Study Directly Links Hermaphroditic Frogs To Pesticide Use - LA Times

[hatrack]

"Scientists who compared frogs collected over the last 150 years have discovered a dramatic increase in hermaphrodites during the times when contamination from the pesticide DDT and other chlorinated compounds was widespread. Frogs with both male and female reproductive organs were rare in the 19th and early 20th centuries but more common during the 1950s, when the largest volumes of the chemicals were used.

The findings, reported Tuesday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, add to the growing evidence that an array of pesticides and industrial chemicals can alter the sex hormones of animals.

The ability of certain chemicals to mimic or block estrogen and testosterone, which are key in sexual organ development and reproduction, is considered one of the most disturbing discoveries in environmental science of the last decade.

Scientists suspect that the phenomenon has been occurring for decades but it wasn't documented in wildlife until the early 1990s when it was first observed in Florida alligators and then among many other species."

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http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-frogs2mar02,1,6895430.story?coll=la-news-a_section