With the two articles sandwiched on the news page, I can’t help but wonder was there a connection. Scientists have known about the estrogen effluent story – how the sewage treatment process fails to remove hormones from reclaimed water, and fish downstream of the outflow are mostly feminine.

Now they discovered a wider issue and a second group of chemicals that block male hormones, called “androgens.” We (and the fish) are drinking a couple of fingers of female hormones with our breakfast cereal, and a couple more fingers of something that blocks whatever male hormones remain.

Nice.

… and the article next to it was the resurgence of the gay marriage issue in the legislature. I’m staying clear of the larger issue – but you have to wonder, is water fanning the flame?

It isn’t the first study to suggest that anti-androgens might be contributing to the feminization of fish. But the new research found that there are far more of these chemicals in our lakes and streams than anyone realized. And anti-androgenic chemicals in the water might affect human health as well.

I looked up the articles cited, and really wished I hadn’t …

The most prevalent source of androgen effluent is from cattle feedlots – where cattle are zapped with anabolic steroids to grow fast “double tasty” steaks.

Studies of freshwater mussels, fathead minnows, and sticklebacks, all point to the same conclusion … chemical androgyny. A study conducted in the UK, suggests it’s happening to most wild fish stocks – and nearly all  freshwater sources have tested positive to their presence.

Conclusion: The results provide a strong argument for a multi-causal aetiology of widespread feminisation of wild fish in UK Rivers involving contributions from both steroidal estrogens and xenoestrogens and from other (as yet unknown) contaminants with anti-androgenic properties. They may add further credence to the hypothesis that endocrine disrupting effects seen in wild fish and in humans are caused by similar combinations of endocrine disrupting chemical cocktails.

From a simplistic perspective, I would assume the lower river is influenced by human sources and sewage treatment, and the upper parts of the river are rural and include the rangeland necessary to grow beef.

As I feel obligated to pass on some small trace of good news, females are larger – so female tendencies might add some bulk.

We’re not going to be calling across the creek to our buddy with, “Brown? Rainbow? what was it?” – we’ll know from the shrug it was neither a wild diploid, or a farmed triploid, so it must’ve been another “Shrugploid.”

We’ll be having asterisks aplenty in the record books soon.

Before you reach for the bottled water, consider they’re just coming to awareness on some of these chemicals and that bottle may be no protection whatsoever.

Pray that pasteurization is enough to make beer safe.