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Sunday, December 07, 2008

"It is calculated that 250,000 babies who would have been boys have been born as girls instead in the US and Japan alone."

This is scary (via Instapundit):

The male gender is in danger, with incalculable consequences for both humans and wildlife, startling scientific research from around the world reveals. The research – to be detailed tomorrow in the most comprehensive report yet published – shows that a host of common chemicals is feminising males of every class of vertebrate animals, from fish to mammals, including people.

Backed by some of the world's leading scientists, who say that it "waves a red flag" for humanity and shows that evolution itself is being disrupted, the report comes out at a particularly sensitive time for ministers. On Wednesday, Britain will lead opposition to proposed new European controls on pesticides, many of which have been found to have "gender-bending" effects....

Communities heavily polluted with gender-benders in Canada, Russia and Italy have given birth to twice as many girls than boys, which may offer a clue to the reason for a mysterious shift in sex ratios worldwide. Normally 106 boys are born for every 100 girls, but the ratio is slipping. It is calculated that 250,000 babies who would have been boys have been born as girls instead in the US and Japan alone.


I have noticed for the past ten or fifteen years that it seems like there are more girl babies and just girls in general wherever I go and thought perhaps it was just a coincidence, but now I see it may not be. I hope that more research and attempts to address this problem are forthcoming, or could it be that if only males are affected, no one cares?

30 comments:

  1. I really don't have much to say on this(mainly because I lack any anecdotal knowledge, being as young as I am) but when I was reading this, I got the image of Dr. Strangelove saying "ten females to every male".

    And perhaps this could explain, at least partially, the higher enrollment of women then men in higher education? Not only are men going less, but there are less men than in the past to begin with?

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  2. Is it bad if my first reaction is "that's more for the rest of us"?

    I also find the numbers in the article suspicious. It claims that "Communities heavily polluted with gender-benders in Canada, Russia and Italy have given birth to twice as many girls than boys" followed by "Normally 106 boys are born for every 100 girls, but the ratio is slipping".

    A change from 106 boys for every 100 girls to 50 boys for every 100 girls is not just "slipping"! Perhaps the journalist is confused and the real change is to halve the previous difference, or something like that?

    A decrease in sperm counts is interesting. Is it possible that it is due to something as simple as the system being exercised and flushed out more often than in the past and thus concentrations not building up so much? The internet would have nothing to do with that, of course.

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  3. It's a Chinese plot to solve their gender imbalance.

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  4. This sort of demographic shift is precisely what men need frankly. When it bedomes hard to get a "mate", women will compete for male attention...becoming "nicer" and "more caring" in the process.

    The fewer of us there are, the more likely we are to be treated as human.

    Otherwise that "hard to find man" will be with a more pleasant woman...shrews need not apply.

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  5. Interesting article with scary implications, but Dr. Helen, I'm noticing just the opposite. Virtually all of my close acquaintances, friends and family members who have had children in the last 10 years have had boys - many more than one. I can think of only one girl-boy family and only one girl-girl family out of the many that I know. Otherwise, boys boys boys.

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  6. The world is in reality plagued by overpopulation, the key to most of the problems we have today. Everything goes back to overpopulation, think of it. Pollution, so-called global warming, development encroaching on nature, sustainability, there seems no limit to the problems that stem to overpopulation. So this perhaps is nature's way of righting that wrong.

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  7. Marion, I'm seeing more far more boys being born, too. The last half-dozen or so baby gifts I've bought for relatives or friends were for boys. But maybe just a cluster.
    The numbers in the article don't make sense. "Twice as many girls"??

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  8. I'm thinking this is a good thing, that my stock value to the women of the world will be going up over the next several decades.

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  9. more girls is great for the fewer guys! lots of fun there. makes marriage less attractive, however, since why settle for one steak when there are so many to be had?

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  10. Male alligators exposed to pesticides in Florida have suffered from lower testosterone and higher oestrogen levels, abnormal testes, smaller penises and reproductive failures.

    ....

    40 per cent of the male cane toads – a species so indestructible that it has become a plague in Australia – had become hermaphrodites


    Smaller penises!!! Hermaphrodites!!! You guys may have more women from which to choose but what are you going to do with them? Really bad porn?

    Chemicals in the environemt that similar to estrogen or interfere with maleness are is a problem that I've been reading about for at least a couple of decades. I remember this link to a post about antibacterial soap that Instapundit posted about 7 months ago.

    We're dumping tons of chemicals into the environment without knowing the long term effects nor considering the possible effect of chemicals from different sources combining.

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  11. I recall seeing a study that linked increased material comforts to a higher proportion of female births.

    Also, the feminist tendency to prefer female babies (the reverse of what Western feminists are whining about in East and Southwest Asia) could be skewing the numbers.

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  12. So, by ignoring the problem, we will eventually achieve a world without war, because there will be too few evil men in circulation to muster more than a tense game of checkers, no?

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  13. The solution is polygamy. Mormons already have figured this one out. They NEED two wives - one to cook and one to shovel the snow. (ducking) :-p

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  14. Nature seems to be bucking for a return to polygamy...

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  15. The thing with having polygamous marriage which would suck is that women who live together tend to menstruate at the same time.

    Yeah, think about that.

    All 5 of your wives getting bitchy at the same time.

    That would quickly become "hunting week," eh?

    See you next monday, my dears.

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  16. Male alligators exposed to pesticides in Florida have suffered from lower testosterone and higher oestrogen levels, abnormal testes, smaller penises and reproductive failures.

