Pesticides may cause Sexual Dysphoria: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

In a recent interview with Jordan B. Peterson, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he thinks many of the causes of sexual dysphoria, particularly with boys, are coming from chemical exposure. In particular, he mentioned the widely used herbicide atrazine.

In the June 5 interview, Peterson and Kennedy discussed a wide range of topics including Kennedy’s presidential bid. When the conversation turned to environmental issues, Kennedy noted that the “huge levels of depression” seen in today’s kids, as well as “a lot of the sexual dysphoria that we’re seeing” may be the result of toxic chemicals.

“These kids are swimming through a soup of toxic chemicals today, and many of those are endocrine disruptors,” Kennedy stressed.

Kennedy said that one of the big issues is atrazine, which he says can be found “throughout our water supply.” He went on to reference a study in which male frogs were exposed to atrazine in a tank, leading to their chemical castration and forced feminization.

Even more concerning, he noted that the study found 10 percent of the male frogs turned into “fully viable females, able to produce viable eggs.”

“If it’s doing that to frogs, there’s a lot of other evidence that it’s doing it to human beings as well,” Kennedy stressed.

The Science

The study Kennedy referred to was led by Tyrone B. Hayes, professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley. It was published in March 2010 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study noted that atrazine is one of the most commonly used pesticides in the world, as well as the most commonly detected pesticide contaminant. It taints ground, surface, and drinking water and can travel via rainfall over 620 miles from its application site.

The authors stressed that the herbicide is a potent endocrine disruptor, even at low levels. Previous studies showed adverse effects including hermaphroditism, reduced testicular volume, and lowered testosterone. The herbicide is also associated with both the demasculinization and feminization of male amphibians.

The study examined the long-term effects of atrazine on reproductive function in a genetically male population of African clawed frogs.

The male frogs were exposed to 2.5 parts per billion (ppb) of atrazine starting when they were tadpoles and continuing for up to three years after they metamorphosed into adults.

Ninety percent of the atrazine-exposed males appeared male, but suffered from depressed testosterone, decreased breeding gland size, decreased sperm production, feminized laryngeal (vocal) development, suppressed mating behavior, reduced spermatogenesis, and decreased fertility.

Functionally Female Frogs

Significantly, after exposure to atrazine, ten percent of the genetic males developed into fully functional females with ovaries, producing viable eggs.

Two of the male-turned-female frogs were mated with control males and produced offspring. Further testing confirmed that these atrazine-exposed male frogs, although now functionally female (have undergone complete feminization) were in fact still chromosomal males.

In a 2018 keynote presentation, Hayes explained that exposure to atrazine induces the activation of an enzyme called aromatase. Aromatase converts androgens, which are involved in male sexual development, to different forms of the female hormone estrogen. In the atrazine-exposed frogs, aromatase converted testosterone into estrogen, leading to the feminization of male frogs.

According to Hayes, mammals—including humans—will not have the same extreme egg-producing reaction as reptiles and amphibians when exposed to atrazine. However, he noted that aromatase induced by atrazine exposure promotes breast cancer and prostate cancer.

Big Pharma, Big Pesticides

In fact, aromatase is so important as a cause of breast cancer that one of the leading treatments for breast cancer is a non-steroidal aromatase inhibitor called Letrozole, Hayes said.

The developer of Letrozole is pharmaceutical giant Novartis AG.

Interestingly, in a 2003 toxicological profile, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) lists Novartis Crop Protection, Inc. as one of six companies registered to produce products (pdf) containing atrazine.

Novartis Crop Protection was an affiliate of Novartis AG. In 2000, Novartis spun off its Crop Protection and Seeds sectors, merging them with AstraZeneca Agrochemicals to form Syngenta. Today, Syngenta is the chief manufacturer of atrazine, according to the Center for Food Safety. Syngenta was acquired by ChemChina in 2017.

Another study Hayes mentioned in his presentation was published in Environmental Health Perspectives in 1997. It found that Kentucky women who were exposed to well water with medium to high levels of atrazine had a statistically significant increase in breast cancer risk, compared to women who did not drink the contaminated well water.

The study notes that “The results suggest a relationship between exposure to triazine herbicides and increased breast cancer risk, but conclusions concerning causality cannot be drawn, due to the limitations inherent in ecologic study design.”

Per the EPA website, atrazine is chemically related to two other herbicides, simazine and propazine, which together are called triazines.

Hayes emphasized that his study was not a singular study, but rather a comprehensive body of research.

In fact, 22 independent research studies, conducted in 12 different countries have examined the effects of atrazine exposure on various species such as fish, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, and birds.

These studies consistently reported similar findings, including the absence of sperm production, demasculinization, and feminization as a result of atrazine exposure, he said.

The 22 scientists worked together and consolidated their data, publishing it in a paper titled “Demasculinization and Feminization of Male Gonads by Atrazine: Consistent Effects Across Vertebrate Classes” in October 2011 in The Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Known Harms Reported by US Agencies

In 2003, seven years before the study by Hayes, a detailed toxicological profile of atrazine (pdf) was issued by the ATSDR. The agency is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The report cited studies indicating that atrazine affects health in several ways: “One of the primary ways that atrazine can affect your health is by altering the way that the reproductive system works,” it state