This report about an article in the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, has attracted a bit of attention because of a claim that the oral contraceptive pill was contributing to male infertility:
The pill “has for some years had devastating effects on the environment by releasing tonnes of hormones into nature” through female urine, said Pedro Jose Maria Simon Castellvi, president of the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, in the report.
“We have sufficient evidence to state that a non-negligible cause of male infertility in the West is the environmental pollution caused by the pill,” he said, without elaborating further.
This particular idea seems to be an extrapolation from a concept that’s excited the Catholic media for some time – the Pill is giving American male fish a nasty case of gender confusion. On this point, they appear to have half a point; a considerable number of different chemicals discharged from industry and sewage outfalls mimic the effects of estrogen and have bad effects on fish, as this Scientific American article discusses. The byproducts of the contraceptive pill are just a few of them; the Catholic media reports on the subject don’t seem to spend much time talking about the pesticides, plastics, and other sources of feminizing chemicals for some reason…
On the claim that a “a non-negligible cause of male infertility in the West” things start to look extremely shaky. A January 2008 editorial in the Medical Journal of Australia discusses some of the issues relating to environmental contamination and male infertility. It’s quite a complex topic, unsurprisingly, and the writers believe that it is likely that there are environmental contaminants affecting male fertility in some heavily polluted environments. But it appears that these effects, if they exist, vary from country to country, and nobody has yet conclusively linked any particular chemical or chemicals with the observed declines. Reading between the lines, the Pill itself seems an unlikely candidate, given that it is used very widely around the Western world and thus you’d expect the effect to be more general.
The International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations has a website design that dates to somewhere around 1997. Aside from that, they appear to be a pressure group up in arms about the usual suspects for such a group.
All in all, it seems like a classic case of a pressure group with an axe to grind indulging in wild speculation based on a few snippets of science, while missing the big picture – the real and serious effects that waste, of many, many types, can have on both the environment and humanity.
The real culprit is vegetarians and their obsession with tofu. See here for example: http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53327
Somebody oughtta tell the Pope …
I admire your restraint in this piece; I tend to start frothing at the mouth and flailing about when this particular lie is brought up.
The two largest sources of estrogen mimicking chemicals, endocrine disruptors and other compounds are, as you mention, plastics manufacturing and agricultural chemicals – by many orders of magnitude, IIRC. These chemicals are also theorised to have negative effects on female growth and development as much as male, but the Church (unsurpisingly) doesn’t appear to give two hoots about that.
In addition to these ‘obvious’ problems, other non-hormone substances like cadmium appear to have a far more notable effect on human development and reproductive health*. Cadmium mostly comes from industrial waste and soil fertilisers (agriculture again!), but most interestingly from tobacco smoke – and smoking and infertility are fairly well-linked at this stage, IIRC. Along with several other lifestyle factors like diet and alcohol consumption.
I really hate the scaremongering that still surrounds the Pill. Do people just not remember/know what life was like without it?
* Chedrese, P.J., Piasek, M., Henson, M.C.
Cadmium as an endocrine disruptor in the reproductive system
(2006) Immunology, Endocrine and Metabolic Agents in Medicinal Chemistry, 6 (1), pp. 27-35.
Vlad@1 FTW, though. Excessive soy in the diet is the freakin’ devil. There’s a really detailed article about western overconsumption of soy derivatives on T-Nation.com (bodybuilding site) somewhere, but I can’t access it from work.
You hit the nail on the head Robert, I’d be far more concerned about the DDT still in use in much of the world and other endocrine disruptors than the (comparitively) tiny amounts of pill hormones in the environment.
Also thirding ‘ware too much of the soy. Aside from the environmental implications, the nutritional aspects are mixed at best. See here for details: http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,,1828158,00.html
Yeah that soy overconsumption, it’s really killing the Japanese off at a great rate. I mean without it they might have a clear lead on the longest lifespans in the world, not having to play hopscotch with Scandinavians.
