plastics makes boys "feminine"

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The Freeman
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8361863.stm

Chemicals in plastics alter the brains of baby boys, making them "more feminine", say US researchers.

Males exposed to high doses in the womb went on to be less likely to play with boys' toys like cars or to join in rough and tumble games, they found.

The University of Rochester team's latest work adds to concerns about the safety of phthalates, found in vinyl flooring and PVC shower curtains.

The findings are reported in the International Journal of Andrology.

Plastic furniture

Phthalates have the ability to disrupt hormones, and have been banned in toys in the EU for some years.

However, they are still widely used in many different household items, including plastic furniture and packaging.

There are many different types and some mimic the female hormone oestrogen.

"This feminising capacity of phthalates makes them true 'gender benders'."
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I hope I wasnt raised surrounded by tons of plastic
*paint nails*
 
no wonder i love looking at playgirl
 
This is why I switched to drinking from a glass wine bottle for my water, rather than consuming it from a plastic soda bottle. I found myself unsatisfied with the appearance of my drab water bottle and started gluing on pretty little decorations, and even tied an adorable sky blue bow to the neck.

It was fabulous! And it had to stop.
 
So every little boy who played with Legos..... is now gay?
 
Yeah, I spotted the Lego connection as well.

Any news on Plastic Explosives making people gay?
 
I'm glad that some research has finally come out that shows phthalates are dangerous. It's about ****ing time.

Phthalates are rubberisers - they make things flexible. So Lego wouldn't contain phthalates. The problem with phthalates is that they're often found in dangerous places - like children's toys, which often end up in children's mouths, and cheap and nasty sex toys, which often end up inside people. That's where the real danger is, where it's much more easily absorbed into the blood, and where you might have prolonged exposure.
 
Anthraxxx said:
So every little boy who played with Legos..... is now gay?
Click to expand...

gay-legos1.jpg
 
But isn't this just bullshit 'conclude any old thing by whatever pattern we set out to find' science? I mean, 'plays with cars and likes rough play' versus an unspecified 'everything else' has never been a compelling indication of gender, because there's such a huge amount of social channelling associated with what toys supposedly suit which gender. And then there's the fact that studies establishing natural rates of cross-gender tendencies aren't exactly well documented...

And whilst it seems indisputable that the chemicals themselves are dangerous, how on earth are these things even supposed to be effecting child-carrying women? Are they munching on lino and licking patio furniture? Once you're past the meaningless of play as a gender indicator, I would have thought there are simply too many environmental variables to make these particularly important findings. How many brothers and sisters does each child have? Parents? What are their personalities? What ideals do they hand down to their children? Which kinds of behaviour are prohibited or implicitly dis-preferential in each household?

Of course, what I mean is that everyone of the boys playing with cars etc. is going to end up fruity, because the most amusing outcome is always the most likely.

Edit: Also, Cave Johnson shower-curtain conspiracy.
 
So playing with toy cars is a genetic desire in boys?

Pardon me for not believing in that report.
 
I was about to say that "more feminine" is a pretty suspect phrase.
 
She acknowledged that the boys who have been studied were still young, but she said reduced masculine play at this age might lead to other feminised developments in later life.
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What would that be? Less inclined to being violent? Are we sure "feminising" the children is such a bad thing? TBH, I don't see many good aspects about the male gender archetype.
 
The Monkey said:
What would that be? Less inclined to being violent? Are we sure "feminising" the children is such a bad thing? TBH, I don't see many good aspects about the male gender archetype.
Click to expand...

You'll regret that the next time you're forced to hunt down a stampeding mammoth to feed your clan.
 
Fox news will have a field day with this now and ban all sorts of plastic and call for another stupid rally on Washington and blame politicians once again
 
Viperidae said:
If someone with access to peer-reviewed science journals could look up how credible Sharpe is that would be helpful.
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You don't actually need access to the journals to look up Authors' publications - you can usually get the full list + abstracts and sometimes a free full text or two.
Searching NCBI for this guy gave a lot of hits in respected (leading even) journals in the field - Human Reproduction, Edincrinology Reviews, Endocrinology, Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, and more.

