It's a function of hormonal bioactivity Herr Doktor.
You do your assigned job quite well Harris. It paid off to take the
fall and sell out to become a "Dr." didn't it?
I know your story Harris. Poor boy wants the wealth that being a doctor
would provide but doesn't have the money for med school. Unnamed
patrons supply the living accomodations, a car, tuition, etc., and a
stipend. The fix is in and you didn't do anything except coast along
until the prof. got scared of sliding you through and demanded you
actually do some work to earn your passing marks.
Well, you did it Harris and now you'll spend the rest of your life
paying them back.
What *is* a soul worth these days?......30 pieces of silver?

http://www.cgfi.org/materials/key_pubs/rachel-carson-syndrome-missing-missouri-h
ellbenders.htm

excerpt:

While eastern hellbender populations have been hurt by dams, logging,
and human settlement throughout their range, in recent decades their
numbers have remained relatively stable in most places. Overall,
eastern hellbenders are not considered endangered or in serious
decline.

Ozark hellbender populations, however, have declined significantly in
over the past 15 years. A 1991 survey conducted by the Missouri
Department of Conservation seemed to indicate abundance, with 150 Ozark
hellbenders found during a two-day search. Yet a 1998 survey found a
nearly 80 percent decline compared to the 1991 survey. Worse, there
were almost no young hellbenders found during the 1998 survey,
indicating that Ozark hellbenders aren't reproducing successfully or
their young are dying very early.

Biologist Ron Goellner, curator of the St. Louis Zoo, says the first
signs of trouble for hellbenders appeared in the late 1980s and early
1990s, when hellbender numbers in the Spring River in northern Arkansas
began to decline. The alarm was quickly raised. By March of 2003, the
Missouri Department of Conservation declared the Ozark hellbender an
"endangered species" in the state. Scientists created the
Hellbender Workshop Group to share and discuss theories as to why Ozark
hellbender numbers have dropped so quickly.

There are several theories but the one currently getting the most
attention and resources is "endocrine disruption" by a chemical
pollutant, such as an agricultural pesticide. One reason a chemical
pollutant is suspected is that the sperm counts of Ozark hellbenders
appear to be about 20 percent lower than the sperm counts of
hellbenders in areas where their populations are stable, such as
Georgia and the Carolinas.

Another reason to suspect a chemical pollutant is location. Ozark
hellbenders live in closer proximity to cattle, poultry, hog, and crop
farms than the Georgia and Carolina hellbenders. As University of
Missouri professor Dr. Yue-wern Huang and graduate students write,
"Streams where [Ozark hellbenders] inhabit have become polluted with
animal manure runoff, human wastes, fertilizers, herbicides, and
pesticides. Some of these pollutants have been shown to possess similar
activity to 17ß-estradiol, a female hormone which plays a major role
in secondary sex organ development, behavior, fertility, and
reproductive capacity."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/11/1103_041103_potomac_fish.html

Male Fish Producing Eggs in Potomac River

William Cocke
for National Geographic News

November 3, 2004
Something fishy is happening in the headwaters of the Potomac River.
Scientists have discovered that some male bass are producing eggs-a
decidedly female reproductive function.

In June 2002 reports appeared of fish die-offs in the South Branch of
the Potomac River. The West Virginia Division of Natural Resources
asked U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists to examine fish health
in the watershed near the town of Moorefield, about three hours' drive
from Washington, D.C.

Anglers were also reporting fish with lesions. USGS scientists
determined that some of the lesions indicated exposure to bacteria and
other contaminants.

The following year, the USGS conducted a more intensive assessment with
a statistically significant number of fish, this time looking for
internal damage. That's when they discovered a so-called intersex
condition-where one sex exhibits both testicular and ovarian tissue.

"It was not something we were really looking for," said Vicki Blazer, a
fish pathologist with the USGS's Leetown Science Center in
Kearneysville, West Virginia.

Some 42 percent of male smallmouth bass surveyed showed signs of
intersex development. A second sampling this spring produced an even
higher rate-79 percent showed sexual abnormalities.

Mysterious Sex Changes

The findings have perplexed the government scientists, who suspect a
little-understood class of emerging contaminants. The contaminants
include natural hormones excreted by humans and livestock as well as
hormone-mimicking synthetic chemicals. The chemicals appear to confuse
the endocrine systems of fish, essentially fooling males into producing
female cells.

Endocrine disruptors work like biological disinformation campaigns.
Sometimes mimicking natural hormones like estrogen, they alter other
hormone concentrations. The disruptors can either prevent or weaken the
normal cell-signaling process.

David O. Norris, a professor in the University of Colorado's Department
of Integrative Physiology, has specialized in environmental
endocrinology for over 35 years. He is leading an ongoing research
project looking into hormone pollution in three rivers in the Denver
area.

"We're looking at the fish above and below where sewage treatment plant
effluents are being added into the rivers," he said. "The best data we
have are on Boulder Creek in terms of numbers of individuals. In all
three cases we found reproductive abnormalities in fish downstream from
where the effluent is."

Norris is focusing on white suckers, a species of fish not known for
exhibiting intersex characteristics under normal conditions.

"Our impression is that they are males that are being feminized
[because] of the nature of the chemicals that are in the water, and
most of them are estrogenic [meaning they stimulate development of
female sex characteristics]," he said. "Some of [the estrogenic
chemicals] are natural urinary estrogenic products from humans, and
some of them are pharmaceuticals-birth control pills."

Norris has also found large concentrations of compounds called
alkylphenols-common substances often associated with household
detergents and personal-care products.

"They're the same sort of compounds that have been associated with
fishes in England and Europe," he said. "The main difference here is
the source is domestic sewage, as opposed to industrial sewage. This is
one of the first observations, certainly in the U.S., of a domestic
sewage factor alone being connected with this [intersex phenomenon]."

Indicator Species and Water Quality

As for the South Branch of the Potomac River, Norris, like the USGS
team, is unsure of the source of the pollution. "It's hard to say what
the specific source might be [in the South Branch]. But I think the
effect is very clear, that they're getting feminization," he said.

Currently USGS scientist Blazer said, the focus has shifted to
analyzing water-quality data. "The water resources division of USGS out
of Charleston put what are called passive samplers at a number of the
sites," she said. "Basically they accumulate contaminants what fish
tissue would accumulate over time. They expect to have the analyses of
those back in November. We're hoping with that and some of the other
water-quality things we're doing, we'll at least begin to get an idea
of what we should be looking at."

Blazer added that her team would soon be conducting its fall
collection, adding largemouth bass to the mix to test against a
nationwide USGS largemouth-monitoring database. "Are we seeing the same
thing in largemouth bass, or is there something about smallmouth,
whether it's their food habits or when they spawn, that makes them more
susceptible to exposure," she said.

Blazer said fish are good indicators of subtle changes in water
quality-changes perhaps caused by the introduction of natural and
synthetic hormones. Still, the exact cause of the sex-changed South
Branch smallmouths remains unclear.

"Hopefully, when we get our data back, we can all sit down and really
look at it and come up with some thoughts," she said.

Don't Miss a Discovery

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A better way, yes, but there simply isn't sufficient land to meet the
current demand for meat with grass fed animals; and what about
native grazers... are they welcome too?  Then there's certainly the
standard mutilations like castration, and, slaughter of the animals..

There are still health concerns..

'.. disease rates were significantly associated within a range of dietary
plant food composition that suggested an absence of a disease prevention
threshold. That is, the closer a diet is to an all-plant foods diet, the greater
will be the reduction in the rates of these diseases.'
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Nov98/thermogenesis_paper.html

An even better way is a sustainable organic (veganic) veg*n diet.