Environmental Estrogens linked to Reproductive Abnormalities, Cancer

Sperm counts in men worldwide have fallen about 50% since 1940. Over the same time period, the incidence of testicular cancer has tripled in some countries and that of prostate cancer has doubled. Similarly, there are indications that birth defects in the male reproductive tract have increased over the past 50 years. Also, since 1940, the incidence of female breast cancer has risen in Western Europe and the U.S. And endometriosis— the growth outside the uterus of cells that normally line the uterus— formerly a rare condition, now afflicts 5 million American women. This is a painful, often disabling, disease that affects women in their reproductive years, frequently leading to infertility. In the animal world, alligators on Lake Apopka in Florida are failing to hatch, and the males that do hatch have abnormally small penises. Female common terns nesting near a toxic waste site in Massachusetts' New Bedford Harbor are sharing nests and laying more ...