Also it's kinda disappointing that you'd prefer to be suspicious of the author or the science rather than the journalism - especially since the original review paper is there for you to read.

Reading the review article itself, free on that ChemTrust site, it seems fairly legit. The research seems to be focusing on actual physiological indicators of phthalates having interfered with hormones during pregnancy, and it's not really alarmist. While I've only browsed it quickly so far the author seems careful to qualify statements, such as making clear at several points that causality hasn't been definitively established.
The whole "feminised behaviour" thing is probably just another example of Science Reporters Are Shit, the actual science seems sound from what I've read so far.
 
Eejit said:
Also it's kinda disappointing that you'd prefer to be suspicious of the author or the science rather than the journalism - especially since the original review paper is there for you to read.
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I've never taken science outside of high school and have no idea what indicators to look for in a distorted publication. Also; laziness.
 
Well fair enough.
A good rule of thumb is that if you as someone with limited knowledge of science read an article and think "hey that doesn't sound right" then there's a very good chance it's down to bad reporting (usually unintentionally) rather than bad science.

Honestly, science journalism is usually atrocious. A newspaper article is more likely to be nonsense than the peer-reviewed journal article it's based on - though they are occasionally nonsense too :)
 
The only periodicals that are worth reading for their science articles are not things that most of us want to read. I've tried slogging through my dad's American Psychology Society Journals before. It's like squeezing all of the interestingness out of an article and injecting facts in. Blech.
 
One of the problems is that even if a publication does have a decent science correspondent when a 'BIG STORY' breaks - like the MMR scare in the UK - they story tends to be written up by some other editor with no idea what they're talking about.

Journals are for experts, but normal papers often dumb things down so much they present a distorted picture. If you really want some good and approachable science reporting there are some blogs out there which might float your boat if you take a look.
 
My hypothesis is that this makes men love lesbians.
 
really....they came to the conclusion that if the boys dont play with cars or do things boys do when they are young then they lost all manhood?? Do they not consider how they kids were brought up? If there was no male figure to inject those ideas into the boys head then of course they would be more like a female because that would be the only person they look up to in the household. Different kids have different interest, since when has testosterone decided your interest in cars or being rough? BS on this study
 
Really? You think that the news article's attention grabbing headlines are a faithful representation of the research? Do you think that's also the sole evidence of the impact of phthalates on sexual development rather than simply the most recent which can be turned into a shock story?
BS on this article, not on the study. Yawn.
 
Honestly studies have already shown links between phthaltes and physiological sexual dysfunction in humans and animals and links to feminised behaviour in animal studies. We know they interfere with testosterone on a molecular level and that hormones received by a fetus during pregnancy have an effect on brain development and behaviour.
A study linking phthalates to feminised behaviour in humans is not surprising.
 
Eejit said:
We know they interfere with testosterone on a molecular level and that hormones received by a fetus during pregnancy have an effect on brain development and behaviour.
Click to expand...
Problem #29 with the write up then, is how androgen blockers are confused with oestrogen?

BS on your boy bringing milkshakes.
 
Problems with the write up? The article hasn't been published by the journal yet, you're finding problems in second and third hand accounts of what it contains rather than actually reading it before criticising.

BS on your wierd kitty freeman avatar
 
Eejit said:
Problems with the write up? The article hasn't been published by the journal yet, you're finding problems in second and third hand accounts of what it contains rather than actually reading it before criticising.

BS on your wierd kitty freeman avatar
Click to expand...
Unless by 'write up', I clearly mean the article linked in the first post.

BS on your comprehension.
 
Hey, journal articles are called write-ups too :p


BS on you being unclear
 
Boys should play with lead painted cars and guns with lead bullets, girls should play with plasticine Barbies and lipstick with phthalates, then everything will be fine.
 
Every time I read the thread title, I wish it would have been "Plastic toys make feminine boys." Sounds like a ancient proverb that would be passed down by parents to warn their children.
 
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