PERSISTENT chemicals in the environment may be damaging human sperm, an international team of scientists reports today.
The team found an apparent link between levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the bloodstream of more than 700 men and the degree of damage to the DNA in their sperm. The damage is insufficient to affect fertility, and the results are equivocal because one group of men — Inuit from Greenland — did not show any link even though they carried high levels of PCBs in their blood.
Nevertheless the findings, in Human Reproduction, seem certain to cause concern.
PCBs are ubiquitous in the environment and, like DDT, persist for decades. Originally produced in the 1950s and 1960s, they are synthetic organic chemicals, ranging from oily liquids to waxy solids, used for electrical insulation, as plasticisers in paint, plastics and rubber, as pigments and dyes and for many other purposes.
The team found an apparent link between levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the bloodstream of more than 700 men and the degree of damage to the DNA in their sperm. The damage is insufficient to affect fertility, and the results are equivocal because one group of men — Inuit from Greenland — did not show any link even though they carried high levels of PCBs in their blood.
Nevertheless the findings, in Human Reproduction, seem certain to cause concern.
PCBs are ubiquitous in the environment and, like DDT, persist for decades. Originally produced in the 1950s and 1960s, they are synthetic organic chemicals, ranging from oily liquids to waxy solids, used for electrical insulation, as plasticisers in paint, plastics and rubber, as pigments and dyes and for many other purposes.
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