Lady Gaga
Lady Gaga* is an American recording artist.
To date she has sold over 20 million digital singles and 3 million albums worldwide, which makes her one of the biggest-selling artists of 2009.(1)
Through recent media pictures of herself, Lady Gaga has brought to the attention of the world the condition known as “intersex” (hermaphrodite).
“Intersex” is a general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male.(2)
Although no well-documented statistical analysis of intersex frequency exists at present, a review by Melanie Blackless et al surveyed the medical literature from 1955 to the 2000 for studies of ‘the frequency of deviation from the ideal male or female’, concluded that this frequency may be as high as 2% of live births.(3)
Conte and Grumbach (1989) list more than 25 diagnoses affecting sexual differentiation.(4) It has been suggested by Dreger, Alice Domurat (1998) that the total number of people whose bodies differ from standard male or female = 1:500
Usually, a woman has two X chromosomes (XX) and a man one X and one Y (XY). However, both male and female characteristics can sometimes be found in one individual, and it is possible to have XY women and XX men.(6)
For example, a person might be:
(a) born appearing to be female on the outside but having mostly male-typical anatomy on the inside
(b) born with genitals that seem to be in-between the usual male and female types—for example, a girl may be born with a noticeably large clitoris, or lacking a vaginal opening, or a boy may be born with a notably small penis, or with a scrotum that is divided so that it has formed more like labia
or
(c) born with mosaic genetics, so that some cells have XX chromosomes and some of them have XY. (7)
What is a chromosome?
In the nucleus of each cell, the DNA (genotype) molecule is packaged into thread-like structures called chromosomes. Each chromosome is made up of DNA tightly coiled many times around proteins.
The genotype of an organism is the inherited instructions it carries within its genetic code, the expression of which results in a phenotype. A phenotype is any observable characteristic or trait of an organism.
A trait of an organism may vary according to sexual difference.
Not all organisms with the same genotype look or act the same way because appearance and behavior are modified by environmental and developmental conditions. (8)
What conditions cause this variation in human sexual development?
This is a common question. Different cultures have different theories and beliefs. In the U.S., there is no agreement on the answer to this question.
One theory put forward is that variations may be caused by any abnormality in chromosomes or sex hormones, or in the unborn baby’s response to the hormones.(9)
Hormones are various internally secreted compounds such as androgen or testoids, formed in endocrine glands, that affect the functions of specifically receptive organs or tissues when transported to them by the body fluids.(10)
Androgen is the generic term for any natural or synthetic compound, usually a steroid hormone, that stimulates or controls the development and maintenance of masculine characteristics in vertebrates by binding to androgen receptors. This includes the activity of the accessory male sex organs and development of male secondary sex characteristics.(11)
The primary and most well-known androgen is testosterone. They are also the precursor of all estrogens, the female sex hormones.
Do hormones influence other areas apart from physical differences? How about mental capabilities?
Whatever the ultimate determining factors for human cognitive sexual differentiation, the evidence suggests that the proximate mechanisms have relied heavily on sex hormones. (Kimura 2002) (13)
Some of these actions depend on the conversion of testosterone to estrogen; hence the female brain is thought to be protected from such influence by the sequestering of estrogen by a substance called alpha-fetoprotein.
Such early developmental influence is called “organizational”. In adulthood, sex hormones are again required to activate the hormonally predisposed brain along male or female lines, as appropriate – called an activational influence.(14)
Are there external influences that may disrupt this hormonal influence?
Recent concern has focused on our environment – namely the water system.
Synthetic and natural hormones from plastics, pesticides and even common prescription drugs are seeping into rivers and streams and having unintended consequences on wildlife, causing some male fish to become feminized and lay eggs.
In fact, a recent report (2009) by Jo Ellen Hinck, a biologist, found that one third of small mouth bass were feminized in nine major U.S. river basins, and almost all of the rivers and streams tested in the United States contained some hormonally active chemicals.(15)
In the early 1990s, British researchers at Brunel University in Uxbridge noticed that male fish living downstream from a sewage treatment plant near London had testes laden with eggs. The male fish had become intersexual.
A lot of follow-up studies showed it was the natural estrogens that women excrete and then the synthetic estrogens in birth control pills that were the main causes of feminization in male fish. (16)
A seven-year study by fish scientist Karen Kidd involved dripping small amounts of estrogen into a clean lake in northwestern Ontario over several years, just as if urine with the female hormone were running in via sewage from a nearby city.(17)
Results showed that this constant hormone infusion made male minnows produce eggs in unnatural, part-female sex organs. Even after she stopped adding estrogen and the water turned clean again, the minnows almost completely disappeared for several years.
