Newswise — When Long Island Sound lobstermen started pulling up traps of dead lobsters several years ago, scientists " including Dr. William Biggers of Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pa " suspected it might be the chemical methoprene, an insecticide used to kill mosquitoes.
But instead, in their analysis of the lobsters' hemolymph (or blood), they found alkylphenols, an estimated 500 million pounds of which are used annually in things like laundry detergents, denture sealants, industrial lubricants and tire rubber.
It could mean bad news for the lobsters"¦and seafood lovers.
"Alkylphenols at high concentrations are toxic to crustaceans and may contribute significantly to lobster mortality," says Biggers, whose study, co-authored by University of Connecticut biologist Hans Laufer, appeared in the February 2004 issue of professional journal, The Biology Bulletin. Even in low concentrations, the chemicals are likely to interfere with the lobster's reproduction and growth.
For consumers already cautious of eating too much farm-raised salmon, it can mean adding lobsters collected from certain areas to the growing list of potentially harmful food.
The alkylphenols Biggers and Laufer found are similar in structure to bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical used in plastics manufacturing, which has already raised cancer concerns, as they're potentially carcinogenic to humans. Biggers also says the identified chemicals accumulate in fat, although more studies will be needed. Similar findings have been found for the polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs that are found in farmed salmon and may cause cancer.
One of the phenols Biggers identified was developed in the 1970s as a mosquito insecticide but was never commercially developed as such.
The phenols kill mosquitoes in the same way they may now be killing lobsters and may have sub-lethal effects by disrupting their juvenile growth hormones, which control reproduction and development. The reproductive systems of lobsters are similar to those of many insects.
According to his research, these same four chemicals have several uses besides as insecticide, and are used heavily as industrial antioxidants, such as in preventing the cracking of rubber tires.
"People are neglecting the fact that these [chemicals] have insecticide activity and therefore can also affect lobsters if they get into the marine environment," he says.
"It could be that these chemicals come from the worn-off tire tread left on heavily traveled roads, such as Interstate 95, which eventually gets washed into the sound, or by the use of old tires dumped into the sound as natural reefs," he says.
"Environmental contamination by these chemicals and their breakdown products in rivers, oceans and sediments is well known and, unfortunately, widespread," says Biggers. "Of the 500,000 tons of APEs (alkylphenol ethozylates) produced, an estimated 30 percent may end up in the aquatic environment, having escaped the wastewater treatment systems."
Since 1995, the European community has placed a voluntary ban on the use of APEs, due to the toxicity of the breakdown products, but the U.S. has yet to follow suit. The EPA is currently studying the effects of aklylphenols to aquatic life.
Biggers' and Laufer's study, "Identification of Juvenile Hormone-Active Alkylphenols in the Lobster Homarus americanus and in Marine Sediments," appeared February in The Biology Bulletin.
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