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Mutant Species Watch Identifying evidence and patterns that show how the reproductive future of humankind may be at risk from a reliance on synthetics. Polar Bears Becoming Hermaphrodites Arctic polar bears exposed to flame retardant (PBDE and HBCD) chemicals used in consumer products, as well as other synthetic toxins from industrialized countries that drift into their habitat on wind currents, are becoming hermaphrodites — developing both male and female sex organs — at a rate that is alarming scientists. A study published January 2006 in the journal Environmental Science and Technology described how concentrations of chemical pollutants enter the Arctic food chain and become magnified as they ascend from plankton to fish to seals and finally to polar bears. One chemical was measured as having magnified its effects 71 times just in bioaccumulating from seals to the bears that ate their flesh. "The Arctic is now a chemical sink," declared Colin Butfield, an official with the Worldwide Fund for Nature, which has independently discovered that killer whales in the Arctic are suffering from chemical contamination. "Chemicals from products that we use in our homes every day are contaminating all Arctic wildlife." The Hundred Year Lie documents dozens of examples of synthetic chemicals affecting the sexual and reproductive capacities of both humans and animals in the wild.  Suntan Oil Chemicals Produce Mutant Fish Science researchers at the University of California and the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project have discovered that more than half of all fish of certain species, such as male turbot and sole, found along the California coast suffer from 'gender-bending." The males were growing ovary tissue in their testes. The culprit chemicals for this gender-bending of wildlife appear to be from suntan oil polluting the water as a result of sewage outfalls and sun bathers washing off the sunscreen chemicals in the ocean. Scientists in Switzerland have also reported gender-bending chemicals from sunscreen oils and creams — in particular, octocrylene and 4-methylbenzylidene — building up in river fish found in that country. Oxybenzone is a chemical in sunscreens that protects human skin from the ultraviolet rays of the sun. It has effects similar to estrogen. It settles on the seabed and is absorbed by plants that fish feed upon. As for people who eat these fish, or who consume water containing the chemical, no one can predict the effects on their health because no studies have been done. 
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