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Feature Boys Will Be Girls: The Life-Altering Effects Of PPCPs In Drinking Water Are man-made chemicals unmaking man? Studies suggest action may not only be needed, but overdue. By Kevin Westerling I t has long been known that there are trace amounts of PPCPs (pharmaceutical and personal care products) that escape our wastewater treatment plants and end up in waterways, including drinking water sources. However, they appear in such trace amounts — parts per billion (ppb) or parts per trillion (ppt) — that they have thus far been considered essentially harmless and therefore unregulated by the U.S. EPA. But something fishy is going on in the water, and not just with the fish. Recent research suggests that exposure to PPCPs in drinking water may subject humans, particularly males, to gender-morphing and other reproductive system alterations. Though unregulated, PPCPs are on the EPA's radar via the Third Contaminant Candidate List (CCL3) and the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR) — precursors to possible regulatory action. The EPA defines PPCPs as "any product used by individuals for personal health or cosmetic reasons or used by agribusiness to enhance growth or health of livestock. PPCPs comprise a diverse collection of thousands of chemical substances, including prescription and over-the-counter therapeutic drugs, veterinary drugs, fragrances, lotions, and cosmetics." When you consider that chemicals are used to produce 96 percent of manufactured consumer goods and that there are more than 85,000 chemicals on the market,1 wastewater and drinking water facilities do a tremendous job in keeping all but those miniscule amounts of them out of our water. Unfortunately, with PPCPs so ubiquitous, and with treatment systems not designed to handle them, they do creep into the environment. The resulting 8 wateronline.com ■ chemical cocktail makes analysis difficult, especially when trying to determine specific cause and effect for statistical oddities in PPCP-laden water — like why is the male birthrate dropping? Startling Statistics Fish being as small as they are, and therefore more susceptible to even tiny doses of PPCPs, it stands to reason that the PPCP-related statistical anomalies will first show up in aquatic populations. A 2008 study conducted by researchers from the University of Calgary indicated that male longnose dace were disappearing from the Oldman and Bow Rivers in Alberta, Canada. Since these same waters are a source of drinking water, the focus turned to human birth ratios. The findings were revealed in the book Down the Drain: How We Are Failing To Protect Our Water, published in May 2013 and co-authored by the acting chair of the Canadian Water Issues Council at the University of Toronto, Ralph Pentland. According to the book, researchers noticed a shift in the sex ratio starting in 1970, with male births in the Atlantic provinces of Canada dropping 5.6 per 1,000 live births over 25 years. For the year 2010, it was estimated that 850 Canadian boys went "missing" from the population.2 Looking at a roughly 30-year timeframe in the U.S. and Japan, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives reported that a quarter of a million boys went missing compared to the number that would have been born if the birth ratio in 1970 remained unchanged.3 Casting the net wider, a Canadian Broadcasting Company documentary, The Disappearing Male, cites the following statistics:4 Water Online The Magazine