[Pharmwaste] Man-made chemicals blamed as many more girls than boys are born in Arctic

[Tenace, Laurie]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,330722948-110592,00.html


Man-made chemicals blamed as many more girls than boys are born in Arctic
· High levels can change sex of child during pregnancy
· Survey of Greenland and east Russia puts ratio at 2:1

Paul Brown in Nuuk, Greenland
Wednesday September 12, 2007

Guardian

Twice as many girls as boys are being born in some Arctic villages because of
high levels of man-made chemicals in the blood of pregnant women, according
to scientists from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (Amap).
The scientists, who say the findings could explain the recent excess of girl
babies across much of the northern hemisphere, are widening their
investigation across the most acutely affected communities in Russia,
Greenland and Canada to try to discover the size of the imbalance in Inuit
communities of the far north.

In the communities of Greenland and eastern Russia monitored so far, the
ratio was found to be two girls to one boy. In one village in Greenland only
girls have been born.

The scientists measured the man-made chemicals in women's blood that mimic
human hormones and concluded that they were capable of triggering changes in
the sex of unborn children in the first three weeks of gestation. The
chemicals are carried in the mother's bloodstream through the placenta to the
foetus, switching hormones to create girl children.

Lars-Otto Reierson, executive secretary for Amap, said: "We knew that the
levels of man-made chemicals were accumulating in the food chain, and that
seals, whales and particularly polar bears were getting a dose a million
times higher than that existing in plankton, and that this could be toxic to
humans who ate these higher animals. What was shocking was that they were
also able to change the sex of children before birth."

The sex balance of the human race - historically a slight excess of boys over
girls - has recently begun to change. A paper published in the US National
Institute of Environmental Health Sciences earlier this year said that in
Japan and the US there were 250,000 boys fewer than would have been expected
had the sex ratio existing in 1970 remained unchanged. The paper was unable
to pin down a cause for the new excess of girls over boys.

The Arctic scientists have discovered that many of the babies born in Russia
are premature and the boys are far smaller than girls. Possible links between
the pollutants and high infant mortality in the first year of life is also
being investigated.

Scientists believe a number of man-made chemicals used in electrical
equipment from generators, televisions and computers that mimic human
hormones are implicated. They are carried by winds and rivers to the Arctic
where they accumulate in the food chain and in the bloodstreams of the
largely meat- and fish-eating Inuit communities.

The first results of the survey were disclosed at a symposium of religious,
scientific and environmental leaders in Greenland's capital, Nuuk, yesterday,
organised by the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church, Bartholomew I, which is
looking at the effects of environmental pollution on the Arctic.

Dr Reierson said the accumulation of DDT, PCBs, flame-retardants and other
endocrine disrupters has been known for some time and young women had been
advised to avoid eating some Arctic animals to avoid excess contamination and
possible damage to their unborn children.

Dr Reierson, said blood samples from pregnant women were subsequently matched
with the sex of their baby. Women with elevated levels of PCBs in their blood
above two to four micrograms per litre and upwards were checked in three
northern peninsula's in Russia's far east - the Kola, Taimyr and Chukotka -
plus the Pechora River Basin.

To check the results the survey was widened and further communities,
including those on Commodore Island, were investigated. The results were now
in for 480 families and the ratio remained the same.

He said full results for the widening of the survey would not be published
until next year but preliminary results for Greenland showed the same 2:1
ratio in the north.

Aqqaluk Lynge, the former chairman of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference who
hails from Greenland, said: "This is a disaster, especially for some 1,500
people who make up the Inuit nations in the far north east of Russia.

"Here in the north of Greenland, in the villages near the Thule American
base, only girl babies are being born to Inuit families.

"The problem is acute in the north and east of Greenland where people still
have the traditional diet.

"This has become a critical question of people's survival but few governments
want to talk about the problem of hormone mimickers because it means thinking
about the chemicals you use.

"I think they need to be tested much more stringently before they are allowed
on the market."

Backstory

The Inuit are nomadic in nature, having survived for thousands of years using
formidable hunting skills to seek out the bowhead whale, seal, caribou and
walrus. The Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), an international body, was
founded in 1977 to represent the rights of the approximately 150,000 Inuit of
Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Chukotka (Russia). With relatively low levels
of educational attainment and few opportunities, violence, alcohol and drug
dependency are a growing problem as the Inuit try to safeguard its
traditions.

Laurie J. Tenace
Environmental Specialist
Florida Department of Environmental Protection
2600 Blair Stone Road, MS 4555
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-2400
PH: (850) 245-8759
FAX: (850) 245-8811
Laurie.Tenace at dep.state.fl.us 

Mercury web pages:
http://www.dep.state.fl.us/waste/categories/mercury/default.htm

Unwanted Medications web pages:
http://www.dep.state.fl.us/waste/categories/medications/default.htm




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