Ottawa Citizen 18-11-98

Tom Spears
The Ottawa Citizen

Canada plans to change its law on toxic chemicals to regulate for the first time "gender-bender" chemicals that can warp the reproductive systems of humans and wildlife.

The Liberal government has introduced amendments to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act that would recognize for the first time the existence of the class of chemicals formally known as endocrine disruptors. These trick the body’s hormone system by acting like synthetic estrogen, the female sex hormone.

In wildlife they produce birds with twisted bills, frogs with three or five legs, and fish that are part male, part female.

In humans they also damage fetuses in a way similar to DES (diethyl stilbestrol), the artificial estrogen drug given to pregnant women to prevent miscarriages until the 1970s. DES didn’t hurt the women who took it, but caused widespread infertility and reproductive-system cancers in their daughters.

Now Parliament’s Environment Committee, which is updating the Environmental Protection Act, is considering for the first time treating endocrine disruptors in a class of their own.

The change would affect mainly chemical producers, including drug, pesticide and plastic makers.

"It is a recognition that there is something here that has to be paid attention to, even if it doesn’t have ultimate scientific proof," said Liberal MP Charles Caccia, a former environment minister and member of the committee studying revisions to the law.

There is "something here that should not wait to accumulate in the environment for 40, 50 or 60 years, as was the case of lead, before action is taken. It is a good application of the precautionary principle," he said.

Liberal MP Karen Kraft-Sloan has put forward her own amendments to the toxic law, hoping to ensure a firm definition of what chemicals are included in this section of the law.

"I want to ensure that hormone-disrupting substances are covered in the screening process (that identifies toxic pollutants)," she said. And she wants the law to require continued research.

Environment committee members have been wondering about the issue for several years, ever since they were introduced to the work of U.S. biologist Theo Colborn, she said.

"The results were all negative: male fish producing eggs, concern in the human reproductive tract about size of penises, and there’s some concern around breast cancer."

Fetuses exposed to these chemicals tend to grow into children with learning deficits and aggressive personalities, some researchers found. Julia Langer of the World Wildlife Fund, which first pressed MPs to act on endocrine disruptors, is lukewarm to the new proposal. "It’s sort of a nod to endocrine disruptors," she said yesterday. "It recognizes them as a class and says that research should be done," though without committing money for research.

But she criticized the government for using a weak definition of what is an endocrine disruptor.

The law should define these chemicals as anything that has the potential to trick the body’s reproductive hormone system, she said. Instead, the government proposal would regulate only those chemicals known to do damage to living creatures.

"That’s what I call the dead-body approach," Ms. Langer said. "It says, Show me that your body is wonky or your brain doesn’t work quite right, and then we’ll act."

Last night the World Wildlife Fund held a wine and cheese party on Parliament Hill to distribute its new briefing book on the issue to MPs. MPs from three parties-Liberal, Conservative and New Democrat- lined up at the gathering to call for more controls on the hormone disruptors. "When we make a decision as close to our hearts as our children, it’s very crucial," said Rick Laliberte of the NDP.

"It’s important that (these chemicals) have a separate section under the legislation," said Conservative John Herron. "We need a law that says if scientists say it’s toxic, we can regulate it."

Liberal Clifford Lincoln, a former Quebec environment minister, added:

"If we mix brandy and whisky and wine the effects would be pretty severe. The same is true of toxics. We regulate them one at a time, but scientists say if you mix them the effect is a toxic soup."

In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is screening 15,000 common chemicals to see which may be gender-benders. The Canadian Chemical Producers’ Association couldn’t be reached for comment yesterday. But late last week a spokesman said his organization doesn’t want major changes in the existing law, which doesn’t recognize endocrine disruptors as a specific group.

"We believe that ... once substances are identified as problematic, they can be dealt with under the current regulatory regime," the spokesman said.

The Effects of ‘Gender-Bending’ Chemicals

Chemicals that trick the reproductive systems of humans, fish and other animals are some of the best-known toxins in "hot spots" around the Great Lakes.

One of the the first to be identified was the now-banned pesticide DDT, which made fish-eating birds such as eagles and cormorants lay eggs that broke or produced deformed babies.

The group also includes PCBs, which caused Michigan and New York women who ate PCB-tainted fish to have children with learning difficulties.

But it wasn’t until wildlife biologists and medical specialists came together at a 1991 conference that they put together the smaller pieces

• fish in one lake, turtles in another, rats in a lab, and so on-into a larger picture.

They realized that by mimicking estrogen these chemicals unhinge the reproductive system. The person or animal who consumes the chemicals is often unhurt, but the fetus is damaged.

Many of these pollutants drift on the air and build up in cold areas, especially the food chain in the Arctic, where it’s too cold for them to evaporate and blow away. Health Canada has found Inuit women produce breast milk that is high in PCBs.

And researchers are still debating whether men suffer as much as women. Some wild animals suffer from shrunken testicles and smaller penises after exposure to hormone-destroying chemicals.

One controversial theory says today’s men produce fewer sperm that are of poorer quality than sperm cells produced by men decades ago, and ties this to the "gender-bender" chemicals.

Japan’s Ministry of Health and Welfare announced late last month it will sponsor a nation-wide survey of sperm counts to investigate this theory. The World Wildlife Fund, one of the most active groups promoting controls on chemicals in Canada, says there are many likely endocrine disruptors among common plastics, cleaning products and paints. For instance, it says a class of surfactants (detergent ingredients) called nonyl phenols are "of particular concern." They are contained in latex paints, detergents, lubricating oils, weedkillers and polystyrene (the white plastic foam used in many coffee cups).

The group says there are close to 100 common compounds in household use in Canada that are suspected of causing hormone damage.

How to Stay Safe

Ways to avoid exposure to hormone-disrupting chemicals, as suggested by the World Wildlife Fund:

• Don’t microwave food in plastic containers or under plastic food wrap.
• Avoid fatty meats. Some of these chemicals bond to fat cells in animal (and human) bodies.
• Discourage children from chewing on plastics.
• Don’t microwave breast milk or baby formula in plastic bottles.
• Wash your hands after handling golf clubs or playing golf, since golf courses use a lot of chemical pesticides.