suffer. It's a problem worldwide. In the
U.S.A. particularly, a large percentage of drinking water comes
from rivers downstream from the sewage plants of other cities and
towns.
Author Bill Beckman, writing in the Illinois Review of
February 28, 2008, noted: "Fish are not the only creatures
threatened by estrogen pollution. At a conference on breast cancer
in Toronto in 1998, author and cancer surgeon Dr. Susan Love said: 'Pollutants
are metabolized in our bodies as estrogen.' It is lifetime
exposure to estrogen that has increased world cancer rates by 26%
since 1980."
Beckman also wrote: "Studies are also showing significant
evidence for a link between environmental estrogens…and the
early onset of puberty in girls." The phenomenon of early-onset
puberty in American girls is pervasive. The average age of menarche
has fallen by 1.5 years since 1970, roughly corresponding to the
widespread use of birth control pills."
Mother Teresa once called birth-control pills "The suicide
pill of the West." Perhaps she was more correct than
even she knew. In 2005 the International Agency for Research on
Cancer (IARC), a division of the World Health Organization, declared
combined estrogen-progestogen oral contraceptives carcinogenic.
The IARC placed them in their Group I classification—the highest
level of carcinogenicity.
No wonder Beckman asked: "With this significant evidence
of the growing pollutant impact of estrogen from contraceptives
on both fish and humans, where is the outcry of concern?" He
is correct—why do we hear so little about this potential disaster
in our midst?
The answer according to Ray Peat, Ph.D., and author of The
Dire Effects of Estrogen Pollution, may be that birth control
is a multi-billion dollar industry and influences government agencies
and media. Other authors point out that birth control is so politically
correct and in sync with our modern free sex without consequences
society that evidence to the contrary is not considered vitally
important. But our health, especially the health of our children,
is vitally important.
What can you do? You can do a lot to safeguard the health of you
and your family. Several of the most critical steps are explained
in the "Keys
to a Long, Healthy Life" section of one
of our publications.
 All you have to do to receive this valuable information is to download,
read online or request a printed copy of our free, informative booklet: Making
Life Work.
|
