A Smoking Gun?

From Minnesota Public Radio:

Louis Guillette and Deborah Swackhamer are doing research on endocrine disruptors and their impact on alligators and raise new awareness of environmental pollutants in our water. They argue that the impact of their work, and the research being done by scientists in Minnesota, goes beyond the animal world.

Guillette has served as a science adviser to many U.S. and foreign agencies and has testified before Congress about environmental health issues. He recently joined the faculty of the Medical University of South Carolina as professor of obstetrics and gynecology after 25 years at the University of Florida. At Florida, he studied a number of animal species – especially alligators – in ecosystems contaminated by agricultural and industrial chemicals. Many of those chemicals have been found to be endocrine-disrupting compounds that interfere with the animals’ hormone systems.

In field studies Guillette found evidence of infertility and birth defects involving both the male and female sex organs of alligators. In laboratory experiments, Guillette and researchers working with him exposed alligator eggs to the same chemicals and found the same abnormalities in hatchlings. His growing body of research shows chemicals—including trace amounts often found in lakes and rivers—cause birth defects in both animals and humans.

The United States has become a nation of "pharmers." Be very afraid.