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Assessing risks and benefits associated with scientific research: the…
Assessing risks and benefits associated with scientific research: the risks to human male fertility were not adequately assessed before steroids related to progesterone and oestrogen were released into the environment as a result of the use of the female contraceptive pill.
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other sources of EDCs
Agriculture plays a larger role; for example, it points out that the amount of synthetic estrogen given to livestock in the US is five times greater than that consumed by all the women on the pill
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"Public concern about the adverse effects of environmental chemicals on spermatogenesis in adult men are, in general, not supported by the available data for humans. Where adverse effects of environmental chemicals have been shown, they are usually in an occupational setting rather than applying to the general population," he says.
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BACKGROUND: An increasing number of reports suggest that chemical and physical agents in the environment, introduced and spread by human activity, may affect male fertility in humans. Relationships between exposure to environmental agents and seminal characteristics, and the concentrations of reproductive hormones in the serum of men seeking infertility treatment investigated.
METHODS: 225 male partners studied from consecutively recruited couples, who had their first infertility consultation between 1995 and 1998, in the Litoral Sur region of Argentina, one of the most productive farming regions in the world.
RESULTS: A multivariate logistic regression model showed that exposure to pesticides and solvents is significantly associated with sperm threshold values well below the limit for male fertility. We also found that men exposed to pesticides had higher serum oestradiol concentrations, and that men exposed to solvents had lower LH concentrations than non-exposed men. All of these effects were greater in men with primary infertility than in men with secondary infertility.
CONCLUSION: We have shown that environmental factors contribute to the severity of infertility, and that this may worsen the effects of pre-existing genetic or medical risk factors.