    OK. So who has the job of measuring Alligator parts? I am guessing there is a government research grant at the bottom of that. And no one gets hired back next year if the study finds, "everything is just fine, same as last year."

    I am also perfectly OK with more women per man. But if it goes too far, the available men will become commodities, enslaved for their beauty and reproductive capabilities. The Horror. The Horror.

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  17. I've seen this kind of story in the past. From what I have been given to understand, these things run in cycles. More girls babies for a decade or two, then more male babies. Unless and until they show a definitive link between other environmental factors and this kind of occurrence, I'm not going to be alarmed.

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  18. @Wayne,
    Your stubborn refusal to accept the ideology is disappointing.
    You will be subjected to:
    4 Andrew Sullivan posts,
    3 Michael Moore flicks,
    2 Al Gore speeches, and
    1 stream of Bill Maher diatribes
    until your head asplodes or you give in.
    Because the choice, as ever, is yours.

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  19. You will be subjected to:
    4 Andrew Sullivan posts,
    3 Michael Moore flicks,
    2 Al Gore speeches, and
    1 stream of Bill Maher diatribes


    Is that all? Tell 'em to Bring It.

    Heh.

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  20. This is utter bullshit. If there was an environmental effect, we'd have been seeing that in elementary school demographics for decades. YOU DON'T.

    "offer a clue to the reason for a mysterious shift in sex ratios worldwide"

    Abortion.

    "Communities heavily polluted with gender-benders in Canada, Russia and Italy have given birth to twice as many girls than boys"

    Sounds completely made up to me. If not, a simple statistical trick works--simply select a narrow sampling size.

    Final point: about twice as many males are conceived as females. Males spontaneously abort at a fairly high rate up to the end of the first trimester (which is a major transition in pregnancy.) In heavily polluted areas it stands to reason that even more males will spontaneously abort.

    "It is calculated that 250,000 babies who would have been boys have been born as girls instead in the US and Japan alone."

    This is crackpot science. Are they really proposing that between conception and shortly thereafter, the XY chromosome pair changed to XX? Or are they saying that we can find 250,000 girls and women who have XY chromosomes? Didn't think so.

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  21. Joe,

    You have to remember, this was probably written by a journalist, not a scientist. I just took it as the journalist messing up the article and completely misinterpreting what the study was saying. I'd without a doubt want to see the actual study before I jump to anything more than some simple conjecture and opining. Remember, journalist misinterpreting is the reason why we hear that chocolate is good for us one week and bad for us another.

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  22. More women and fewer men. Whoa, I better run for the hills. ;)

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  23. smitty1e: ...we will eventually achieve a world without war...

    err... have ya KNOWN many women?

    ;)

    *ducks*

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  24. I have also noticed that girls seem to be physically maturing at younger and younger ages than when I was a pre-teen. I have mentioned this to friends with daughters and they have noticed it too. 8 & 9 year olds getting training bras, etc.

    I have been told that this is due to all of the environmental estrogen.

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  25. If nature (or the Chinese government) wanted to slow population growth, it would make more men.

    Interesting that Italy and Russia (and probably Canada, without immigration, but I don't know for sure) are in a demographic death spiral. The polygamist jokers are probably on to something. In a world of birth control, nature needs to produce more females to achieve a pregnancy. In a world where men face less competition for sex, they don't need large genitals either.

    Doesn't explain the animal kingdom though. Maybe it's just a big die off and the weaker males are being removed? The latest science also says males are more diverse (many men are smarter than women and many are stupider than women), and evolution mainly takes place on the male side. Reducing the male/female ratio is a recipe for the "fitter" males to producer fitter mutatations among a larger pool of mates.

    I don't necessarily believe any of the above, I'm just going by what I learned from blogs!

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  26. Improves nutrition is the single biggest factor in Girls reaching menarche earlier. Genetics is also a factor; girls on my mother's side of the family tend reach menarche slightly later than average, yet for girls in my wife matriarchal line it's the opposite. Both my daughters started their periods almost a year before their classmates; they also had to wear bras before them (to their chagrin, they inherited the short genes from both sides while their brothers inherited the tall, skinny genes from my male ancestors--my father and both grandfathers were 6'-4" and taller.)

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  27. Worldwide, doesn't this all even out anyway because of the preference for boys in countries such as China and India?

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  28. Dr. Helen
    Thanks for calling attention to this serious issue.

    There has been some of research into feminizing compounds for about two decades, but most of it has been under the radar, so it has been difficult to judge the science until very recently. The upside of the rather frightening results has been increased attention.

    The reason for the lack of attention are probably simpler than you imagine. Most of the alleged feminizing compounds are integral to industry and agribusiness.Getting rid of them will take time and money. That we might need to, and not "everything is just fine" (sorry, Roci) is the answer that no one wants to hear.

    The pattern is predictable. Crappy or non-existent "scientific research", funded by industry, indicates that a given chemical is safe. This raises the bar enormously high for proving otherwise. Someone can decide to put endocrine disrupters or nanosilver or whatever into the food web (agriculture, processing, packaging) for no good reason, and then you need to move heaven and earth to get it out.

    The case is strengthening that certain commonly used chemical compounds are having a feminizing effect on humans and animals, but which ones and how much exposure is problematic will continue to be hotly debated. Meanwhile, it probably pays to err on the side of paranoia in your consumer choices to minimize exposure. Educate yourself, read labels, shop at the farmers market, grow your own. If enough people do that, the food industry will have to respond. I believe they call that capitalism.

    Well, thanks again for getting the info out there. By the way, I'm confident you were being facetious, but I think the lack of attention to this has nothing to do with a conspiracy against males.

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