Endocrine disrupting chemicals released by plastics and chemicals into the environment have caused serious harm to the global ecosystem, giving rise to gender imbalance in fish and birds and lowering human sperm count, a group of scientists told a seminar in Taipei yesterday.
“Endocrine disrupting chemicals [EDC] are substances that act like hormones in human or animals’ endocrine systems. They disturb the functions of normal hormones and cause adverse effects,” National Tsing Hua University chemistry professor Ling Yong-chien (凌永健) said at the Fifth Conference on Environmental Hormones and Persistent Organic Pollutants.
When found in the environment, EDCs are also called environmental hormones, Ling said.
“Environmental hormones are everywhere — from car parts, clothes, perfumes and furniture, to foods or pesticides,” Ling said.
Citing a study conducted on black porgy — a type of fish that is a protandrous hermaphrodite, meaning they are born as functional males but about half change into females as they mature at around three years old — National Taiwan Ocean University professor Chang Ching-fong (張清風) said: “With exposure to female hormones in the environment, most of these fish become female by the age of one.”
Although the concentration of female hormones in the environment would not cause black porgy to become extinct, Chang said its fate could serve as a warning.
“If environmental hormones are blurring the issue of gender in wildlife today, could humans be next?” Ling asked.
Adverse effects have already been observed, Ling said.
For example, polybrominated diphenyl ethers, a flame retardant commonly found in building materials, electronic products, furnishings, clothes, and even polyurethane foams that children play with may cause impaired nerve growth, he said.
Bisphenol A, a chemical that is released from baby bottles when heated, can give rise to male sexual dysfunction, he said.
“Studies have found that there has been a linear regression of mean sperm density in advanced Western countries over the past five decades. Men today are observed to have about half of the sperm density of their ancestors 50 years ago,” Ling said.
Ling said governments should continue to monitor these chemicals in the environment and amend laws to discourage manufacturers from using them.
At the same time, consumers should ask what materials are used in the products they purchase and learn more about their effects.
“Before consumers make a purchase, they should stop and read the ingredients and make informed choices,” Ling said.
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