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WEDNESDAY, July 23 (HealthDayNews) -- A common industrial chemical called nonylphenol causes sexual deformities in oysters, turning large numbers of them into hermaphrodites with both male and female sex organs, claims a new British study.

The damage could threaten the species because these deformed oysters self-fertilize and produce offspring that don't live long enough to reproduce, the researchers note.

Nonylphenol is a breakdown product from a surfactant that's widely used in cosmetics, herbicides, detergents and spermicides. The chemical is a known endocrine disrupter that interferes with the hormones of animals.

It's discharged through sewage effluent and is widespread in the aquatic environment.

"Our results may cast doubt on the widespread use of this chemical in many human products, including contraceptive spermicides," researcher Dr. Helen Nice, of the University of London, says in a news statement.

She and her colleagues exposed oyster larvae to environmentally realistic levels of nonylphenonl. They found that developing oyster larvae exposed to levels of nonylphenol as low as 0.1 micrograms per liter of water experience developmental delays.

Nearly a third of the oyster larvae that survived exposure to the chemical developed into hermaphrodite adults. There were no hermaphrodites in a control group of oysters not exposed to nonylphenol.

The findings indicate the chemical may pose a threat to the oyster industry and be a potential threat to other creatures.

"The Pacific oyster plays a vital role in many food webs and is commercially important worldwide. These results are worrying, not only because of the damage to the oysters themselves, but also because this chemical may well be affecting other organisms sharing their environment," Nice says.

The report appears in the July 17 issue of the Marine Ecology Progress Series.

More information

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