In an age where we are quick to condemn oil companies for spills, the overuse of pesticides, the effects of nuclear generated energy on animals, or we deny irrigation to fertile farmland in order to protect a delta smelt, we remain strangely silent about something I first read about five years ago when the initial reports came out: a problem that is not going away any time soon. Last night I read about it again. I’ve substituted the letter “X” for the cause of the problem in the quotes and story snippets below. See if you can guess what it is.
Scientists discovered in 2005 that X chemicals were deforming fish in the nation’s waterways — a phenomenon known by science today as “fish feminization.”
The problems first made national news when strange intersex fish were found in pristine-looking Boulder Creek, in Colorado. The fish were the first thing that had ever frightened then 59-year-old University of Colorado biologist John Woodling during his scientific career.
Two years after finding the fish, hideously deformed mostly by steroid hormones that had seeped into the water from X, lead study scientist David Norris, a University of Colorado physiology professor, told the Register that it appeared nobody cared.
“Where’s the outrage?” he asked.
[snip]
Interviews with a variety of environmentalists revealed that Norris was correct: Nobody seemed to care.
Curt Cunningham, water quality issues chairman for the Rocky Mountain chapter of Sierra Club International, crusaded to get Boulder to remove fluoride from its drinking water, believing it had negative effects on the environment. But he had no intention of asking anyone to rethink the use of X, despite their effects on fish.
“For many people it’s an economic necessity. It’s also a personal freedom issue,” Cunningham said, regarding X.
Others told the Register they had more pressing concerns. Environmental activist Betty Ball said she was too busy with fighting “weed control chemicals and pesticides” to concern herself much with deformed fish.
Dave Georgis, who lobbied for Boulder County politicians to prohibit genetically modified crops, wasn’t fazed by the sexually modified fish and the link to X.
“You can’t have zero impact, and this is one of the many, many impacts we have on the environment in everyday life,” Georgis said. “Nobody is to blame for this, and I don’t have a solution.”
[snip]
When the Register asked EPA officials whether they would like humans to curtail use of X products, spokesman Jalil Isa issued a statement. It said, in part: “In September 2009, Administrator Lisa P. Jackson announced plans to strengthen our chemical management program and increase the pace of the agency’s efforts on chemicals of concern.”
Chemicals mentioned in the statement included chemical pesticides and phthalates used in plastics. The statement made no mention of concern about chemicals in X products that scientists link directly to the feminization of fish.
At least one organization, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, seems genuinely alarmed by the fact X chemicals are creating unnatural intersex fish.
What is X? What is used so casually and yet causes such damage to our water supply that it is actually genetically altering the wildlife that live in these streams and rivers?
X = birth control pills and patches.
“Frightening.” “No one seems to care.” A water quality issues chairman who has no intention of asking anyone to rethink the use of contraceptives and patches despite what he knows about their effects. Environmental activists with “more pressing concerns” than deformed fish. Unfazed. “No one is to blame for this.”
Can you imagine the outcry that would occur if someone from “Big Oil” or “Big Tobacco” or whatever other environmental boogeyman is out there had said these things? If a BP spokesperson said he had more “pressing concerns” than the Gulf oil spill? Or if BP had said “No one is to blame for this.”?
Can you hear me now? In the words of Bono “Am I buggin’ you? I don’t mean to bug you.”
But yet I do. Because of the hypocrisy of it all. Because of the lack of outrage over this pollution and the results it is having upon our environment. Kudos to PETA for acknowledging the problem of this “chemical castration and feminization”.
David Walker, an environmental biologist at the University of Arizona warns: “The female fish are becoming more masculine and the male fish are becoming more feminine over time. It is a possibility that some of the effects we see in these fish can also occur in humans.”
Now I could be snarky right here and say “No shit Sherlock. Have you looked around at our society today? All I have to do is watch a Twilight movie or a network sit-com to see a feminized male.” But this is not a snarky matter. It is real.
I believe that Alka Chandna, laboratory oversight specialist in PETA’s Laboratory Investigations Department sums it up correctly when she said the following:
“We tend to think we can take drugs for anything, but there are consequences to wanting quick fixes,” Chandna said. “We can make the choice to take a contraceptive drug. But fish also end up getting the drug, and all the consequences, without making a choice. It’s sobering.”
Indeed. And lest you think that this is a manufactured story created by a Catholic newspaper, think again. Do a little research. It took me a few seconds on Google to find this and this.
Choices have consequences as do our ideologies. It’s time to take the blinders off and be honest with ourselves.
Mere Observations 