[OG Note: When I was in Mexico I saw those old metal "puff" canister thingies being used to puff white powder over shrubs immediately outside a terrace restaurant. I thought then it must be DDT, because I remember when I was little and my parents used the same old-fashioned "puffer" to put DDT on the garden. Then it occurred to me there were absolutely no insects in my "native" hotel room--$11/night--no roaches, spiders, flies--nothing. The only birds I saw in Acapulco were large seabirds. There were no pigeons or sparrows in the local plaza. Think about that when you see those Mexican vegetables and those Chilean grapes. . .]

BBC Wednesday, 16 May, 2001, 18:05 GMT 19:05 UK

Premature puberty link to DDT

Scientists believe the controversial pesticide DDT is responsible for premature puberty in girls in developing countries.

Researchers in Belgium, who carried out the study, found children who had emigrated from countries such as India and Colombia were 80 times more likely to start puberty unusually young.

Three-quarters of these immigrant children with "precocious" puberty had high levels of a chemical derivative of DDT in their blood.

This chemical, DDE, mimics the effects of the oestrogen hormone, which plays an important role in controlling sexual development.

The girls in the Belgian study began developing breasts before the age of eight, and started their periods before they were 10.

The team, led by Jean -Pierre Bourguignon from the University of Liege, discovered that children emigrating to other European countries also had an increased tendency to begin puberty early.

They did not believe this could be entirely attributed to a better diet.

The team tested the children for a range of pesticides and found that 21 out of 26 immigrant children with precocious puberty had high levels of DDE in their blood.

The chemical was only detectable in two out of 15 native-born Belgian children.

Their findings may not be entirely conclusive because they did not test immigrant children who had not started puberty early for pesticides.

Carcinogenic effects

David Buffin from the Pesticide Action Network said: "We have known for a while, the chronic problems associated with DDT.

"And we have been concerned about its chronic effects in terms of cancer and its effect on reproduction.

"It's a known carcinogen and is suspected to disrupt the endocrine system."

Friends of the Earth (FoE) is equally worried that DDT used in foreign countries is entering the food chain closer to home with the increase in imported food.

FoE's food campaigner Sandra Bell said: "This certainly seems to add to the weight of growing evidence that hormone disrupting pesticides could be having a very serious long term effect on our health and adds to our demand that we should be banning all hormone disrupting pesticides which are turning up in our food.

DDT has been banned in the European Union (EU) and US for decades, but is still used in many developing countries, mainly to control malaria.

Speaking about the Belgian survey, Stuart Milligan, endocrinologist at King's College London, said: "The results certainly suggest an environmental factor.

"What's dangerous is to create a scare story from something that's not proven."

But this is not the first time the effects of DDT on female hormones has come to light.

A three year study in the US, 20 years ago, found that the children of pregnant mothers whose blood and breast milk contained high levels of DDT, reached sexual maturity earlier.

Scientists monitored the physical growth and maturity of 600 offspring from these women and discovered girls with the highest pre-natal exposures to DDT and another hormone altering chemicals entered puberty 11 months earlier than girls with lower exposure.

For boys, exposures to the chemicals before birth made no apparent difference in sexual development.

Bourguinon and his team now plan to check whether immigrant children who go into early puberty have higher levels of pesticide than those who do not.

Their findings appear in New Scientist magazine.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

Answers

We've known for a long time that DDE binds quite well to the estrogen receptor. But in the USA we've banned DDT for a long time. But we still have steadily lowering times of puberty. It is well known that the estrogen receptor is rather uncaring of what it binds, a great many compounds will bind well enough. I've worried about the phthalate plasticizers used in most all plastic drink containers made. And there are likely many other estrogen "mimics" that are around in the environment. We've 8yr olds in mid puberty in the USA, very grim. It seems that African Americans may be at greater risk from early puberty from estrogen "mimics" than other folks.

And there is no really serious gubmint effort to deal with this.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

Tenn, you think the US phenomenon has anything to do with the hormones in animal products--milk and cheese, for instance, and meat products? Combination of animal prodicts and plastics? Or do you think the plastics are the worst offenders?

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

I was at a professional raptor conference back in 1980. Someone had hypothesized that one of the reasons the California condors weren't successfully breeding (or at least had nothing to show for it) was that the males had consumed too much DDT/DDE and that it had messed up their hormonal function.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001