OK its not as simple as that. There is a difference between raw soy and the fermented varieties the Japanese use, but most of the concerns are whipped up by the meat industry desperate to trash a few more acres of the Amazon.
Do people just not remember/know what life was like without it?
I think the Catholic Church remembers. And I don’t think too many other people are terribly against the Pill.
FS@5, might be a good idea to actually read the linked articles prior to commenting…
It’s interesting that L’Osservatore Romano and Lawrence Springborg seem to have similar interpretations of science!
Just to clarify, though, Rob, L’Osservatore Romano isn’t the “Vatican’s newspaper” – it’s “semi-official”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Osservatore_Romano
It’s a pretty fine distinction, but it does enable the Vatican to disavow stuff published in there or “clarify” it, and a bit of kite-flying. And that happens from time to time.
Grumphy: thanks for the additional information.
I didn’t set the phasers to kill because it’s not coming directly from the Vatican. The members of this organization may be a bit kooky, but they don’t appear to be particularly prominent or influential doctors, either.
Check yo’self before you wreck yourself, Feral; the soy bean farmers are just as bad, or worse, than the ranchers (note that article is kinda old, but it’s still just as bad).
Also,read the article I linked to: the difference in soy consumption vis Japanese and western is huge (or rather, traditional japanese), not only in type but methods, quantities, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that soy is the satan and meat is the jesus, especially since that analogy means that jesus is getting feed satan to fatten up. However it’s not wholly the ethical nor nutritious choice it’s presented as.
I’ll n-th the soy motion (even though I love tofu and flavored soy milk).
Even soy milk distributors admit this. On some cartons you see “a rich source of phytoestrogens”.
Once in the office kitchen, a male co-worker was reaching for the soy milk, and I pointed to the blurb on the carton. It went back into the fridge, the milk came out, and the horrified look on the guy’s face was priceless.
Mark: I think our comments crossed.
Jes’, it should have been “Real Men don’t Eat Tofu”, after all.
What you don’t understand is that Holy Mother Church is based on the beautiful and righteous tradition inaugurated by Saul of Tarsus 2000 years ago. Basically it’s based on the I’m sexually dysfunctional and can;t have any fun, why should you.
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I think everyone who is sane would agree that that is the only moral basis for a society to run on.
And with six billion of us on the planet and rising, their problem is what?
If our species has any problems (chuckle) low fertility is not in the top ten thousand or so.
At least in anglonesia the dairy milk is unlikely to have estrogens added. In the US particularly there’s not much choice – spend a lot of time and effort finding tolerable oat/rice milk. If you think soy milk is a poor tasting alternative, try cheap rice milk some time. It’s fairly readily available here, at least compared to the US. Dunno what other countries are like.
My problem is that I’m not very dairy-tolerant (it makes me fart, amongst other things) and I’m not keen on the soy stuff. So being vegetarian means eating out is even more of a pain (except in asian vegetarian-but-not-mock-meat restaurants, oddly enough). So I alternate between milk and soy milk every few months because I really like milk on my breakfast cereal.
Firstly the Pope says what he does about gays, then this rubbish re the pill. He is ill informed on all subjects it seems. The Roman Catholics need a new Pope by the looks of it. Next he will be saying something really awful and hurt a lot of people.
Maybe the Catholic Church was hoaxed!
One of the things that occured to me when I read Beyond Left and Right with its exhortations for environmental left to reach common ground with the traditionalist right is that traditionalist concerns about the impact of markets on, say, family values may find expression in environmentalism.
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There’s nothing inherently ‘left wing’ about being green.
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Thing of course is that the Greens would have trouble adopting ‘family values’ at present or at least in entirety. But if moderates within the two factions can reach agreement we might see ‘green’ politics becoming increasingly compatible with traditionalism thus disrupting the ideological spectrum.
The week I go vegan…
I’ll keep you all posted of my impending death by breast explosion.
Moz, try almond milk.
A good friend of mine has recently gone vegan. It tends to mitigate against dining out, at any rate!
