The Disappearing Male [video]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7530701744597358451&ei=CA8qSfrUJ4b-qAP_mJz-AQ&q=The+Disappearing+Male

by Alex3917 • 18 years ago

48 50 18 years ago

video.google.com

pg2• 18 years ago

Can someone just summarize what compounds are thought to be responsible?

gruseom4• 18 years ago

http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/doczone/2008/disappearingmal...

Bisphenol A (found mostly in hard colored plastics) is becoming particularly non grata (update: in Canada) these days.

Edit: according to the article it's also "the de facto lining used in food cans". Wow.

Alex39176• 18 years ago

"Bisphenol A (found mostly in hard colored plastics) is becoming particularly non grata these days."

Not in the United States.

pg2• 18 years ago

Sounds like the probem is stuff made out of plastic. Is that a reasonable summary?

ericb5• 18 years ago

You left out phthalates, which are also in plastics, but are not the same thing as BPA.

Alex39176• 18 years ago

Phthalates and bpa.

Tichy• 18 years ago

Didn't watch the video, but I have also heard bad things about soy, which is also in a lot of processed food.

gaius• 18 years ago

Yes, soy protein isoflavones are phytoestrogens. Males should limit soy consumption.

ericb5• 18 years ago

Phthalates, which are in products made of PVC plastics (like the pipes) which includes childrens toys but are also found in tons of other things like cosmetics, deodorants, and fragranced products.

Bisphenol A (BPA) is the other major offender. Many companies are at least removing from baby bottles and teethers now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phthalate

steveplace2• 18 years ago

Found this post off reddit:

Don't be so quick to condemn "unnatural, synthetic" chemicals. Some of the biggest troublemakers are plant estrogen that is sprayed on crops to increase plant yields. This has been known, studied and re-studied since the 1960s. Here's the science:

About halfway through gestation, a male fetus emits a small amount of testosterone that travels from its testes to its brain. This tells it that it is a "male" brain. If it does not get that bit of hormone, the brain remains "female", by default. Importantly, while in animals this may determine mating behavior, it DOES NOT DO SO IN HUMANS. So please set aside any ideas about homosexuality, which is much more complicated than this.

If during early pregnancy, the mother either uptakes a chemical that blocks this transfer, interferes with this transfer, significantly increases the amount of estrogen in her body (usually from eating Tofu), or increases the tiny amount of natural testosterone in her body (from other chemicals), it interferes with the process.

While again, this will not determine sexual attraction, it will play some considerable part in the secondary sexual characteristics of the offspring. Either androgyny, more feminine males, or more masculine females.

When this was first discovered in the 1960s, they evaluated the gamut of variations, even putting testosterone in just half the brain, but not the other half, which resulted in both male and female mating behavior, the animal, but not human, version of bisexuality.

To conclude, once again, humans are a lot more complicated. But this is a serious problem.

Alex39176• 18 years ago

"Don't be so quick to condemn 'unnatural, synthetic' chemicals."

Completely wrong. Phthalates and bpa have already been proven harmful. Certainly there are other chemicals that mimick estrogens as well, but saying we shouldn't condemn bpa and phthalates is ridiculous.

emmett• 18 years ago

His point is that the problem with Phthalates and bpa is not that they are "unnatural and synthetic" but rather that they are bad for you. They'd be just as bad if they were natural.

newt0311• 18 years ago

Proven is a very strong word. Care to state your proof?

ryanwaggoner• 18 years ago

No offense, but I'm inclined to be skeptical about a comment on a social news site by some random person who is (ostensibly) reposting a comment from another social news site by another random person that purports to be explaining research of a complicated biological process, all without citing any references or linking to any sources.

steveplace2• 18 years ago

None taken. I should have put a disclaimer that you need to do your own research, but the comment was a pretty decent signal through a bunch of noise.

dejb3• 18 years ago

> usually from eating Tofu

Evidence?

You just keep chowing down on your steak burgers and corn derivatives mate and we'll measure the differential in results in about 20 years OK? Tofu seems to work fine for the Japanese.

jimbokun2• 18 years ago

It has been argued that we are actually getting more soy than the Japanese, now, due to soy additives in all kinds of processed foods that aren't very tofu like at all. It has also been suggested that fermented soy (like Japanese miso) is different in its effects.

