Lots of Ink: A study finds pthalate exposure in womb tends to produces little boys with a little less interest in fighting, cars….
Well, yet another another challenge for industries that make and rely heavily on plastics. Just a week ago this site posted on a study of factory workers in China linking male reproductive problems to exposure to bisphenol-A. This week its twin poster child for plasticizer worries, the molecular family called phthalates, is a suspect for making little boys a little less likely to do stereotypical little boy things – like play fight, wave toy guns, or glomm onto toy trucks and trains.The news, based on a report in the International Journal of Andrology, has been spreading for several days now, and has been covered by many outlets.
The study, reported the LA Times‘s Thomas H. Maugh II three days ago on line, is from team led by a University of Rochester group that has previously reported an association between exposure to these plastic softener agents and subtle changes in the size and anatomy of boys’ genitals. The new study, he reports, is small (it was funded in part by the EPA and NIH). Women were tested for phthalates in their tissues (via urine assay) during pregancy, followed a few years later by questions about their children’s play habits. There was no association between exposure levels and girls’ play, but boys – it says here – tended to be less interested in rough and tumble play and other male-associated patterns at higher exposures.
The study involved 145 preschool children. However, the Times and other news outlets tend not to provide any numbers on how big a shift occurred or how many boys displayed it. Such number are not to be seen in the press release either.
Other stories:
- Science News – Janet Raloff: Plastics Ingredients Could Make A Boy’s Play Less Masculine ; No specific numbers to back up the trend, either. But she has an important bit of news: a much larger study is in the works.
- HealthDay News – Randy Dotinga: Could Plastics Chemicals ‘Feminize’ Boys’ Play / Small study suggests a link, but others question a connection ; Ah, a number. It says the masculinity metric in the questionnaire’s structure was 8 percent lower in mothers with the highest level of phthalates than in those with the lowest. But how many women were in those categories is not revealed here.
- US News & World Report – Ford Vox: In his On Men column with the hed Pthalates Threat: Less Boy, More Girl, , the doctor-medical writer draws perspective from both last week’s BPA news and this week’s study. And this latest, he writes, is so small a study it “isn’t as worrisome as the headlines suggest.” But if it convinces more mothers to avoid processed food while pregnant, he writes, that’s good for other reasons. This account is quite detailed, and provides a bit more on that 8 percent difference. It’s evidence, yes, he writes, but nothing has yet proven that phthalates cause permanent effects in people at exposure levels common in the environment.
- WebMD – Kathleen Doheny : Phthalates Affect Way Young Boys Play ;
- TIME Magazine – Tiffany Sharples O’Callaghan: Can plastic chemicals cause effeminate behavior in boys? ;
- NY Daily News – Rosemary Black: Study: Chemicals in plastic can make boys act more like girls ;
- Kansas City Star – Matthew Schofield : Are the chemicals in plastics making our boys less boy-ish?;
- Toronto Star – Cathal Kelly: Does exposure to plastics make boys less masculine? ;
- Daily Mail (UK) David Derbyshire: Chemicals used in plastic feminise the brains of little boys ‘so that they avoid rough and tumble games’ ; Sheesh. Overkill hed. Less rough and tumble doesn’t mean none, not to speak of the inherent uncertainty in a small study. Story’s text is similarly eager to look on the “disturbing” side of the report.
- for the record department – Plastics and Rubber Weekly (UK) Barry Copping: BPF skeptical on US phthalate study ; BPF is the British Plastics Federation.
Grist for the Mill: University of Rochester Med. Ctr. Press Release ;
Pic source on Flickr.
- Charlie Petit
