Ecobreves – BRAZIL: More Contamination, Fewer Males

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 8 2005 (IPS) - Urban pollution contributes to the gender imbalance of the population, to the detriment of males, as do violence and the longevity of females. According to a study by the University of Sao Paulo's medical school, in the 2001-2003 period, male births were 51.7 percent in the least contaminated area of this Brazilian city, and 50.7 percent in the most contaminated area.

Normally, more boys are born than girls, but that difference was reduced in this case, biologist Ana Julia Coimbra explained to Tierramérica. She has corroborated the trend in a laboratory study of mice. Half were kept in a chamber with polluted air, and there were 24 percent fewer male mice born than in the other half, which benefited from filtered air.

The study of Sao Paulo's human population will be more precise by encompassing a period of 10 years she said.

It is likely that other metropolitan areas face similar phenomena, Coimbra said.