TAMPA - Chemical pollution that sterilizes some Florida alligators should beg hard questions about how people might be affected, a longtime researcher warned Tuesday.
"If we are not smart enough to understand that the species in our environment may be showing us potential problems for our own [species], then we are at greater risk than we think," University of Florida zoology professor Louis Guillette told scientists at a national toxicology conference.
Guillette has researched hormonal differences in alligators from polluted and clean lakes for about 20 years and studies reproduction and development in other wildlife, and in people. His is part of a growing body of research into the potential health risks posed by wide varieties of chemicals affecting people's hormones.
That work was spotlighted by a recent debate about the safety of bisphenol A, used in products as varied as baby bottles and food-can linings. A Food and Drug Administration review accepted BPA as safe, but last month a science panel that advises FDA criticized the agency's review. Canada has banned BPA in baby bottles.
Although some animals are more sensitive than others, the way certain hormone-disrupting chemicals trigger reactions in humans, alligators and some other animals isn't that different, Guillette said.
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