The University of New Brunswick biology professor concluded even small concentrations of estrogen can decimate wild fish populations, even at levels found in some Canadian waters.
Alan Vajda, an environmental toxicologist at the University of Colorado states fish aren’t the only animals whose hormonal systems appear to be going haywire. There is growing evidence for similar conditions in birds, mammals and even people.(18)
Little is known about people’s exposure to such compounds from drinking water, however Snyder and colleagues at the Southern Nevada Water Authority in Las Vegas screened tap water from 19 US water utilities for 51 different compounds. The surveys were carried out between 2006 and 2007.
The 11 most frequently detected compounds were:(19)
- Atenolol, a beta-blocker used to treat cardiovascular disease
- Atrazine, an organic herbicide banned in the European Union, but still used in the US, which has been implicated in the decline of fish stocks and in changes in animal behaviour
- Carbamazepine, a mood-stabilising drug used to treat bipolar disorder, amongst other things
- Estrone, an oestrogen hormone secreted by the ovaries and blamed for causing gender-bending changes in fish
- Gemfibrozil, an anti-cholesterol drug
- Meprobamate, a tranquiliser widely used in psychiatric treatment
- Naproxen, a painkiller and anti-inflammatory linked to increases in asthma incidence
- Phenytoin, an anticonvulsant that has been used to treat epilepsy
- Sulfamethoxazole, an antibiotic used against the Streptococcus bacteria, which is responsible for tonsillitis and other diseases
- TCEP, a reducing agent used in molecular biology
- Trimethoprim, another antibiotic(OO)
In October, 2009, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced one of the above compounds atrazine, the commonly used weedkiller, will undergo a new comprehensive evaluation to determine its effects – first on humans and later on amphibians and aquatic ecosystems.
The most recent studies on atrazine and its potential association with birth defects, low birth weight, and premature births will be included in the year-long evaluation of the chemical’s effects on humans.
To evaluate atrazine’s potential cancer and non-cancer effects on humans, the EPA will engage the federal Scientific Advisory Panel established by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.
The panel, composed of biologists, statisticians and toxicologists, serves as the primary scientific peer review mechanism for EPA’s Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances. The panel will hold its first meeting in November.
Next September, at the end of this process, the EPA will decide whether to revise its current risk assessment of the pesticide and whether new restrictions are necessary to better protect public health.
First registered for use in December 1958, atrazine can be applied before and after planting to control broadleaf and grassy weeds.
Atrazine cycling in the environment
Approximately 70 million pounds of active ingredient are applied across the country every year. It is used primarily on corn, sorghum, and sugarcane, and is applied most heavily in the Midwest.
The Bush-era EPA decided to reregister atrazine for use in 2006. At that time, the EPA determined the chemical poses “no harm that would result to the general U.S. population, infants, children or other major identifiable subgroups of consumers.”
Yet studies by Dr. Tyrone Hayes at the University of California, show that atrazine is an endocrine disruptor that interferes with reproduction and “assaults male sexual development.”
(Dr-Tyrone-Hayes-Concludes-2009-Nature-of-Things-Lecture-Series)
Dr. Hayes demonstrated that atrazine chemically castrates and feminizes male frogs at concentrations 30 times lower than levels allowed in water by the EPA.(20)
“Atrazine induces breast and prostate cancer, retards mammary development, and induces abortion in laboratory rodents,” says Dr. Hayes. “Studies in human populations and cell and tissue studies suggest that atrazine poses similar threats to humans.”
Al Gore, who wrote in the forward to zoologist Theo Colborn’s book on endocrine-disrupting compounds, Our Stolen Future, noted:
” We are subjecting whole populations to exposure to chemicals, which animal experiments have proved to be extremely poisonous and, in many cases, cumulative in their effects. These exposures now begin at or before birth and — unless we change our methods — will continue through the lifetime of those now living. No one knows what the results will be because we have no previous experience to guide us.”(21)
Environmental toxicologist Vajda also adds weight to these words. Regarding the Ontario study he says:
“This study reminds us that we’re dealing both with chemicals that have been introduced into the environment over the decades,” Vajda said, “And we’re continuing to produce new chemicals despite their thoroughly documented ability to affect our brains, our reproduction and our metabolism.”
“I”m glad there’s some renewed spotlight on the topic of intersex fish’, Vajda said. “We’ve known about this stuff for over 20 years, and there’s still very little done policy-wise to address these issues.
It is apparent that many waters of the U.S. contain substances that can alter the sex hormones of fish. The implications are clear: whatever is altering the sex hormones of fish originates on the land, and is caused by human activities’, says Vajda.
