Is environmental pollution affecting fetal development?

There are fears that industrial and agricultural chemicals and heavy metal pollutants are disrupting the reproductive biology of wild and farm animals, and may also be affecting human fertility and fetal development. Although laboratory tests on rodents show that such compounds can affect reproductive biology, the relevance of these studies to 'real life' exposure to pollutants is unclear.

To address this issue, Dr Paul Fowler at the University of Aberdeen, with colleagues in Edinburgh, Glasgow and France, have been awarded project grant funding to test whether long-term, low-level exposure of sheep to a cocktail of chemicals and heavy metals, typical of that seen in sewage sludge, affects fetal development or fertility in adulthood. The team will compare the effect of keeping ewes on fields treated with the sewage sludge fertiliser with those treated with a control fertiliser.

The results should help clarify an important and highly controversial area of medical science.