and it might be getting harder.
The herbicide Atrazine, known as the “gender-bender chemical”, is increasing as one of the top contaminants found in the US water supply.
Atrazine is a white powder used to kill weeds mainly in midwestern cornfields. It enters the groundwater and then can live indefinitely in rivers, lakes, oceans and municipal water supplies, because water isn’t a very effective agent to break it down.
Its effects seem to vary – cancer in lab animals, possible birth defects in humans. And, it seems, hermaphroditic frogs. According to a recent U.C. Berkeley study, atrazine is an endocrine disruptor that chemically castrates male amphibians.
The Berkeley science newsletter states “On a cellular level, atrazine’s gender-bending effects stem from its effects on estrogen. Hayes and other researchers have shown that it tells the body to step up production of the enzyme aromatase. Aromatase converts the male hormone testosterone into the female hormone estrogen.”
Read the whole article – “Male Frogs Losing their Macho”
Low sperm counts in male humans have been cited as a reason to ban the herbicide.
Learn more and take simple steps:
1. Register your support for atrazine banning efforts.
2. Find out how to make your water safe for drinking.
So there may be no need to despair about loss of macho.
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