So, if it’s apparent, why has nothing been done about it?
In 2008 the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee issued this statement:
“Environmental Working Group (EWG) has collected thousands of internal chemical industry documents showing that for decades the chemical industry has worked to corrupt the scientific process and deceive the American public about the health risks of their products, even as they knowingly polluted the bodies of every person in the country with toxic chemicals,” said Richard Wiles, Executive Director of EWG.(21)
These toxic chemicals include phthalates, which are a high-production-volume class of chemicals that are used in many consumer products including toys, baby products and lotions, cosmetics, personal care products, fragrances, air fresheners, medical tubing and devices, blood bags, PVC pipe and flooring, pharmaceuticals, and automobile parts. They are ubiquitous in our daily environment and most people, including pregnant women and their fetuses, are exposed to multiple phthalates at a time.(22)
A study, conducted by the Seattle-based nonprofit, Washington Toxics Coalition, tested for phthalates, which accumulate in marine sediments.
They found dirty water from residential washing machines is a significant source of toxin pollution according to the recently released study.
Dust that casts off hundreds of every day household products, including cosmetics, vinyl flooring, shower curtains and furniture – accumulates on people’s clothing and goes down the drain with the laundry-room suds, the study theorizes.
“The phthalates are definitely an indicator chemical, a canary in the coal mine,” said Erika Schreder, the lead author of the study. “Besides being present in house dust, a lot of toxic household products, like cleansers, are going directly down the drain.”
In the study, conducted between November 2008 and May 2009, six homeowners from Tumwater to Whidbey Island volunteered their homes as test sites. Researchers took samples of water from washing machines following the first agitation cycle.
Extrapolating the data retrieved, the study concluded that residential washing machines send about 2,110 pounds of phthalates to waste water treatment plants each year from household dust, about 17.5 percent of the total annual load.
Some phthalates settle into sludge in the sewage treatment process. The remainder – an amount that is unknown – is discharged into waterways, Schreder said.
Studies in rats show that combining phthalates with other phthalates or with pesticides can produce cumulative, additive, adverse effects.(23)
Phthalates act by inhibiting fetal rat testis function during a critical stage of life in utero. This results in reduced androgen (male hormone) and other hormone levels, hormones that are necessary for normal development of the male reproductive tract.
Male offspring exposed to high doses of phthalates in utero often display undescended testes and malformations of the penis and internal reproductive tract.
This disrupted process in rats, known as sexual differentiation, is common to all mammals and disruption of this pathway in human males also causes profound deviations (24).
How do these dangerous chemicals continue to get by governmental legislation despite EPA investigations?
According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) over the past eight years, the chemical industry has broadened its attack on EPA science with the assistance of EPA’s political appointees. This has resulted in blocking, delaying or weakening individual health standards.
It has undermined the fundamental program that establishes the level of risk posed by toxic chemicals, and attacking the objectivity and credibility of independent and government scientists, while promoting the supposed objectivity of industry scientists and consultants, many with direct financial conflicts in the matters they are reviewing.
Here’s an example regarding atrazine, mentionned earlier under review because of cancer and reproductive concerns. It can be found in the latest issue of Agri Marketing.
Agri Marketing, published since 1962, states it is the only magazine that covers the unique interests of corporate agribusiness executives, their marketing communications agencies, the agricultural media, ag-trade associations and other ag-related professionals.
It had this to say about atrazine under the following headline :
SYNGENTA: ATRAZINE BACKED BY DECADES OF SAFE USE, SCIENTIFIC REVIEW
Oct. 12, 2009
“For 50 years and through many administrations, sound science has governed US regulatory decisions on atrazine, a well-studied herbicide that farmers rely upon worldwide to produce safe, healthy and abundant crops. The Environmental Protection Agency’s recent announcement of its ongoing evaluation of atrazine is part of the normal regulatory process.
Syngenta, as a science-based company, looks forward to a continuing, open and transparent safety review of atrazine in 2010 and expects a positive outcome.
Syngenta takes its commitment to safety and to the stewardship of all our products seriously — and atrazine is no exception. Our world-class scientists and researchers have gone above and beyond the extensive studies required to register this product and, we believe sound science will once again bear out its safety.“(25)
In the meantime, it continues to be marketed worldwide.
Evidence of blocking, delaying or weakening individual health standards is provided by Jennifer Sass.
The following is part of the Testimony by Jennifer Sass**, Natural Resources Defense Council***, before the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, at hearings entitled: Science under Siege: Scientific Integrity at the U.S. EPA September 18, 2008.
