Cocktail of chemicals to blame for decline in male virility

A recent British study is building on the case many scientists are making that endocrine-disrupting chemicals are responsible for a growing number of genital deformities and reproductive problems in men.

These chemicals, which include bisphenol A, phthalates and many pesticides, are suspected of blocking testosterone in pregnant women and activating estrogen in developing boys and grown men.

This disruption of the delicate balance of hormones is leading to birth defects in baby boys’ reproductive systems and is harming male sperm counts.

According to an article on miller-mccune.com:

Results of a study released in May 2009 by the British nongovernmental organization CHEMTrust show:

• as many as 1 in 17 boys in the United Kingdom have undescended testicles, a congenital birth defect;

• malformation of the penis (where the opening is not at the end) has increased in recent decades in several European countries, the United States, Australia and China;

• U.K. and French data show a decline in sperm count in young men as compared to their fathers; in some European countries, 1 in 5 young men has sperm counts so low that it is likely to affect their ability to father a child; and

• Testicular cancer is the most common cancer of young men, doubling in incidence in many Western countries every 25 years over the past 60 years.

The author of the report, Richard Sharpe, of the U.K.'s Medical Research Council wrote that many scientists are tying a lack of testosterone at critical times of fetal development to "testicular dysgenesis syndrome," encompassing defects of boys' genitals, low sperm counts and testicular cancer. He sees a link between hormone-disrupting chemicals and TDS, saying animal studies "have established beyond a doubt that certain hormone-disrupting chemicals, in particular testosterone-disrupting chemicals, can cause TDS-like disorders."

There is very little regulation of hormone-disrupting chemicals and the analysis that is done by government looks at each chemical independently. This is a big mistake, according to Elizabeth Salter Green of the CHEM Trust, and can give consumers a false sense of security.

"Chemicals that have been shown to act together to affect male reproductive health should have their risks assessed together," said Elizabeth Salter Green. "Currently that is not the case, and unfortunately chemicals are looked at on an individual basis. Therefore, government assurances that exposures are too low to have any effect just do not hold water because regulators do not take into account the additive actions of hormone disrupting chemicals."

"It is high time that public health policy is based on good science and that regulatory authorities have health protection, rather than industry protection, uppermost in mind," she said.