Adrien #19, in what way? Keeping women crunchy-granola barefoot and, while not pregnant, at least immersed in manual labour for the menz? (The barefoot and pregnant part’ll have to go after the second child, sorry, under any interpretation of environmentalism.)
Well Grumphy I REread the article, and I’m not convinced.
First we have a connection to a far-right website (sporting Anne Coulter ads when I looked) that tells us that soy is responsible for a 27% jump in Leukemia in one year in America. Hmmm
The Guardian piece is certainly more balanced. There’s no question this is something that should be researched in more detail, and there may be a problem. But I’ve seen a couple of pieces of peer-reviewed research that back the safety of soy, at least in regard to some of the fears. It may or may not have health effects, but as compared to the well established effects from red meat, it looks pretty good.
Finally Patrickg, it ain’t me that wrecked myself. Soy farming is trashing a lot of the Amazon, but only because the soy is being fed to cattle. Cattle are not very efficient ways of processing food. So you need to put in a whole lot of soy (or anything else) to get out a kilo of beef. If we all went vegetarian we’d have more than enough soy from other places without wrecking the Amazon.
The meatheads (pun intended) at T-nation couldn’t give a stuff about the environment until it gives them a chance to beat up on vegetarians, but the fact is that it’s them and fellow carnivores that are creating the problem.
The estrogen crisis would be cured if women made the effort to pee in accordance with the rhythm method.
I have a number of problems with your reply, Feral, and too much spare time, so here we go:
Yeah, I wouldn’t have chosen that one as a source myself. Fair enough.
You’re missing a key part of the article’s main argument here. The problem is not with traditionally produced soy products, but their modern counterparts and the large number (and volume) of fractionally-extracted soy byproducts added to processed foods at present.
Now, I only have access to the SCOPUS abstracts database, but flicking through what I can see, pretty much all the studies demonstrating positive benefits of soy are conducted on non-western populations who only consume the old-school soy products, and in much smaller amounts than even westerners who only eat things like tofu do. Studies looking at western diets usually appear only to be measuring intake of ‘known soy’ products like soymilk and tofu, too, with no apparent attempt to quantify intake from other sources.
I’ve seen some really interesting stuff related to possible positive effects of soy, but none of it was related to fertility, which is really the topic of this thread. At best, a reduction in breast cancer risk factors was demonstrated, but that’s a) only loosely relevant and b) green tea had more of an effect in the study I read.
When one’s search terms are restricted to “soy reprod*”, the picture changes substantially. Most relevant: a large drop in sperm count associated with increased soy consumption in western males, exacerbated by being overweight[1]. Negative effects of neonatal exposure to soy isoflavones in female rats, leading to changes in morphology, development, and hormone balance[2][3]. A possible link between high soy intake in humans and uterine bleeding/endometriosis symptoms[4]. Alteration of hormone levels in male offspring of female rats fed high levels of soy chemicals[5]. And that’s just stuff from the last two years!
I have to single this out, because false dichotomies make me stabby, and don’t make a good argument. There’s no room in this discussion for the claim that the only alternative to soy is beef if you’re looking for protein. Its a ridiculous assertion.
Its certainly true that the demand for animal protein is leading to a lot of unneccessary land clearing for fodder production. However, some caveats: a lot of that soy is going straight into people food, not just cows; other crops are spurring deforestation, particularly those accursed biodiesel crops – and sugarcane is a biggie in Brazil; and even if we ate all that soy, as per above, there’s no guarantee it’d be any good for us. I’m right with you on your implied assertion that westerners eat too much meat, but I don’t believe completely abandoning its consumption is in any way a viable solution. Less is simply more.
Yeah, this is pure distilled fail. You don’t seem to have sought out the article at all, relying simply on attacking the source. This is not clever, especially since the article is an extended interview with a published researcher in the field. You also seem to know nothing about the site in question and are relying on a knee-jerk hatred of fitness nerds and ‘carnivores’ in order to avoid examining these claims. Not ok.
