[neverdem]

FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.

[AgThorn]

The study is the strongest evidence yet that man-made chemicals in the environment can feminize male babies in the womb.

This cannot be a good thing ...

[TASMANIANRED]

At least they are near San Francisco.

[Humidston]

Toxicologists have known since the early 1990s that some pesticides and industrial compounds, including phthalates, can mimic estrogen or block testosterone, the female and male sex hormones that control reproductive development.

I bet the feminists are loving it too!

[billorites]

[26lemoncharlie]

Is there anything NORMAL in California!!?? How can studies even think of using NORMAL and CALIFORNIA in the same sentence??

[AgThorn]

[King Prout]

ping

[Redcloak]

Wanna stir the pot? Most of the affected workers, at least in the L.A. area, are Latino. I wonder how long it will be until MEChA and MALDEF claim that this is an attempt to control the growing Latino population by rendering their boys infertile or gay.

[Bobalu]

[jas3]

"Environmental Health Perspectives" has a long history of publishing environmental scare articles that later turn out to have been based on bad data AND/OR that later turn out to be non-replicable by anyone other than the authors of the initial paper.

Steven J. Milloy, who runs the Junk Science website calls the journal a "health scare oriented journal." I concur.

For the truth about pthalates and bisphenol-A (BPA), please read Mr. Milloy's article here:

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2005/milloy042505.htm

Here's a key snippet:

"Fifty years of experience and a lot of scientific examination of BPA indicate it’s safe — so what’s behind the AB319 scare?

The short answer is the same folks who were behind the 1990s scare about so-called “endocrine disruptors.” They’re led by University of Missouri activist-researcher Frederick vom Saal who claims that BPA is a “phenomenally potent sex hormone” that acts like “birth control pills."

But vom Saal has previously made scientific claims that are not only unsubstantiated, but incapable of being substantiated.

In 2001, for example, he claimed that his experiments on laboratory mice supposedly showed that very low doses of some chemicals — thousands of times lower than safety standards — increased prostate weight in male mice and advanced puberty in female mice.

No other laboratory was able to reproduce vom Saal's work — and reproducibility of experimental data is a prerequisite for results to be considered “scientific.”

Vom Saal also guaranteed that his work would never be reproduced.

His experiments involved a unique strain of mice that he inbred in his laboratory for about 20 years. When the mice stopped producing the results he wanted, he killed them. Without the same strain of mouse, vom Saal's experiments can't be reproduced by others and his work can't be thoroughly evaluated."

You can read more about Steve Milloy at the Junk Science website.


jas3

[WideGlide]

Sounds more like a case of shrinkage to me.

[Carry_Okie]

Phthalates are primarily used as plasticizers in vinyl products.

[Carry_Okie]

For the benefit of those unfamiliar with industrial formulation, PVC materials, most of which contain phthalates, are some of the most extensively tested chemicals found in modern life. They are used in everything from food handling, water piping, and thousands of medical devices. Of the latter, all such products used in contact with blood, require cytotoxicity testing, allergy testing, and independent lab certs from suppliers of every chemical component in the product. For anyone to suddenly "find" that low doses of phthalate induce any particular pathology would require both extensive confirmation and a healthy dose of skepticism.

[Diverdogz]

Michael Jackson was chief researcher for the study.....

[lilylangtree]

Now that it's recognized that choosing to be a queer isn't a condition of the mind, this is just another way for the perverts to blame something else for queers choosing to be a queers. Those perverts are still working for recognition as "a protected class" status. Makes me sick to my stomach.

[amigatec]

Maybe that is my problem......

[endthematrix]

I know this as the Urban Legend "Plastic food wrap causes cancer." Several links below:

Phthalates Info Center

Beauty Coverup? (Wash Post 2002!)

The Plasticizer Diethylhexyl Phthalate Induces Malformations by Decreasing Fetal Testosterone Synthesis during Sexual Differentiation in the Male Rat

Mono-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (MEHP) induces testicular alterations in male guinea pigs at prepubertal stage

[Bush2000]

I've had to suffer with abnormally large genitals, thanks to phthalates. Oh, the horror...