Post by petrushka on Nov 28, 2016 16:04:42 GMT -5
In Japan I've read that it's gotten to a crazy level where guys there are only interested in career and not women. They are perhaps the highest-tech culture on the planet. Does the issue exist in such levels in less developed countries?
For example, estrogen supplements used for birth control can't be filtered by sewage processing plants, and it's been appearing in our food supply as a result. As some municipalities strive for 100% recycling of their water supply, where does that lead us?
Population growth is leading mankind to screw with ecology and other systems beyond our ability to see or comprehend. I suspect sexlessness is one of the milder consequences.
A lot of estrogen turns up in the human food chain because farmers buy the stuff in by the truckload and feed it to their chickens, calves etc, alongside penecillin, because they promote
growth.
In some countries these practices are outlawed (but the laws get broken, regardless) in others it is completely free-for-all. In some countries the consumers are much more awake to this and react with their purchases ... in others, it's "head in the sand" or just plain ignorance.
I know for instance that here in NZ the practice of feeding estrogen to stock has been outlawed, but they still use antibiotics as food supplement to raise chickens for table birds (rather than treatment) and pigs, which is, by the way, a practice that creates antibiotic-resistant superbugs.
Did you know that Ronnie Raygun nearly started a trade war with the EU because the EU said they did not want to buy estrogen and antibiotic laden meat from the US? Not that the consumers there would've wanted to buy the product in the first place. The EU market for veal for instance nearly collapsed when one Dutch farmer, raising 10,000 calves for veal, was caught getting truck-and-trailer loads of grey market antibiotics delivered to his farm.
At the time I was trying to convince fellow NZ farmers that using growth hormones on cattle was a *really* bad idea because they would destroy our European markets if that ever became public knowledge in the EU ... but would they listen? Not on your nelly. Short term greed .... ironically, that practice has been discontinued because it became apparent that
it was only putting money into the chemical industries pockets, but the benefit did not even break even considering the cost of the stuff. And our meat processors have finally taken
note and farmers using growth hormones get penalized on price at the abatoirs.
Birth control pills - seriously - are a drop in the ocean by comparison.
