Toxic chemicals blamed for the
disappearance of Arctic boys (twice as many girls as
boys being born, rise in fetal deaths of males)
"...Historically in large populations, it is
considered normal for the number of baby boys
slightly to outnumber girls in a trend believed to
compensate naturally for greater male mortality
rates.
But a peer-reviewed US study found an unexpected drop in the proportion of boys born in much of the northern hemisphere. The missing boys would number more than 250,000 in the US and Japan, using the gender ratio at the levels recorded up until 1970.
The researchers suspect-ed that this linked
widespread exposure among pregnant women to
hormone-mimicking pollutants. But Danish scientists
examined 480 families in the Russian Arctic and
found high levels of the hormone-mimicking
pollutants in the blood of pregnant women, and twice
as many girls being born as boys..."