‘Good morning and thank you for this opportunity to testify on science under siege at the Environmental Protection Agency. I am Jennifer Sass, PhD., a Senior Scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
I work in the Health and Environment Program, which reviews the federal regulation of industrial chemicals and pesticides. Over my eight years with NRDC, I have published over two dozen articles in scientific journals, provided written and oral testimony to Congress, to the Environmental Protection Agency and to the National Academies, as well as served on Federal scientific and stakeholder committees.
I completed post-doctoral studies in toxicology at the University of Maryland, doctoral studies in developmental biology, and a master’s thesis in neurobiology at the University of Saskatchewan.
Throughout the eight years of the Bush Administration, NRDC has documented the science under siege at the EPA, to expose the chemical industry’s campaign to destroy EPA’s technical infrastructure and policy framework.
Administration officials have also attacked the foundational process for assessing the risks of toxic chemicals, the EPA Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program that assesses hazardous substances.
Consider for example Trichloroethylene (TCE), a solvent used as a degreasing agent. TCE is one of the most common contaminants of Superfund sites across the nation, primarily from military uses, and is linked to cancer, including childhood cancer, and birth defects. The IRIS draft was initiated a decade ago, in 1998.
In 2001, EPA concluded that TCE was “highly likely” to cause cancer and specifically noted the added health risks when exposures took place during childhood. Finalization of that assessment has been held up after repeated objections from military contractors and the Department of Defense. Finally it was reviewed by the National Academies, which issued their report.
In July 2006, finding that the data linking TCE with cancer was even stronger than EPA IRIS staff had determined, and recommending that the IRIS assessment be finalized as soon as possible.
Nonetheless, the Defense Department continued to insist that it not be finalized until more data was available, and today the assessment has still not been finalized and no target date for its completion has been set’.26
Another example of politics trumping science is ‘perchorate’, a compound used in rocket fuel.
Approximately 350 public water systems serving over 41 million have reported perchlorate detections. The source of the contamination at many of these sites is defense and aerospace facilities and military installations.
The Defense Department mounted a years-long battle, and elicited White House support, against IRIS draft assessments in 1998 and in 2002 (both assessments were subject to public comment and external peer review) that had determined that even low doses of perchlorate may be harmful to early development of the human brain. The final IRIS assessment was not completed until 2005.
Due to the year’s-long delay in assessing and quantifying the harm posed by perchlorate in the IRIS program, the public remains years away from a national drinking water standard that will protect their health. (27)
The new process invites polluting agencies such as the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Energy (DOE) into the assessment process at an earlier stage, and forces the IRIS staff to address the queries of the agencies and OMB, whether or not they are consistent with health-protective policies; these exchanges are not publicly accessible.(28)
Like the exchanges that led to the dismissal of Dr. Deborah Rice who was Chairperson of a panel conducting a peer review on the EPA draft human health assessment for the polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), a class of toxic flame retardants.
Dr. Deborah Rice was dismissed from her position after the American Chemistry Council complained Rice was not impartial because she had previously expressed concerns about the health effects of the chemical under review.
After a letter of complaint was posted by Brominated Flame Retardant Industry Panel (BFRIP) G.W Bush nominee, George Grey, EPA’s Assistant Administrator for Research and Development, reply was posted on the EPA website:
“At the June 15 [2007] meeting, EPA listened to your concerns about a potential conflict of interest on the part of the Chairperson … Since then, we have decided that the Chairperson’s comments would not be considered…and that the Chairperson’s comments would be removed from the Final Report of the external peer review.”
On the same peer review panel that Dr. Rice had chaired, the Agency retained Richard J. Bull of MoBull Consulting as a peer reviewer, despite having failed to disclose relevant financial conflicts of interest on a prior committee of the National Academies National Research Council (NRC).
In 2004, Richard Bull was asked to resign from the NRC committee reviewing the health hazards of the rocket fuel perchlorate after he failed to disclose that he was being paid by Lockheed Martin to serve as their scientific expert in litigation. Although the case was still ongoing at the time, Bull failed to reveal these direct financial conflicts to the NRC staff.
Meanwhile, at least nine EPA panels assessing the human health effects of toxic chemicals have included individuals alleged to have financial interests in the chemical industry.(29)
Thus it it can be seen why some folk are concerned about governmental policy when it is being influenced by polluting institutions and the chemical industry.
There seems to be total disregard for health concerns despite evidence from respected scientific evidence (see footnote below). A disregard that allows our water system to be polluted with a soup of adverse chemicals. Clearly water / waste treatment facilities need to be enhanced to remove these detrimental chemicals.
