Incidence Of Hypospadia Doubles In W. Australian Boys In Past 20 Years - World Today

[hatrack]

LINDY KERIN: Hypospadias affects one in every 230 baby boys. Dr Natasha Nassar from the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Western Australia says it's considered a major birth defect.

NATASHA NASSAR: It occurs in baby boys in the urethra, which usually develops at the tip of the penis, actually develops on the underside and the location sort of determines how severe it is. So if it's close to the tip, it's usually a mild case, but if the urethra develops closer to the perineum, than it can be a more severe case.

LINDY KERIN: Dr Nassar has been investigating the rate of hypospadias in Western Australia for the past 20 years. She's found the number of boys born with moderate and severe cases of the genital defect, has almost doubled. She says it's similar case around the country. Dr Nassar says the abnormality could be genetic or caused by IVF drugs. But there are also concerns environmental factors, such as the rising levels of air pollution could be affecting hormone levels in pregnancy.

NATASHA NASSAR: They're called endocrine disrupting chemicals and they have oestrogenic effects and they may be the foetal sex development that may lead to the increase in hypospadias and some of these endocrine disrupters include air pollutants, water pollutants, exposure to industrial chemicals and exposure to pesticides and agricultural products. So all of these factors have been identified as potential links but there has been nothing conclusive at this stage.

EDIT

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2007/s1907275.htm

[azurnoir]

1. Farm chemicals and pesticides

in particular DDT was linked to the rise in boys born one one or both testicles undescended in the '60's and 70's in this country.

[murielm99]

2. I know a family whose son had surgery

for this defect. He is 25 now, the same age as my son.

It is very delicate surgery. But the recovery is the hard part. The child has to be kept still, no running and playing. They told his mother it was genetic. I may ask her someday if she has found other family members with this defect.

[Xithras]

6. There's a genetic component. I know, I have one.

Uncorrected. Rather than the urethra terminating at the end of my penis, it terminates about halfway down the bottom side of the glans. It's a little different, but it has no negative effects really (it's maybe a half inch from where it should be). To be entirely truthful, I didn't even know I HAD a defect until my late teens, when a girlfriend mentioned that it was "different" during oral sex.

I looked at some porno mags, confirmed that I was different, COMPLETELY PANICKED, and asked my dad about it. He just laughed and told me he knew all about it...he has one too, and it's almost identical to mine.

My oldest son is normal, but my youngest was born with a slightly more severe case. His was surgically corrected when he was three months old, and it's hard to tell now (at three years) that there was ever an issue. The surgery can be a problem for older kids because they can't move, which is why most pediatricians recommend that the child have the surgery before they learn to crawl. We followed the pediatricians recommendation, and didn't have any problems at all.

This isn't exactly a new concern. Even when my son was having his surgery a few years ago, the doctors mentioned that incidents and severity of hypospadias were increasing and they weren't sure why.

[Hekate]

3. Environmentally caused birth defects are working their way up the food chain again

I wonder what kind of industrial waste or pesticides are lying about in Western Australia?

Hekate

[kestrel91316]

4. You can read more about this sort of thing in

Our Stolen Future by Theo Colborn.

Endocrine disrupters. They will be the death of us.

[RedEarth]

5. I read the other day the number of boys being born is less now than

thirty years ago. It's not substantially less, but it is less. It's also my understanding that the sperm count in men has gone down over the last several decades. There also seem to be be more sexual defects in frogs as well. You can't help but think all the chemicals/hormones we have put into the environment is starting to have a big impact.