“Black Agnes”, you’ve mentioned part of the problem: DES. It didn’t just affect women, it had devastating effects on males too. Here are three studies showing high rates of urogenital abnormalities and abnormal semen among DES-exposed males. Just under a third of the DES sons in these studies were born with genital abnormalities, and a similar percentage had abnormal semen. I can only view the abstracts, but all 3 studies seem to be based on the Dieckmann Cohort, which was made up of several hundred mothers and their children who were originally part of a study in the 1950s (that showed that DES was competely ineffective at preventing miscarriages). This appears to be the only case-controlled study group in existence of DES sons who were exposed to the standard “Smith and Smith” treatment regimen; it turns out that a second, larger group of “DES sons” at the Mayo Institute were exposed to much smaller doses of DES than was typical for most DES sons worldwide (I’m fairly sure this was done deliberately, as a way of hiding the true extent of the problems being experienced by DES sons).
J Reprod Med. 1976 Apr;16(4):147-53. “Structural and functional abnormalities in the sex organs of male offspring of mothers treated with diethylstilbestrol (DES).”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/772199
J Urol. 1977 Apr;117(4):477-80. “Pathological semen and anatomical abnormalities of the genital tract in human male subjects exposed to diethylstilbestrol in utero.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/850321
J Urol. 1979 Jul;122(1):36-9. “Association of diethylstilbestrol exposure in utero with cryptorchidism, testicular hypoplasia and semen abnormalities.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37351
Regarding your links on epigenetics, if you’ve had anything to do with hormones, you’ll soon discover that dose does make a difference, and larger doses have greater effects than smaller ones. Frankly I’m sceptical about the claim that BPA etc are the reason why rates of infertility are soaring and there’s suddenly so many gender-blended people about. Not when so many women of childbearing age are being given much higher doses of pharmaceutical hormones. Just because they’re prescribed by a doctor doesn’t alter the fact that medical hormones are endocrine disrupting chemicals too.
I agree that it is quite scary that these substances do seem to be able to produce effects that can be passed down through the generations though. I’ve been told by several people now that there are 3rd generation effects from DES exposure, and my friend Jill Escher thinks transgenerational effects of progestin exposure are responsible for the autism epidemic that’s been taking place in recent years.
http://www.germlineexposures.org/jill-escher-qa.html
http://jme.endocrinology-journals.org/content/49/2/R61.long
Endocrine systems can be altered epigenetically by substances that don’t even bind to the endocrine receptors themselves.
This paper specifically discusses the issues WRT DES and other epigenetic disruptors.
And low, and slow, seem to work even better. Lead works this way:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3555228/
I’ve tried to find full length articles.
Your friend is stepping on a third rail wrt autism and the environment. Hopefully that works out for her. Anyone who suggests it’s anything other than parental (you need to spank that kid!) or genetic (parents were geeky of course their kid will be a head banging diaper wearing teen, what were they expecting?!) is usually run out of town with tar and feathers of some sort.