Sperm Counts Drop Across the Developed Nations of the World

Not only did my sperm count drop after taking the I131 therapy, the Dr. told me I am probably sterile. Hmmm. 51 years old, single father of two teenagers, possibly no chance of fathering anymore children. Sterile from a medical procedure as a side affect... still going to have a procedure to guarantee sterility.

These hormones have been pumped into our water supplies since when? The 70's? Have we seen a reduction in reproduction??

I think this is a non issue....

Many people should not be breeding today, maybe this is a plus...

I am sure many will disagree with me, but inadvertent side affects that may slow or hamper human reproduction, from something that is supposed to prevent it, is not such a bad thing in my book.

..."The latest data from the UN refers to 2005-2010. 80% of the world population lives in countries where women have on average fewer than 3 children. The global average fertility rate is 2.5. This means that global fertility is barely higher than the global replacement fertility. The replacement fertility is the total fertility rate at which the population size stays constant. If there were no mortality in the female population until the end of the childbearing years, the replacement fertility would be exactly 2. With the current level of mortality the global replace fertility is 2.3 – the narrow gap between the current global fertility and the global replacement rate means that the increase of the world population is due to the increasing length of life and population momentum.1

...2.0 fertility rate is consider break even point....Global rates average were at 2.3 in 2015...In 1950 the average was about 5.0...

https://ourworldindata.org/fertility/

Many [certain] people should not be breeding today, maybe this is a plus...

As portrayed so eloquently, er.. or maybe so seemingly accurately by the movie "Idiocracy"

[ ] my emphasis...

Maybe this is a sign from Mother Nature, that she is not feeling flattered by our tampering at the hems of her garments, once arrayed in splendor.

Now, maybe it is Mother Nature's turn at bat. Maybe it has more to do with plasticizers in containers than estrogen in the water?

Sex used to be for reproduction, now it appears to be an indoor sport, many not seemingly caring which team they are on, or that it is not really a "team" sport, unless one defines a husband and wife to be the team.

Apparently Congress has figured out (for the good or the bad?) that politics is a sexual team sport, because they have been "F***ing" up our lives for decades by now.

And maybe it's like mercury that gets more and more concentrated the higher you get on the food chain. You can drink filtered or even distilled water, but you can't filter or distill your food.

Perhaps cooking would denature some of these drugs in food.

Maybe testing of drugs should include analysis of what leaves the body...

'Mother Nature' exercising a little (lot?) "world population" control?

From 2014....

"Fate and Uptake of Pharmaceuticals in Soil–Plant Systems"

"Pharmaceuticals have been detected in the soil environment where there is the potential for uptake into crops. This study explored the fate and uptake of pharmaceuticals (carbamazepine, diclofenac, fluoxetine, propranolol, sulfamethazine) and a personal care product (triclosan) in soil–plant systems using radish (Raphanus sativus) and ryegrass (Lolium perenne). Five of the six chemicals were detected in plant tissue. Carbamazepine was taken up to the greatest extent in both the radish (52 μg/g) and ryegrass (33 μg/g), whereas sulfamethazine uptake was below the limit of quantitation (LOQ) (<0.01 μg/g). In the soil, concentrations of diclofenac and sulfamethazine dropped below the LOQ after 7 days. However, all pharmaceuticals were still detectable in the pore water at the end of the experiment. The results demonstrate the ability of plant species to accumulate pharmaceuticals from soils with uptake apparently specific to both plant species and chemical. Results can be partly explained by the hydrophobicity and extent of ionization of each chemical in the soil."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3908740/

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es1011115

https://books.google.com/books?id=9KJYr4xOADMC&pg=PA179&lpg=PA179&dq=pharmaceutical+uptake+of+plants&source=bl&ots=jkFUjGU0s9&sig=Xs1A6onurmqgKNqtKYf2qyLgt-o&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjM4LL8vKjVAhXF6iYKHbERC78Q6AEIajAI#v=onepage&q=pharmaceutical%20uptake%20of%20plants&f=false

