Wednesday, May 09, 2007

No Consequences? You're Killing the FISH!!

Lotsa 'the Pill' out there.

So much lotsa that it's killing off the fish:


The April 17 Scientific American reported results of a study warning that “many streams, rivers and lakes already bear warning signs that the fish caught within them may also be carrying enough chemicals that mimic the female hormone estrogen to cause breast cancer cells to grow.”

“Fish are really a sentinel, just like canaries in the coal mine 100 years ago,” says Conrad Volz, co-director of exposure assessment at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute’s Center for Environmental Ecology. “We need to pay attention to chemicals that are estrogenic in nature, because they find their way back into the water we all use.”

Estrogen, the principal ingredient of the Pill, cannot be broken down by sewage-treatment. Thus:

While cautioning that the exact process of hormonal confusion is not yet clear, the Scientific American article continued, “But the [estrogenic] effects on the fish themselves were clear: the gender of nine of the fish [tested] could not be determined.”

“Increased estrogenic active substances in the water are changing males so that they are indistinguishable from females,” Volz found. “There are eggs in male gonads as well as males are secreting a yolk sac protein. Males aren't supposed to be making egg stuff.”

We await the arrival of PETA, or the EcoWackies Liberation Front, for the Salmon Salvation Demonstration ...

HT: Bettnet

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