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TODAY Wednesday 26 November 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site.

 

TODAY IN THE WORLD: Sperm

One of the first tasks of the Liberty Tree Alliance (in late 1995) was to prepare a lengthy report on the science and politics of an issue that was then beginning to gather a fair amount of momentum: whether and how certain synthetic chemicals (mostly organochlorines) interfered with the normal functionings of human hormones. A group of us interviewed scientists, physicians, government officials, and environmental activists. Our job was not to evaluate the science, but to report on what people thought and felt about the science. To compress 150 pages: While there were lively arguments on the implications of the research conducted so far, there was a near consensus that the questions raised in the research were critically important, that government and industry should increase exponentially the amounts of time and money dedicated to further scientific inquiry, and that ordinary citizens could be moved by a public education campaign on the possible links between endocrine-disrupting chemicals and the rising incidence of diseases and other malfunctions of the human reproductive system.

The next spring saw the publication of "Our Stolen Future" by Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers, and the whole issue took off. The EPA, the National Institutes of Medicine, and the National Academy of Sciences all established special panels to assess the situation. NIM increased significantly its endocrine-disrupter research budget and EPA required that new chemicals be tested for their endocrine effects. It's now a growing field for ambitious researchers. On the popular level, though, you can probably say that the only element of the controversy that has attracted the attention of more than one percent of the population has been the putative association between endocrine disrupters and a decline in human sperm counts.

Studies in the early '90s had shown a decrease in the sperm counts of men in a variety of industrialized countries of about 50% over 50 years. When the popular press got ahold of endocrine disruption in the spring of 1996, reports almost always highlighted these sperm studies rather than other pieces of the scientific puzzle. Stories were usually illustrated with greatly-magnified photos of swimming sperm, and the headlines tended to the cutesy (Esquire's "Downward Motility" was our favorite).

Sex sells, OK, but it was interesting that other elements of this issue (which is all about sex, after all) got much lesson attention than the sperm drops. When we asked a veteran journalist why this was so, he said "Because sperm is a funny word. It sounds funny as it comes out of your mouth, kind of bouncy. Sperm, sperm, sperm. Not like 'uterus' or 'menopause' or 'testicles' or 'prostate.' People like to say the word." Besides, he pointed out, sperm travels when a guy ejaculates, so there's always this implicit reference to a sex act, which frequently involves another person, which titillates. And then there's the widespread anxiety, especially among middle-class post-30-year-old-women, about fertility and infertility.

Soon after that early '96 flood of publicity, there was a counter-current of doubters on the sperm-count business. Some researchers and a few polemicists criticized the methodologies of the early-'90s studies, and pointed to new evidence that in certain places -- New York City and Finland, for example -- sperm counts were actually heading up. (My theory on this is that sperm production may be enhanced by the tendency of a significant fraction of the adult male population to fall drunk face forward in the street at two o'clock in the morning.) Endocrine watchers weren't sure who to believe.

Now, reports Brigid Schulte of the Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire, there's sober reassurance that, yes, sperm counts are indeed falling. She quotes Shanna Swan of the California Department of Health , lead author of a study published yesterday in Environmental Health Perspectives, as saying "My hope is that this study will change the question of concern from if there is a decline to why there is a decline." Sperm counts in the US have fallen 1.5% a year since the 1930s, Dr. Swan and her team have documented. Europe's decline is even faster. Most men in both places produce half the sperm per volume than men did 50 years ago. "Is the sky falling in?," asks Dr. Swan. "I don't think so. Even though sperm counts have declined, even gone down to about 60 million per milliliter, it's still 60 million. You only need one to make a baby. But it is a red flag for increasing problems we see in other areas." There are indeed geographic variations, she says, and the sperm decline cannot be documented outside the industrial world, but there's no escaping the fact that men in rich countries are producing fewer sperm, and it's not because of tight underwear. (For more on Swan's study, see the excellent coverage by the National Environmental Trust.)

All right. So sperm are down, infertility is up, and the incidence of cancers associated with reproductive-system organs -- uterus, testicle, breast, prostate, brain -- is way up. It is understandable, even valuable, for people to disagree violently about what conclusions can be drawn and what evaluations can be made about those conclusions. Like most of us, I don't know enough to have an informed opinion, and like many of us, I choose not to rearrange my life so as to lessen exposure to endocrine disrupters (then again, I'm not pregnant). But I would bet a ton of money that there is at least some connection between some industrial chemicals and some of those maladies and that those who profit by the production and use of those chemicals (and they can number in the millions) are going to resist their curtailment. By all means let's pursue the consensus decision for more research, and lots of it. But there's a big storm brewing.

 

TODAY ON THE SITE

We think the best introduction to, and resource-trove about, hormone-messing chemicals is found right In The Trenches, Lib Tree's in-depth section on Issues That Really Matter. Check into the recently updated features by Carolyn Strange on endocrine disrupters.

 

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11/25: Sound Sound-Bite Science
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11/21: Tim Wirth's Inscrutable Adventure
11/20: Better to Receive than to Give
11/19: Wes Jackson's Problem with Agriculture
11/18: "Stay Home and Be Decent"
11/17: World Cups (Soccer; C02)
11/14: Amtrak, My Amtrak
11/13: Tim Wirth's Excellent Adventure
11/12: Monsters of Wellesley, Massachusetts

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