Contracepting the Environment

[manualman]

Thanks for the links. Tertiary treatment like you describe wasn’t covered much in the intro class!

I’m still puzzled at how they come to the conclusion that natural far outweighs pill hormones. If I understand it right (no guarantees), a woman’s body normally has much lower hormone levels except around her period time. IIRC, the pill elevates her hormone levels to nearly pregnancy levels in order to fool her ovaries into not ovulating because they are in ‘pregnancy mode.’

If my understanding is correct, how can a woman on the pill NOT produce vastly greater cumulative amounts of it in urine compared to a woman who never touches the stuff?

 

[Nohome]

If my understanding is correct, how can a woman on the pill NOT produce vastly greater cumulative amounts of it in urine compared to a woman who never touches the stuff?

It isn’t that women on the pill don’t release estrogen, both natural and synthetic. It’s just that there are lots of women, more half the population. The vast majority of women simply are NOT on the pill and their shear numbers make natural estrogen a more significant source.

Wastewater treatment gathers the waste of all people in a population center. In doing this you concentrate all the contaminants into a point source of pollution.

Interesting enough, there are now members of the scientific community that think the feminized fish are no big deal as the phenomenon is localized around POTW outfalls.

 

[gam197]

originally posted by nohome
The vast majority of women simply are NOT on the pill and their shear numbers make natural estrogen a more significant source.

The article in Bass Times says **100 million women are on the pill **and that probably is close as there are about 12 million on the pill in just the USA. If you look at the world population, that figure seems possible.

I don’t know if this has anything to do with it yet fishing has had problems in the past and certainly doesn’t need anything else added to make a decline… Local fishermen in MA have not been able to get herring for bait so the local fishing is down. Herring is outlawed due to lack of herring runs until 2008.

 

[Nohome]

The article in Bass Times says **100 million women are on the pill **and that probably is close as there are about 12 million on the pill in just the USA. If you look at the world population, that figure seems possible.

While I believe there are much better resources than “Bass Times” for scientific information, there are 300 million Americans of which we can assume half are female. Allowing for a standard bell curve, that would give you about 100 million women within the age range that hormones in urine would be an issue. That would mean about 12% are on the pill. The other 88% release a lot more natural hormone. Interestingly, these rough calculations are very consistent with the Las Vegas data (10 times more natural estrogen).

I don’t know if this has anything to do with it yet fishing has had problems in the past and certainly doesn’t need anything else added to make a decline… Local fishermen in MA have not been able to get herring for bait so the local fishing is down. Herring is outlawed due to lack of herring runs until 2008.

I’m sorry for the fisherman, but this is certainly more of an overfishing issue than one of wastewater.

Nohome

 

[gam197]

originally posted by nohome
Allowing for a standard bell curve, that would give you about 100 million women within the age range that hormones in urine would be an issue. That would mean about 12% are on the pill

Exactly, that is 12 million USA females but this pill is used worldwide so their estimation of 100 million is probably low if anything.

This wasn’t about Bass Times but was a story about an independent scientific seven-year study done by Fisheries and Oceans Canada. The article also mentions that The US scientists has been concerned for over a decade.

The issue for them is not the pill but how to filter the water. That will cost the taxpayers a fortune.

 

[Nohome]

The issue for them is not the pill but how to filter the water. That will cost the taxpayers a fortune.

Even if you could completely eliminated use of the pill, we would still face the need to treat wastewater for the following:

1. Estrogen used in hormone replacement therapy
2. The abundance of naturally occuring estrogen
3. The 100s of other estrogen mimicking chemicals

It will still cost the taxpayers. It always costs the taxpayers. That is, in fact why we pay taxes.

Nohome

 

[stbruno]

Not only is estrogen causing problems in the environment overall, but if we ingest the fish…just like with fish with mercury, we can directly affect our population, particularly the female population.

That’s why there are already lawsuits on the books of menopausal women sustaining serious side effects as a result of hormone replacement therapy, like endometrial and breast cancer, serious bleeding disorders as well as genitourinary problems.

And women can potentially be exposed to estrogen in fish, without any knowledge.
This is very sad, and potentially a time bomb for society if more people, scientists, legislators etc don’t take this seriously.

Really shows, that “no man is an island,”

 

[Antithesis]

Hello the overworked Antithesis here dropping in and onthis it is not over looked but there is a much larger problem then the pill in all honesty and that is pesticides. Many pesticides are synthetic estrogens which enter the water table more readily then human estrogen and in greater amounts. Just do a search on, pesticides and synthetic estrogens. You find hundreds of papers for this in peer reviewed journals. Hope that helps.

 

[Nohome]

Hello the overworked Antithesis here dropping in and onthis it is not over looked but there is a much larger problem then the pill in all honesty and that is pesticides. Many pesticides are synthetic estrogens which enter the water table more readily then human estrogen and in greater amounts. Just do a search on, pesticides and synthetic estrogens. You find hundreds of papers for this in peer reviewed journals. Hope that helps.

Help? It’s what I’ve been trying to say all along.

Nohome

 

[Antithesis]

Help? It’s what I’ve been trying to say all along.

Nohome

Yeah I agree with you . I just thought if they did some research on there own with the most common article Keywords. They would see that you are right and that it is not being ignored by the scientific community.

 

[Nohome]

Yeah I agree with you . I just thought if they did some research on there own with the most common article Keywords. They would see that you are right and that it is not being ignored by the scientific community.

You are absolutly correct. Once a person is armed with a little fact, this story becomes a nonissue. Sure, it would be convenient for those promoting the church’s teaching on contraception to have an issue like this, but the reality is there are bigger fish to fry (pun intended).

Nohome