Raging Hormones

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Forget about doomsday asteroids and the Ebola virus. The real threat to life on earth may be the Florida alligator's vanishing penis. That's only one example of a curious blurring of the sexes that researchers have been finding among wild animals around the world. In terms of reproductive health, the males of certain species aren't measuring up. Though a definite cause has yet to be found, several studies point to "gender-bender" pollutants that may be disrupting animal hormones -- including ours.

Hormones are the chemical messengers of the body's endocrine system. As Catherine Dold writes in Discover (Sept. 1996), hormones travel from the various endocrine glands to "tell cells what to do and when to do it." Their role in fetal development is profound. Hormones "tell the fetal cell what it will be when it grows up," a process that determines, among many other things, an individual's sex.

The problem, writes Dold, is that "chemical impostors" may be upsetting fetal growth at the crucial moment of sexual differentiation. "Many researchers now believe that a small army of common chemicals can somehow imitate natural hormones," she adds, and "derail an animal's development, permanently distorting its reproductive, immune, and neurological systems." The theory would explain why male alligators in Florida's Lake Apopka, the site of a pesticide spill in 1980, developed stunted reproductive organs. And why male fish near sewage plants emptying into Britain's rivers produce a protein normally found in females' eggs. Similar cases have appeared among eagles, whales, otters, and other animals. Writes Dold: "One serious abnormality after another has been reported in wildlife that have been exposed to a highly contaminated environment.

The list of possible "endocrine disrupters" now tops 50, including the usual suspects: pesticides like DDT, atrazine, and chlordane as well as dioxin, PCBs, and heavy metals. Even more disturbing, several seemingly less odious chemicals -- such as certain substances in plastics, paints, cosmetics, adhesives, and inks -- may have a similar effect.

In the case of male sexual development, there are at least two possible causes of "demasculinization." Chemicals may be blocking the androgens, or male hormones like testosterone, by binding to fetal cells in their rightful place. They can also mimic estrogen, the female hormone, thus triggering estrogenic effects. The amounts needed are small; in fact, in terms of damage, less is often more. Odder yet, these substances don't resemble estrogen in a molecular sense, which only complicates the puzzle.

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