Seveso near St Louis.Professor Rat "concerned."

mattd mattd at useoz.com
Mon Jan 7 09:11:51 PST 2002


YOUNG MALE RATS ARE 'DEMASCULINIZED'
AND 'FEMINIZED' BY LOW DOSES OF DIOXIN
Three new studies by researchers at University of Wisconsin
reveal that very low doses of dioxin alter the sexual development
of young male rats, causing demasculinization and
feminization. [1,2,3]
Dr. Linda S. Birnbaum, a scientist with U.S. EPA [Environmental
Protection Agency] calls the new studies "highly significant."[4]
Birnbaum is one of the chief scientists conducting the EPA's
formal reassessment of the toxicity of dioxin (see RHWN #269,
#270, #275). As we reported earlier (RHWN #279), many scientists,
including Birnbaum, now consider dioxin an "environmental
hormone." The new Wisconsin studies support that view.
The Wisconsin researchers, led by Dr. Richard E. Peterson, showed
that dioxin interferes with the sexual development of male rats
exposed to dioxin before, and shortly after, birth. Pregnant
female rats were given a single oral dose of dioxin on the 15th
day of pregnancy; their male offspring showed reduced levels of
male hormones in their blood and a variety of sexual aberrations
that stayed with them as they matured. The young males are
demasculinized and feminized by doses of dioxin too low to cause
any measurable toxicity in the mother rat. The sexual changes in
the young males are both physiological and behavioral, and last
into adulthood.
Dioxin passes through the placenta and enters the fetus, so the
rat fetuses received part of the mother's dose almost
immediately. After birth, the baby rats continued to receive a
small dose of dioxin through their mother's milk. Peterson says
the baby rats received the bulk of their dose through milk. In
rats and humans both, females rid their bodies of dioxin chiefly
by excreting it in their milk. Dioxin is soluble in fats and
oils, and milk is high in fat.
Dioxin is the common name for a family of 75 toxins, the most
potent of which is TCDD [2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-P-dioxin].
The Wisconsin researchers used TCDD in their experiments.
More on this shocking story inc.Terror in times beach at 
http://www.ejnet.org/rachel/rhwn290.htm
part of http://www.ejnet.org/dioxin/index.html





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