My Notes. from “Our Stolen Future”
Authors were Theo Colborne, Diane Dumanoski and John
Peterson Myers.
Publ by Abacus 1996.
P5. Gay gulls,
1970s, also p21, 23.
P9. Males, low sperm
counts, p10 began 1950s.
P16. Ugly fish
tumours
P17. Baltic fish,
testes small.
P20. DDT disrupts
bird sexuality.
P22. “No-one dared
to ask whether synthetic chemicals might be having similar disrupting effects
on human behaviour.”
P23. Dr Colborne
suspected hormone disruptors.
P24. Human mothers’
millk level contamination affects baby’s development.
P26. Top predators
had greatest array of problems. Adults
OK. Problems in offspring.
P39. Extreme
sensitivity to slight shifts in hormone levels.
Parts per trillion.
P40. “Genes may be the keyboard but hormones
present during development play the tune.”
P41. Not just a Y
chromosome to make a boy. 7th
week……a single gene on the Y chromosome directs the unisex glands to develop
testes. Then testicles make
testosterone. Without the right hormone
cues at the right time, boys might not become boys.
P48. 1938. DES acted like estrogen. Given to 5 million pregnant women. Also
used to fatten cows.
P50.
Thalidomide. 5th to 8th
week…arms and legs form…timing is critical.
P51. Silent Spring
1962.
P52 to 59. 1971
more vaginal cancers in daughters,
deformities in sons.
P66. “Regardless of whether the offspring is a
human or a deermouse, a whale or a bat, hormones regulate its development in
fundamentally the same way.”
P68. The world is
full of hormone disruptors.
P77. Marijuana makes
males effeminate, in females – interference with prolactin which suppresses
luteinising hormone in the brain.
P88. 1992. Of 12 pregnant polar bears, only 5 gave birth. 90ppm PCB, DD…
P91-105. (imaginary) “ Travels
of a PCB molecule”……all the way to the north pole….
P107. Human breast
fed baby, in 12 months, has max dioxin
in RD lifetime! High Arctic children do
not produce necessary antibodies when immunised.
P111. 10 to 20 part per trillion estrogen are not inconsequential.
P112. What are the
longterm effects?
P118. Sager
1983. PCB in milk of rat mothers- fertility problems in offspring. Tom Malby experiments – low doses.
P123. Strange results.
Ana Soto and Charles S., doctors at Tufts Medical School, -found breast cancer cells in culture
MULTIPLIED LIKE CRAZY. ---disruptive
chemical leaching from new supply plastic test tubes;
Corning didn’t tell anyone of change in resin- parts per billion seemed
unimportant…. It took researchers 2
years to identify p-nonylphenol.
P130. Bisphenol A in
plastics. Affects fish downstream from
treatment sewer.
P134. Can’t tell if
fish is male or female. BPA may be in
linings tin cans of foods.
P137. 100,000
synthetic chemicals on market. Each year
1000 new ones. Only 500 tested.
P141. Dr Frederick vom Saal. ¼ parts per trillion alter the course of
development------EXQUISITE SENSITIVITY---big trouble.
See also chapter 3. From
p29 for Dr vom Saal.
Chapter 9. Beluga
whale had 2 small testicles plus uterus and ovaries. More than 500 ppm PCB.
Florida panthers had undersize testicles. Alligators smaller penises.
P159. Heavy fat
dolphins, seals, polar bears, greatest
jeopardy. Toxins accumulate in fat.
P164. Shorebirds. Pesticides in food= decline,
disruption migration, unable to tolerate stress.
P169. High doses might cause less damage than low
doses. P205. Paracelsus.
P170. July 1991. The Wingspread Statement. Urgent warning, signed by scientists…
“The hormone
disruptors threatening the survival of animal populations are also jeopardising
the human future.”
P172. Damage is done
in the womb. Seen 10 years later in
monkeys.
P188. PCBs no longer
made. Russia stopped in 1990.
P199. 1950s. Syracuse University. Young roosters. DDT acted like a hormone. USA sales DDT 1951 was $110 million.
P200. Rachel Carson
mentioned it- but didn’t follow the
thread. She was preoccupied with cancer
aspect ( and with her own breast cancer.)
P210. Growing scientific
knowledge= hope rather than despair.
Chapter 12.
Guidelines- what to do.
Requires forensic research.
Eg epidemiology plastics. Redesign
manufacture.
P238. “There may be fates worse than
extinction.”
P140, 141.
“Many of us carry several hundred persistent chemicals in
our body, including many that have been identified as hormone disruptors.
Moreover, we carry them at concentrations several thousand
times higher than the natural levels of free estrogen- the estrogen that is not bound up by blood
proteins and is therefore biologically active.
As Fred vom Saal has discovered, vanishingly small amounts
of free estrogen are capable of altering the course of development in the
womb- as little as one tenth of a part
per trillion. Given this exquisite
sensitivity, even small amounts of a weak estrogen mimic- a chemical that
is one thousand times less potent than the estradiol made by the body itself-
may nevertheless spell big trouble.”
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more, later.
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