There has long been a suspicion that chemicals in the environment are a cause of infertility. With that in mind one particular lady decided to take part in research to determine what types of chemicals are being ingested and at what levels.
The lady in question, Molly Jones Gray, together with her husband Zack have for many years now tried to ensure that they and their son eat healthily and live as safe as possible. She told reporters: “[We eat] organic fruit [with] no pesticides or herbicides. We tried to replace a lot of our cleaning products with what I thought were green companies.”
Going ‘green’ is really taking off in western societies in Europe, North America and elsewhere. However it came as a shock to Molly when she was tested for mercury. It seems levels in her body were higher than expected. She said: “My mercury levels were higher than all the women tested.”
Molly added: “Five years ago, we had our struggles with infertility and repeated miscarriages. It’s just alarming what the average consumer has to hold in their head, to figure out what’s safe, and what’s not safe.”
Mercury is used a lot in dental filling amalgam. Dentists and environmentalists are increasingly aware that leeching into the blood stream is quite possible. But, mercury is also used in a variety of products including pesticides. Consequently medical scientists are beginning to examine what types of chemicals are used in the environment which could be cause of infertility.
One such scientist, Tracey Woodruff who is based in the University of California said: “Pregnant women are exposed to many different types of chemicals. Can those things be increasing their rates of difficulty in getting pregnant, adverse birth outcomes, childhood conditions? We see certain childhood cancers have gone up; there has been an increase in autism, reports of increases in ADHD, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder.”
Worldwide infertility is now a major issue. It is perhaps no coincidence that as with increased use of chemicals in the manufacture of products, that infertility is on the rise.
Whether there is a definitive link may however be difficult to prove.