So, everyone just lay off the radishes and ryegrass, /sarc

...."Because of its high prescription rate—the U.S. alone dispensed 76.9 million metformin prescriptions in 2014—it’s not surprising that the drug is abundant in the environment. Metformin was present in every water sample Kümmerer’s team tested, including tap water, at concentrations exceeding environmental safety levels proposed by an international Rhine River Basin agency by 50 percent. When publishing the results in 2014, Kümmerer and his coauthors concluded that the drug is likely “distributed over a large fraction of the world’s potable water sources and oceans.”¹

That sounds melodramatic, but he may be right, and the problem is not limited to metformin. Rebecca Klaper and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee recently measured concentrations of pharmaceuticals in Lake Michigan, where researchers had speculated that any drugs that were present would be highly dilute and not detectable. On the contrary, Klaper’s team found evidence of 32 pharmaceuticals and personal care products in the water and 30 in the lake’s sediment. Fourteen of these were measured at concentrations considered to be of medium or high risk to the ecosystem, based on data from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other researchers.² Metformin topped the list, at concentrations of concern even 3 kilometers off the shores of Milwaukee."....

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/43615/title/Drugging-the-Environment/

Ok so we know some of these pharmaceuticals break down, biodegrade in the environment...but what do they break down to, I mean do they combine with other elements and create even more dangerous substances? It's a question we need the answer to....

"Benign by design: how chemists aim to end pharmaceutical pollution of the environment...

From antibiotics to hormones and pain killers - residue from drugs is found in wastewater, rivers, fish, and even in polar bear fat. But chemists say they may know how to end this environmental pollution."

http://www.dw.com/en/benign-by-design-how-chemists-aim-to-end-pharmaceutical-pollution-of-the-environment/a-19170547

The question is can they do it, and if they can, how long will it take?

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/green_room/2011/01/the_little_green_pill.html

So the plants uptake the drugs from the water and the soil, and the animals eat the plants and drink the water, and we eat the plants and animals....it's a loop....and we all know in a loop the concentration increases over time...So as the population increases and the pharmaceutical companies produce more, and the doctors prescribe more, the pharmaceutical loading of our environment increases....

'''... plants uptake the drugs from the water and the soil, and the animals eat the plants and drink the water, and we eat the plants and animals....it's a loop....and we all know in a loop the concentration increases over time...'

I doubt there is that much build up due consumption of organisms exposed to Metaformin. Elimination half life is a little over 6 hours, undetectable in 24 hours. Unless other organisms have a particular affinity, not much concentration is happening.

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Anyway, this is Metaformin, glucophage. The stuff that keeps people from metabolizing all the calories they stuff down their throats. America needs this. Certainly more than fluoride....which does seem to have set the precedent for drugging the water for benefit of the massive masses.

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I am with you on the hazards of indescriminately dosing out drinking water with drugs....with the possible exception of metaformin.

Metformin

might increase the total nitrogen by a very small incremental amount in water, but is probably converted to available nitrogen rather easily (as you mentioned) by bacteria in wastewater. Animal hormones such as estrogen, I am not so sure these go away quickly. The answer to the effects should be found in the levels extant in "recycled" water, but I would expect that after ozone or hydroxyl radical oxidation, not much organic will remain in water unless you count something like bicarbonate as "organic" simply because carbon is in the moiety.

It's a wonderful, natural negative feedback mechanism against the effects of human-induced climate change. Leave it alone!

Leave your politics in the breakroom....

Yep. Personal choices and cultural norms play a huge role in influencing every aspect of our overall personal health.

It's a well known fact that people who live low stress lives in low stress environments live longer and healthier lives than those who live the opposite.

Choosing to actively fight for your rights to live that way Vs lying down and letting everyone else rule your life at whatever cost to yourself they feel fit is most certainly one measurable aspect of personal choice that will affect one's health.