I know, I know, no citations, but at least wanted to put forth the arguments I've heard as to why the soy the average American is getting is worse and in greater quantities than the average Japanese.

kqr2• 18 years ago

Video description:

The Disappearing Male is a CBC documentary about one of the most important, and least publicized, issues facing the human species: the toxic threat to the male reproductive system. The last few decades have seen steady and dramatic increases in the incidence of boys and young men suffering from genital deformities, low sperm count, sperm abnormalities and testicular cancer. At the same time, boys are now far more at risk of suffering from ADHD, autism, Tourette's syndrome, cerebral palsy, and dyslexia. The Disappearing Male takes a close and disturbing look at what many doctors and researchers now suspect are responsible for many of these problems: a class of common chemicals that are ubiquitous in our world. Found in everything from shampoo, sunglasses, meat and dairy products, carpet, cosmetics and baby bottles, they are called "hormone mimicking" or "endocrine disrupting" chemicals and they may be starting to damage the most basic building blocks of human development

Prrometheus2• 18 years ago

Are there any peer-reviewed, properly controlled studies used to back up their assertions?

I could watch the video and track the references on my own. However, doing so for every new consumer scare would be a full-time job.

By the way, I'm still happily using a cell phone and brain tumor free. I'm hoping to live a long life if avian influenza doesn't get me. Long enough to see the end of my species by catastrophic global warming, which is unstoppable if we don't act drastically and soon, according to some folks with fancy degrees. I figure I am pretty lucky - I got vaccinated as a child but managed to avoid autism - so maybe I'll even get to be the last person left. I am so hardy, I have even been exposed to second-hand smoke and managed to survive. So yeah, I'll probably make it.

Anything you guys want me to do when I'm the last man on the planet?

tdavis3• 18 years ago

Judging by my lifestyle, I'll be dead before any of those issues can kill me. So, basically, I'm impervious to this destruction!

dhimes2• 18 years ago

doing so for every new consumer scare would be a full-time job

It's been around for at least 10 years...I was concerned about warming plastic baby bottles.

tedshroyer2• 18 years ago

I read a book that devoted a chapter to this topic not too long ago called Exposed by Mark Schapiro. The end of the book had dozens of pages of reference citations. I think you could find the documents you are looking for by checking it out.

Anyway, this sort of stuff has been under review in Europe since the late 90s so it's not a "new consumer scare". The EU passed a temporary ban on certain plastic additives there just before 2000 and have made it a permanent ban in 2005. Old news link-> http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4188/is_20050706/ai_...

tlrobinson2• 18 years ago

Why would infertility in males result in fewer males? Since reproduction requires both, wouldn't it result in fewer males and females (assuming otherwise constant rate of reproduction)? I can't think of any evolutionary explanation.

ericb5• 18 years ago

Males have only one copy of the X chromosome, which makes them more fragile. Not sure if this is the mechanism proposed, but if male fetuses do not make it to term due to environmental insults, there would be fewer males in a given population.

tlrobinson2• 18 years ago

Yeah, I think that's one of the real reasons, but at the beginning they imply it has something to do with males becoming more infertile, which makes no sense.

nazgulnarsil• 18 years ago

WHy couldn't this have happened sooner? I would have preferred to be born into a world with at least a 2:1 girl:guy ratio.

astine• 18 years ago

Umm... The other half of the issue is not only increased male fetus mortality, but also birth defects, like smaller genitalia and deformities thereof. So, yeah, the odds are better, but you have no dick.

cubix2• 18 years ago

They're not putting things into the proper context: Sure, these chemicals probably are threats to human well-being, and figuring out how to remove them from our environment is worthwhile. However, the 20th century saw an unprecedented increase in life expectancy and quality of life, two great wars and god knows how many chemicals notwithstanding. I doubt many -- even those inflicted with the abnormalities mentioned in this documentary -- would choose to live in the world before synthetic materials were available, in 1908, say.

Also, it's totally one-sided and they lose a lot of credibility with the sensationalist tone of the piece -- ominous music, tableaux of helpless children next to deadly chemicals, mentions of human extinction... Please.

ericb5• 18 years ago

I doubt many -- even those inflicted with the abnormalities mentioned in this documentary -- would choose to live in the world before synthetic materials were available, in 1908, say.

We could make everything out of straw. Including men.

cubix2• 18 years ago

This isn't a straw man. It was open speculation (I doubt...) on my part. I wasn't attempting to misrepresent their argument, but making the point that the presentation is completely unbalanced. They make vague reference to modern day synthetics being 'convenient'. It would be like denouncing medicine for its side-effects and high cost while barely alluding to the fact that it saves lives.

The Disappearing Male [video]

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