I understand where you’re coming from, both environmentally and from a dietary choice perspective, and I’m not completely opposed, but your position lacks nuance, weight, and cited facts. Soy isn’t some magical solution to our problems.
_______________________________
[1] Chavarro, J.E., Toth, T.L., Sadio, S.M., Hauser, R.
Soy food and isoflavone intake in relation to semen quality parameters among men from an infertility clinic
(2008) Human Reproduction, 23 (11), pp. 2584-2590.
[2] Bateman, H.L., Patisaul, H.B.
Disrupted female reproductive physiology following neonatal exposure to phytoestrogens or estrogen specific ligands is associated with decreased GnRH activation and kisspeptin fiber density in the hypothalamus
(2008) NeuroToxicology, 29 (6), pp. 988-997.
[3]Jefferson, W.N., Padilla-Banks, E., Newbold, R.R.
Disruption of the developing female reproductive system by phytoestrogens: Genistein as an example
(2007) Molecular Nutrition and Food Research, 51 (7), pp. 832-844. Cited 3 times.
[4] Chandrareddy, A., Muneyyirci-Delale, O., McFarlane, S.I., Murad, O.M.
Adverse effects of phytoestrogens on reproductive health: A report of three cases
(2008) Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, 14 (2), pp. 132-135.
[5] Akingbemi, B.T., Braden, T.D., Kemppainen, B.W., Hancock, K.D., Sherrill, J.D., Cook, S.J., He, X., Supko, J.G.
Exposure to phytoestrogens in the perinatal period affects androgen secretion by testicular leydig cells in the adult rat
(2007) Endocrinology, 148 (9), pp. 4475-4488.
Ok Grumphy, I agree that soy is not a wonder cure for all our problems. Far from it, even if it was the healthiest source of protein around (and I doubt it is) the amounts of it we are putting into our system are a concern, and its not good for the environment to be growing that much of one crop as a monoculture.
I was not trying to argue that soy is harmless or above suspicion. My apologies if it seemed that I was.
But it is absolutely clear that any problems with soy are minor compared to the social, environmental and health consequences of the meat we are eating as a society and the way it is produced. I agree with you that abolishing meat outright is probably not desirable (nor realistic) but there is absolutely no way we are going to escape the environmental crisis without cutting down our beef intake as a society, vegetarians are people doing more than their share.
So when I read rubbish like this: “The real culprit is vegetarians and their obsession with tofu.” I see red. Even if soy is a major problem, it’s pathetic to claim that it is all vegetarians’ fault. There are no enough vegos in the west to account for the falling sperm rates, even if every male vegetarian was infertile, which clearly is not true. Perhaps Count Vlad believes vegetarians are force-feeding meat eaters soy in their processed foods as part of some dastardly plan to stop them breeding as well. (I realise his post might have been ironic, but the follow-ups clearly weren’t)
As to T-nation, I don’t know the specific article you referred to, since you didn’t put in a link, but I’ve been sent stuff from them before (admittedly not recently). Everything I read considered vegetarians as the devil incarnate (or at least dangerously effeminate). They seem quite blase about ethical concerns regarding factory farmed cattle or the environmental disasters involved, but if there are the slightest negative effects from non-meat proteins you can bet that will get a run.
I can’t find the paper suggesting soy lowers breast and prostate cancer I was thinking of, but here is a somewhat tangential piece about research debunking the supposed link between soy and allergies. http://www.scienceinpublic.com/sciencenow/2008/jennifer_koplin.htm
I know this wasn’t what you were referring to, but it’s relevant in the way that possible concerns regarding vegan products get run as scare campaigns when the evidence is far from complete, but established evidence regarding meat or dairy finds it much harder in the MSM.
As a nonsmoking non drugtaking vegetarian who in the past six months has had for health reasons to stop consuming sugar, alcohol, and refined carbohydrates, I’m actually really pleased that soy is now considered evil, as it gives me something to be sinful with.
I really miss chocolate