Tornado Alley (PROG)

[DesertDrifter]

Don't blame the pill for estrogen in drinking water.

I didn't. That was your assumption. analyzing estrogen is used to debunk risks from birth control pills, but the truth is, estrogen is but a small part of the problem. Other compounds that are synthetic are turning up in water supplies, and they don't come from plants or cows.

In the case of oral contraceptives, the key ingredients are synthetic hormones known as progestins, which mimic progesterone, either alone or combined with estrogen. When used therapeutically in contraceptive pills or in hormone replacement treatments for menopause, these synthetic hormones make their way into the water supply after being excreted in the patients’ urine. As environmental contaminants, these are referred to as endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), due to the fact that they interfere with the endocrine systems of humans and animals alike following exposure.

While its impact is still being widely studied, there is no doubt that the exposure is occurring: multiple international studies have documented elevated levels of natural and synthetic hormones in drinking water, and one such study conducted in France noted that progestins in particular were more resistant to removal by water treatment methods, compared with other types of pharmaceuticals [3].

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/what-the-pill-is-doing-to-our-water-supply

But how hormones are getting into the water supply is not the issue, the fact is they are there and might be having an effect. the thread was discussing the role of trace levels of hormones having a possible impact on developing fetuses and how the differences between physical form and brain development can contribute to gender blurring. (for lack of a better term) and synthetics are like the canaries in the coal mine, it is hard to blame other sources than pharmaceuticals.

But in fairness, my pointing to birth control hormones directly was overstated, but your leap estrogen alone was not entirely accurate, either. I am not anti-birth control by any stretch of the imagination. My thoughts wander more to coming up with a simple bonding agent that can remove it from water supplies safely and cheaply.

We humans are becoming a huge beta test for what we can tolerate over the long haul, as we are exposed to so many compounds beyond what entities like the EPA even know about. Just like the chemical spill in coal country that shut down water supplies with disastrous consequences, the chemical had scarcely even had its effects studied before unleashing it on the environment. Thankfully, most outrageously mutagenic or carcinogenic compounds are known and kept out of the environment, it is the ones that are not so blatant in their effects that are a huge problem. Who knows which ones will be as bad as DDT over the long haul...

Atrazine, which was mentioned in the article i copied from, just for one example:

Atrazine is a herbicide of the triazine class. It is the most widely used herbicide in the United States[1] and one of the most widely used herbicides in Australian agriculture.[2] It was banned in the European Union in 2004.[3] Atrazine is used to prevent pre and post-emergence broadleaf weeds in crops such as maize (corn) and sugarcane and on turf, such as golf courses and residential lawns.

Atrazine is the most commonly detected contaminant of drinking water in the United States. It is a potential endocrine disruptor, an agent that may alter the natural hormonal system in animals.[1][4] In 2006 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claimed that "the risks associated with the pesticide residues pose a reasonable certainty of no harm",[5] and in 2007 the EPA claimed that atrazine does not adversely affect amphibian sexual development and that no additional testing was warranted.[6] However, in 2009 the EPA began a new scientific evaluation of health effects on atrazine.[7] Numerous authors have claimed that studies they have conducted have demonstrated substantial adverse reproductive effects even at levels asserted by the EPA to be safe [8][9][4][10]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrazine

So yes, i probably should have cast my net a little wider than synthetic progesterone, but i didn't even mention estrogen. (there is way too much information on the topic to try to jam into one post... and i did notice you weren't controverting the meat of my post, that endocrine/hormone disruption probably contribute to the phenomenon of "gender blurring", which occurred long before DuPont made its first chemicals. I am just putting it out there as food for thought, as i am neither a chemist nor a physician.