Intersex fish were found in pristine Boulder Creek in Colorado in 2005, leading scientists to discover that contraceptive hormones had been found in local waterways.
Posted on 09/20/2010 2:07:55 PM PDT by NYer
Scientists discovered in 2005 that birth control chemicals were deforming fish in the nation’s waterways — a phenomenon known by science today as “fish feminization.”
The problems first made national news when strange intersex fish were found in pristine-looking Boulder Creek, in Colorado. The fish were the first thing that had ever frightened then 59-year-old University of Colorado biologist John Woodling during his scientific career.
Two years after finding the fish, hideously deformed mostly by steroid hormones that had seeped into the water from birth control pills and patches, lead study scientist David Norris, a University of Colorado physiology professor, told the Register that it appeared nobody cared.
“Where’s the outrage?” he asked.
Were birth control products too sacred to environmental activists to cause them concern?
Interviews with a variety of environmentalists revealed that Norris was correct: Nobody seemed to care.
Curt Cunningham, water quality issues chairman for the Rocky Mountain chapter of Sierra Club International, crusaded to get Boulder to remove fluoride from its drinking water, believing it had negative effects on the environment. But he had no intention of asking anyone to rethink the use of birth control patches and pills, despite their effects on fish.
“For many people it’s an economic necessity. It’s also a personal freedom issue,” Cunningham said, regarding birth control products.
Others told the Register they had more pressing concerns. Environmental activist Betty Ball said she was too busy with fighting “weed control chemicals and pesticides” to concern herself much with deformed fish.
Lobbyist
Dave Georgis, who lobbied for Boulder County politicians to prohibit genetically modified crops, wasn’t fazed by the sexually modified fish and the link to birth control drugs.
(Excerpt) Read more at ncregister.com ...
Catholic Ping
Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
anyway, guess some environmentalism is more equal than others.
This is why abortion is the sacrement of the feminists, even though it kills more women than men worldwide.
This is why homosexuality is relentlessly pushed (no pregnancies to get in the way of more sex)
This is why Clinton was allowed to molest a subordinate.
Sex over all. The liberals real motto
Our bodies are always making and excreting hormones. It’s difficult for me to believe that the wastewater from a city would be very different if no one used hormonal contraception.
During pregnancy progesterone levels rise 100-fold, estrogen even more.
Well, now you can!
We live in a disposable society. Ever given any though about disposable contact lenses? And, for caffeine seekers, the new trend is towards the convenience of faster delivery. This has driven the market for the Keurig Coffee System and its handy dandy K-Cups. Wonder how many of those plastic cups are now piling up at the dump. I won't even begin to touch the topic of 'disposable diapers'.
I am no environmental evangelist but I do give a LOT of thought before switching from a tried and true method to one that is more convenient.
There’s a huge difference between natural human reproductive hormones and the synthetic versions of hormones found in the birth control pill. The latter are orders of magnitude stronger in clinical effect per mg dose, and unlike the natural human version, they do not break down in the waste water purification system. They do indeed wind up in the waters downstream from sewage treatment effluent, and they do indeed change the sexual makeup of the fish.
More frighteningly, most human drinking water sources are also downstream from sewage treatment effluent of populations upstream. If its doing this to fish, what is it doing to humans?!?
Yep all of the above. My Hubby works in a glass facrory so we’ve known for years about plastics and their effect on the enviroment. It’s nit just the waste but the chemicals in them that leach into the soil.It’s very scary.I have never used oral contraceptives and I do worry about what it is doing to us.What about the kids who haven’t reached puberty yet what is it doing to their future fertility?
facrory= factory. BTW glass is 100% recyclable so why are’t we using more of it?
Lesson is:
Okay to CR@P anything in the water as long as it is the right CR@P.
Perhaps because it is fragile, and causes significant product losses to things packaged in it??
Truer than he knew. All of it.
This issue is no different than the Left’s current love affair with Islamists.
In both cases an inconvenient truth (Nazi foundations in Islamists thinking, or a real environmental problem) is counter to core ideas that are taken as an article of faith (Islam and “Palestinians” good, Jews bad; or “birth control” good and any opposition to it bad), and thus cannot be accepted - true or not.
Liberalism IS a mental disease.
The Gooberment needs $979,000,000,000 to study this!
Never waste a good opportunity to fleece and rob the working stiffs.
Actually no it is not as fragile as one may think and product stored in it has a twice as long shelf life as products in plastic.It also leaches no chemicals into the food that is storeed in it unlike plastic does.
Uh, I've used glass, as has, I would guess, everyone on this forum. It's a LOT more fragile than plastic, given the same usage. It "is" useful for specific tasks, your point about shelf life is correct. But new ways of using plastic (multi-layers of different plastics) are shrinking that advantage quickly.
"It also leaches no chemicals into the food that is stored in it unlike plastic does."
I can guarantee you that glass does "leach chemicals" into what is stored in it. They're just different chemicals. Ask any chemist who does trace analysis, and they'll tell you the same thing (FWIW, I "am" a chemist). And the same multi-layer technology can reduce (or eliminate) the migration from plastics into the stored product.
But the probable killer is that fabricating glass requires HUGELY more energy than does plastic.
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