Oh dear, its worse than we thought. Photo Andy Hughes.
Wait, what?
Not sure why I have just heard of this must have been a cover up.. but yes apparently it is true. Scientists in Australia say more boys are even being born with genital defects because of plastic pollution.
Previous studies that have chemicals in plastic can cause damage to penises and make them smaller, but University of Melbourne researchers Associate Professor Andrew Pask and Dr Mark Green say they have shown penis birth defects have doubled in Australia because of plastic.
They studied humans and animals exposed to the chemicals like Phthalates, BPA and parabens to see whether they have the defect called hypospadia, (a condition that means the opening of the penis is on the underside rather than the tip.)
The damage was down by chemicals consumed through food contamination or water.
In 2014 a study led by Sweden’s Karlstad University also showed the effects of phthalates on young males. ( A significant shortening of the distance between the anus and the penis.) In 2015 a French study found a “strong” link between exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals during pregnancy and hypospadia.
The chemicals include BPA and phthalates, parabens used in toothpastes and beauty products and atrazine in herbicide.
“Exposure to these chemicals, this is the No. 1 reproductive issue for men,” Dr Pask told The Sydney Morning Herald.
“No one likes to talk about this. Often parents don’t even like to tell their kids they had it — it gets surgically repaired but often the surgeries don’t work very well.
“When it’s doubling, it cannot be genetic defects — it takes years for that to spread through a population. So we know it has to be environmental in origin.”
He said the damage can get worse over generations in animals. Humans have been exposed to these chemicals over two generations since the 1950s. The World Health Organisation said microplastics were found in 90 per cent of bottled water.
