These chemicals are so prevalent that there is no way to avoid them without legislature in a country that is destroying the ability to CHOOSE motherhood. So we’re setting ourselves up for forced births where the babies have no choice but to ingest these chemicals which negatively impact them. Hopefully this research leads to action to prevent this, but will likely get swept under a rug.
> The chemicals present a serious risk to infants because they likely interfere with hormones that are critical to newborns’ proper development, and have been found to be harmful at very low levels of exposure. About 92% of 50 samples were contaminated with at least one of the anti-microbials or plasticizers for which researchers checked.
If they were that significantly harmful it would be massively obvious at that level of prevalence.
Do you mean potentially showing up as a global decline in fertility rates and multi-generational bioaccumulation of these compounds, threatening to destroy the foundational structure of modern civilization (population growth)?
Which is not to say that it's interfering with fertility rates by making partners less potent/fertile, because, presumably, we would have heard about a significant increase in failures to conceive. Or is your implication that it has affected sex drive?
Has anyone seen evidence of lower levels in other countries? I searched for recent studies and it sounds like Canada and the EU have also reported similar findings but there isn't much widespread testing or totally comparable testing across locations.
I don't understand how The Guardian readers get through a normal day. Every headline on that page is doom-and-gloom news designed to get you to be fearful or panic about it.
The uncomfortable, not even close to proven hypothesis, is that increased exposures to such hormone-disrupting chemicals are associated with an increased incidence of sex- and gender-diverse identities. That might be a good thing...I think sex- and gender-diverse people are wonderful and interesting...but the uncomfortable thought though is what that might imply in terms of the consequences of environmental policies. This topic is so fraught, I think there is a reluctance to engage except for those with an agenda, one side or another.
Before the 1500-2000s there were far more people with gender-diverse identities than even now (per capita). Dozens of major civilizations had official multi-gender class systems. Both gender diverse people as well as different ideas about what makes a man and woman were far more common sites for the world traveler. The reasons[1] for the relative recent decrease are well known. There has been a "war on gender" for the last 500 years and just now humanity is healing.
Did I miss the link to the study? I was wondering if storage contamination were a possibility? Breast milk storage bags are all plastic, and cheap brands abound.
It is an absolutely critical question. Were plastic/plasticized extractors or bottles used? Or was it collected at a lab directly into glass? Note that silicone isn't entirely safe either as substances like D4 (octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane) are pretty bad too.
12 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 28.8 ms ] threadIf they were that significantly harmful it would be massively obvious at that level of prevalence.
Well, do I have news for you!
Because I'd quite like to be informed about accurate incoming doom.
[1]https://www.denverartmuseum.org/en/object/2000.371