In the meantime. disease in our society, such as breast cancer, continue to proliferate. It would be worth looking into the effect of increased estrogen levels on the initiation of that disease in future studies.
The effect on future generations also needs to be considered.
Whilst intersexual variation is part of the norm – and in the case of Lady Gaga it could be said to enhance society – it may have repercussions on future reproductive mechanisms if not checked. If this chemical soup continues to be digested by mankind, it could result in the same fate as the intersex fish – their disappearance.
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Ann Margrain
Founder, ‘Heroin and Cornflakes’ blog.
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***The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is a national, nonprofit organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists dedicated to protecting public health and the environment.
**Testimony by Jennifer Sass,
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Footnote
Related Issue
By The Associated Press
Published: October 13, 2009
WASHINGTON – A controversial e-mail message buried by the Bush administration because of its conclusions on global warming surfaced today, nearly two years after it was first sent to the White House and never opened.
The e-mail and the 28-page document attached to it, released today by the Environmental Protection Agency, show that back in December of 2007 the agency concluded that six gases linked to global warming pose dangers to public welfare, and wanted to take steps to regulate their release from automobiles and the burning of gasoline.
The document specifically cites global warming’s effects on air quality, agriculture, forestry, water resources and coastal areas as endangering public welfare.
That finding was rejected by the Bush White House, which strongly opposed using the Clean Air Act to address climate change and stalled on producing a so-called “endangerment finding” that had been ordered by the Supreme Court in 2007.
As a result, the Dec. 5 e-mail sent by the agency to Susan Dudley, who headed the regulatory division at the Office of Management and Budget was never opened, according to Jason Burnett, the former EPA official that wrote it.
The Bush administration, and then EPA administrator Stephen Johnson, also refused to release the document, which is labeled “deliberative, do not distribute” to Democratic lawmakers. The White House instead allowed three senators to review it last summer, when excerpts were released.
The Obama administration in April made a similar determination, but also concluded that greenhouse gases endanger public health. The EPA is currently drafting the first greenhouse gas standards for automobiles, and recently signaled it would attempt to reduce climate-altering pollution from refineries, factories and other large industrial sources.
In response, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Republican lawmakers have criticized the EPA’s reasoning and called for a more thorough vetting of the science. An internal review by a dozen federal agencies released in May also raised questions about the EPA’s conclusion, saying the agency could have been more balanced and raising questions about the difficulty in linking global warming to health effects.
The agency released the e-mail and documents after receiving requests under the Freedom of Information Act.
Adora Andy, a spokeswoman for EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, said Tuesday that the draft shows the science in 2007 was as clear as it is today.
“The conclusions reached then by the EPA scientists should have been made public and should have been considered,” she said.
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Latest news
More women found growing deposits of bone in the skull
Growing deposits of bone in the skull means your hormones are out of whack, warns TAU researcher
*
Chemicals used in plastics feminise the brains of little boys ‘so that they avoid rough and tumble games’
By David Derbyshire
Last updated at 8:14 AM on 16th November 2009
Chemicals used in plastics are ‘feminising’ the brains of baby boys, a disturbing study shows.
Those exposed to high doses in the womb are less likely to play with ‘male’ toys such as cars. They are also less willing to join ‘rough and tumble’ games.
The research adds to growing evidence that hormone-disrupting chemicals in thousands of household-products are interfering with the development of children.
Environmental campaigners called the study ‘extremely worrying’ and called for a crackdown.
The study looked at phthalates, chemicals which can mimic the female sex hormone oestrogen.
Some experts believe they are partly to blame for the increase in genital defects in boys and lower sperm counts in men over recent decades.
But the new research is the first to link hormone-mimicking chemicals to behaviour.
There are fears of further effects as the young children in the study grow up.
Although the plastics industry insists phthalates are safe, the EU has banned many of them from cosmetics, teething rings and children’s toys.
But pregnant women are still exposed to phthalates, which are used to soften plastics in household items such as plastic furniture, shoes, PVC flooring and shower curtains.
They can also be transferred to food and drink from plastic packaging. The new study, published in the International Journal of Andrology, was led by Dr Shanna Swan, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Rochester in New York State.
Her team tested urine samples from mothers in the 28th week of pregnancy for traces of phthalates.
The women, who gave birth to 74 boys and 71 girls, were contacted again when their children were aged four to seven and asked about the toys the youngsters played with, the activities they liked and their personalities.
The researchers found that higher concentrations of two types of common phthalate – DEHP and DBP – were strongly linked with more feminine play in the boys but had no impact on girls.
The higher-phthalate boys were less likely than other boys to play with cars, trains and guns or engage in rough-and-tumble games such as playfighting.
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