[Pharmwaste] The Pill causes male infertility, says the Vatican

[Tenace, Laurie]

By Simon Caldwell
 
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1106887/The-Pill-causes-mal
e-infertility-says-Vatican.html 
The contraceptive Pill is polluting the environment and is a major cause of
male infertility in the West, the Vatican has said.
It claimed there was substantial evidence available to show that the
environment was being flooded with synthetic female hormones because of
widespread use of oral contraceptives and the morning-after pill.
According to L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's official newspaper, the
result  has been a 'devastating' increase in male infertility and in the
rising numbers of couples struggling to conceive children.
 In Britain, an estimated one in eight couples is considered to be either
infertile or sub-fertile, with people increasingly relying on in-vitro
fertilisation to have a family.
Scientists acknowledge that chemicals mimicking female hormones may partly be
to blame for plunging sperm counts but say they such substances originate
from a wide range of sources, including pesticides, plastics, shampoos and
cosmetics.
The Vatican, however, has laid the blame squarely on the contraceptive Pill
and  the morning-after pill, a powerful steroid drug taken within 72 hours of
sexual  intercourse.
In the newspaper article, published with the approval of high-ranking Vatican
officials, Pedro Castellvi, president of the International Federation of
Catholic Medical Associations, said that the Pill 'has for some years had
devastating effects on the environment by releasing tonnes of hormones into
nature' through female urine.
'We have sufficient evidence to argue that one of the considerable factors
contributing to male infertility in the West - with its ever decreasing
numbers  of spermatozoa in men - is environmental pollution caused by the
byproducts of the pill,' he said.
'We are faced with a clear anti-environmental effect which demands more
explanation on the part of the manufacturers.'
The article was based on a 100-page report published by the federation to
mark  the 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae, the controversial1968 encyclical
by Pope Paul VI that forbade married couples from using contraception.
The report, entitled 'Forty Years of Humanae Vitae From a Medical
Perspective', drew on studies which have revealed the fish feeding near
sewage have changed sex, and birds feeding in some river estuaries have
changed developed  sexual abnormalities.
It analysed scientific data on the effects of the Pill and included 300
bibliographic citations, mostly from specialised medical journals.
But its claims were dismissed by pharmaceutical organisations in Italy. Such
hormones as oestrogen, which are contained in the contraceptive Pill, 'are
present everywhere... in plastic, in disinfectants, in meat that we eat,'
said  Flavia Franconi of the Society of Italian Pharmacology.
Gianbenedetto Melis, a scientist involved in research on contraceptives,
said: 'Once metabolised, the hormones contained in oral contraceptives no
longer have any of the characteristic effects of feminine hormones.' 

The Vatican newspaper article also raised concerns about the 'abortive'
actions of the morning-after pill and some types of birth control pills.
It said that the report 'clearly demonstrates' that low-dose hormonal birth
control pills work not only by preventing ovulation but also by impeding the
implantation of a very young human embryo into its mother's womb.
The report, it said, also noted that the International Agency for Research of
Cancer, an agency of the World Health Organisation, reported in July 2005
that  the oral preparations of combined oestrogen-progestogens common in
birth  control pills are classified in a group of carcinogenic agents.
'The sad thing in all this is that if it is to regulate fertility, these are
not the products required,' said Castellvi.
'The natural means of regulating fertility, NFP or Natural Family Planning,
are equally effective and also respect the person.' 

He said: 'the means of contraception violate at least five important rights -
the right to life, the right to health, the right to education, all right to
information (their spread is at the expense of information on natural
resources) and the right to equality between the sexes (the burden of
contraception falls mostly on women)'.


Laurie Tenace
Environmental Specialist
Waste Reduction Section
Florida Department of Environmental Protection
2600 Blair Stone Rd., MS 4555
Tallahassee FL 32399-2400
P: 850.245.8759
F: 850.245.8811

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