Contraceptive pills may harm male fertility, environment

New York, United States, January 5: For decades, women have been taking contraceptive pills to protect themselves against unwanted pregnancy. Surprisingly, these pills are polluting the environment, and are in part responsible for male infertility, a report in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano suggests.

The report that published Saturday claims that the contraceptive pill has negative effects on male fertility and the environment.

The contraceptive pill is responsible for “releasing tons of hormonesdefine into nature” through female urine, polluting the environment and causing unknown damage to the world around us, the Italian-language report quoted Pedro Jose Maria Simon Castellvi, the president of the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, as saying.

"We have sufficient evidence to state that a non-negligible cause of male infertility in the West is the environmental pollution caused by the pill," said Castellvi.

"We are faced with a clear anti-environmental effect which demands more explanation on the part of the manufacturers," he added.

The report was abruptly dismissed by several pharmacological organizations, contending that once the pill is metabolized the hormones are denatured.

According to Flavia Franconi of the Society of Italian Pharmacology, the hormones in the pill "are present everywhere... in plastic, in disinfectants, in meat that we eat" and do not contribute to pollution or infertility.

"Once metabolised, the hormones contained in oral contraceptives no longer have any of the characteristic effects of feminine hormones," said Gianbenedetto Melis, vice-president of a contraceptive research association, quoted by the ANSA news agency.

Introduced in the 1960s, the oral contraceptives are medicines taken by mouth to help prevent pregnancy. Commonly known as birth control pill, the medicine is now the world's most popular form of contraception used by more than 12 million women in the United States and more than 60 million women worldwide, as per the estimates of U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The contraceptive pill that revolutionized birth control practices uses hormones to suppress ovulationdefine. The pill, typically containing estrogen or progesterone, inhibits ovulation and thereby prevents conception.