Surrounded by agriculture powerhouses Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, and Illinois, Missouri sits at the southern edge of the heartland.
Are the region's titanic annual lashings of agrichemicals -- synthetic and mined fertilizers, as well as poisons designed to kill bugs, weeds, and mold -- leaching into drinking water and doing creepy things to the state's citizens? And what about manure from the stunning concentration of concentrated-animal feedlot operations (CAFOs) that have sprung up in Iowa, et al, over the past 15 years?
Elizabeth Royte, author of the important new book Bottlemania, showed in devastating detail in her Grist article last year that "the breadbasket is poisoning its own water supply." Her piece focused on the Missouri River flood plane.
And now comes evidence that something ain't right in central Missouri, writes reporter T.J. Greaney in an excellent article in the Columbia Tribune.
Men in the area show a consistent pattern of significantly lower-than-normal sperm counts. Greaney cites an Environmental Health Perspectives study showing that men in Columbia have sharply lower average sperm counts (58.7 per milliliter) than their counterparts in Los Angeles (80.8), New York (102.9), and Minneapolis (98.6).
And he quotes two medical professionals who recently moved into the area and were startled at the volume of fertility complaints they got from male patients, and were even more startled when colleagues assured them the situation was normal -- for Missouri.
Writes Greaney:
Their stories are part of a chorus of local people who work in the field of male fertility asking questions about low sperm counts in Mid-Missouri. Some suspect pesticides have percolated into ground water, but no definitive link is known. They say they are frustrated by the lack of attention to the problem and the lack of funding for further research.
Greaney notes that two pesticides -- diazinon and metolachlor -- have shown up in samples from Missouri men with low sperm counts. Neither is currently regulated by the EPA as a drinking-water contaminant.
Missouri healthcare providers have finally managed to convince the Center for Disease Control to do follow-up research on the problem -- to be released this summer. I'll keep my eye on this story.
While scientists fight over BPA studies, Congress could just act
Climate Citizen: Michael Pollan on agriculture and health care
Tweet for the bees
Comments
View as Threaded
Bud Dingler Posted 2:27 am
19 Jun 2008
once again, another speculative doomsday post on gristmill.
what does not add up is that IN, IL,MN and NE have much higher concentrations of ag land and corresponding chemical usage.
there could be a tie in with some other industrial contamination or other phenomenon we do not understand.
Permalink
caniscandida Posted 3:23 am
19 Jun 2008
Nevertheless, if PETA wants to use these data as an anti-CAFO argument, well, fine. The more anti-CAFO arguments out there, especially floating around in the farm states, the better.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
Permalink
Tom Philpott Posted 3:48 am
19 Jun 2008
Victual Reality
Permalink
justlou Posted 4:17 am
19 Jun 2008
I think researchers will find that much of the problem in MO streams is pretty much homegrown. It and all states have quite a stew brewing with hundreds of chemicals from a variety of sources.
Permalink
JMG Posted 8:16 am
19 Jun 2008
June 18, 2008
SECTION: Vol. 25 No. 13
LENGTH: 713 words
HEADLINE: NEW ATRAZINE STUDY PAINTS GRIM PICTURE FOR HUMAN HEALTH EFFECTS
BODY: A new study examining the endocrine-disrupting effects of the widely used herbicide atrazine raises concerns that the common drinking water contaminant is a definite endocrine disruptor for humans and could show serious effects on fish at levels below EPA's drinking water standards.
The study, published May 7 by the Public Library of Science, The Herbicide Atrazine Activates Endocrine Gene Networks via Non-Steroidal NR5A Nuclear Receptors in Fish and Mammalian Cells, is the first time that scientists have performed a study that systemically looks at all the genetic effects in a human cell, according to a source involved with the study.
Previous studies have explored whether atrazine is a human carcinogen, and EPA is currently reviewing several of those studies after pressure from environmentalists, who charge the herbicide is harmful to the environment and humans. But EPA sources say the agency will likely find atrazine is not a human carcinogen.
The researchers in the new study, completed at the University of California San Francisco, examined both human placenta cells and the effects of atrazine on zebra fish and found striking results, a source involved with the study says.
The study found endocrine-disrupting effects on zebra fish at a level of 2 parts per billion (ppb), which is below EPA's potable drinking water standard of 3 ppb.
"I have no doubts after our study that this is a major endocrine disrupter for wildlife at very low levels," the source says.
The study says, "Given the current pervasive use and persistence of [atrazine] in the environment, our findings support the environmental concerns that [atrazine] poses a potential risk to the reproductive health of young fish and other wildlife."
The study also found effects on human cells at 20 ppb, and the report suggests "further research is needed to determine how this non-estrogenic [endocrine disrupting compound] influences the mammalian embryonic and adult endocrine system," the study says.
In the human health section of the study, the researchers found that a number of genes involved in the way the body produces and processes hormones are affected by atrazine at relatively low levels -- as low as 20 ppb. The study only looked at one human cell line, the study source notes, saying, "we need to do other studies," looking at reproductive cells, adrenal cells, and other hormone-reacting genes. Researchers need to "start thinking beyond breast cancer and prostate cancer."
But given the results of the current study, researchers can surmise that "exposure to a fetus could predispose the fetus later in life" to reproductive problems, the source says.
The source does note that in doing the study, the microbiologists were less aware of EPA regulatory levels and the politics of environmental toxicology. In rebuttals from atrazine producer Syngenta, the source says there have been complaints that the dosages used on human cell lines were too high.
The researchers tested the effects on human cells at 2,000, 200 and 20 ppb -- seeing clear results at 200 ppb and the beginnings of such effects at 20 ppb. But if the researchers had been aware of the politics of the environmental toxicology of atrazine when doing the study, the source says, they would have examined dosages in between, to discover the drop-off levels in effects.
In a Syngenta position paper responding to the study, the company argues that the human cell line effects were only seen at very high levels, above 216 ppb. The source involved in the study refutes this though. The company also notes that the effects in the human cell lines have been noted previously, but that there is still no evidence that there is a "physiological consequence . . . in whole animals."
As for the zebra fish, Syngenta says "similar animal studies have been conducted before, and there is NO previous evidence for an effect of atrazine on aromatase in any whole animal," particularly in zebra fish. Syngenta also questions the methods used by the researchers, particularly for counting fish and sex ratios of the fish.
Nevertheless, the study source says, "I don't understand why it's banned in the [European Union] and not here," adding that the study has prompted questions about banning atrazine in the Australian state of Tasmania.
The 5% Project
Permalink
jkearns Posted 2:02 am
20 Jun 2008
http://www.aqsolutions.org
Permalink
Wolverine Posted 9:18 am
20 Jun 2008
Permalink
samdcare Posted 11:33 pm
05 Aug 2008
http://www.treatmentcenters.org/missouri
Permalink