ALABAMA A&M and AUBURN UNIVERSITIES

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EXPERT DOUBTS LINK BETWEEN LOW SPERM COUNTS AND SYNTHETIC CHEMICALS

AUBURN, JAN. 15---Is there a link between low male sperm counts throughout the world and exposure to synthetic chemicals?

Some experts aren't convinced. For years, some scientists have suspected estrogen and other manufactured chemicals mimicking natural hormones have disrupted vital processes such as fertility and fetal development. Some experts even believe low sperm levels detected in young males throughout the industrial- ized world can be attributed to exposure to these substances.

But even these experts concede suspicions are entirely that - suspicions that haven't yet advanced even to the level of theory.

In a New York Times interview several years ago, Dr. Bruce Ames, a renowned toxicologist at the University of California at Berkeley, characterized these fears as a "political movement based on lousy science."

Still, the issue won't go away: it's been the subject of several popular books and has been embraced by a number of influential people including Vice President Al Gore and actor Robert Redford.

Dr. Jim Hairston, an Alabama Cooperative Extension Systemwater quality scientist, believes low sperm counts and other alarming trends may be traced to factors other than synthetic chemicals.

"If it were determined beyond a reasonable doubt that synthetic chemicals were behind low sperm counts and other problems, I would be demanding Congress pass appropriate legislation to rid the country of these substances," Hairston says.

But as things stand, Hairston, like Ames, believes the public's preoccupation with this issue may boil down to sketchy evidence parading as established fact.

Synthetic compounds, after all, make up only a tiny fraction of the chemical substances to which humans are exposed, Hairston says. In fact, most of the substances with which humans come in contact on a daily basis are natural chemical compounds, such as those found in plants. And while it's true some synthetic compounds may mimic reproductive hormones, many naturally occurring chemicals also may produce similar effects in humans.

"Over the ages, plants have developed hundreds of thousands of toxic compounds to ward off deadly fungi and insects, and we humans are exposed to these substances constantly throughout our daily lives," he says. "Since chlorine is extremely toxic, who can be certain naturally occurring chlorine-based substances haven't contributed to the problem?"

Chlorine is one of the earth's most common chemicals and is routinely used in manufacturing and to disinfect water.

"It's all around us," Hairston says. "We use a wide array of chlorinated products in manufacturing, but there are chlorine-based substances everywhere: in the ocean, in land-based plants and in chemicals produced as byproducts from decaying plants and animals. We can't avoid exposure to them; they're simply a fact of life."

Years from now, Hairston believes, historians may look back on widespread fear of synthetic chemicals as another byproduct of the Information Age.

"It's been said we're drowning in a deep sea of information while starving for knowledge," he says. "That certainly appears to be the case in this instance."

It appears the widespread human dread of synthetic (as opposed to natural) chemicals has been reinforced by all of the gloomy nay-saying on television, newspapers and the Internet, Hairston says.

"I really believe if people were better-educated about all of this, they would feel a whole lot safer," he says.

The real irony to all of this, Hairston says, is that in the end low sperm counts and other alarming physical trends eventually may be traced, in whole or in part, to other factors, such as higher levels of stress sparked by fast-paced technological changes.