The Pill Makes Sydney Fish Turn Female

May 18, 2009

Release from: ABC News Online (Australia)

Research suggests traces of the contraceptive pill in Sydney Harbour sewage are feminising male fish.

Professor David Booth, from the University of Technology, says industrial products and waste chemicals in waterways are getting into the harbours and waters along the NSW coast and disrupting the reproductive pathways of fish.

He says his research shows that chemicals are getting into the blood of male toad fish, and producing a yolk protein which causes them to become female.

"The findings about the endocrine disruptive compounds suggest that it's not simply the lethal effects of things like pollution on fish, which are well publicised, and everyone sees the fish kill and realises it's happened, but it's the sub-lethal effects," he says.

"So that can be a much more insidious and subtle way to negatively affect fish populations."