"I Wish You Bluebirds in the Spring"

"I Wish You Bluebirds in the Spring"

(NatalieColeMusic. 2022)

     I still remember the bright sunlight filtering through the thick canopy of leaves highlighting the plush greenery of the forest grove I lived in. At this time in my life, from the ages of four to eight, I was a forest dweller who rose early in the morning to play all day in the woods hoping to chance upon a rare but delicious puffball mushroom to take home for our supper, or to climb to new heights in limbs above. It was on many of these early mornings when the dew still clung to all the vegetation that the smell of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) permanently embedded itself in my memory, and likely made changes to my young body that possibly caused the number of calcium and hormone related maladies (Lundholm, 1997; Wang et al., 2022) I experienced in later life, like multiple ruptured cervical disks and vertebral spurs in my neck. I wandered through the chemically wetted foliage not realizing that as it saturated my clothes and skin that danger was infusing itself within my young form.

     I do know that many birds suffered, including the eagles, from weakened egg shells (Lundholm, 1997) and it became a national uprising to ban this egregious, hormone disrupting chemical from use in the United States (Environmental Protection Agency, 2022). It is unfortunate that many countries still use DDT (National Pesticide Information Center, 1999) and it is a solid conjecture with high likelihood that DDT may continue to ride in, impregnated in the multitude of foods we import (Center for Disease Control, 2022). The world still has a lot of catching up to do but given the efforts of certain chemical manufacturers, the ecological alarms are being muffled continually by the implementation of even more dangerous products such as glyphosate (Center for Disease Control, 2020). Not only has glyphosate been shown to be a hormone disruptor, but a recent study has shown that it does cross the blood-brain barrier and is possibly implicated in Alzheimer's disease (Winstone et al., 2022). Most if not all of you did not have to swim in DDT like I did, but you are literally swimming in a sea of herbicides like glyphosate that may cause damage yet unknown (Marino et al., 2021). Is it possible that the recent falling sperm and fertility rates across the world are due to chemicals like these (Anifandis et al., 2018; Sengupta et al., 2017; Serra et al, 2021). It is imperative that we insist that corporations, especially those with conflicts of interest like the herbicide/GMO producers, be held accountable for their ethical behavior in regard to current and future harm to our ecosystems and all life on this earth.

     I do hope that the world will recognize our ecological needs soon, for all of our sakes. I would like to wish you all a safe and happy future, and to quote the late great Natalie Cole (2022), forever and ever continued, "I Wish You Bluebirds in the Spring" (NatalieColeMusic. 2022).

References

Anifandis, G., Katsanaki, K., Lagodonti, G., Messini, C., Simopoulou, M., Dafopoulos, K., & Daponte, A. (2018). The Effect of Glyphosate on Human Sperm Motility and Sperm DNA Fragmentation. International journal of environmental research and public health, 15(6), 1117. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15061117

Center for Disease Control. (2020). Toxicological Profile for Glyphosate. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Retrieved on March 28, 2023, from https://wwwn.cdc.gov/TSP/ToxProfiles/ToxProfiles.aspx?id=1488&tid=293

Center for Disease Control. (2022). Toxicological Profile for DDT, DDE, and DDD. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Retrieved on March 28, 2023, from https://wwwn.cdc.gov/TSP/ToxProfiles/ToxProfiles.aspx?id=81&tid=20

Environmental Protection Agency. (2022). The Case of DDT: Revisiting the Impairment. CADDIS, 1. Retrieved on March 28, 2023, from https://www.epa.gov/caddis-vol1/case-ddt-revisiting-impairment#:~:text=Laboratory%20experiments%20showed%20that%20DDE,on%20the%20stressor%2Dresponse%20relationship.

Lundholm C. D. (1997). DDE-induced eggshell thinning in birds: effects of p,p'-DDE on the calcium and prostaglandin metabolism of the eggshell gland. Comparative biochemistry and physiology. Part C, Pharmacology, toxicology & endocrinology, 118(2), 113–128. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0742-8413(97)00105-9

Marino, M., Mele, E., Viggiano, A., Nori, S. L., Meccariello, R., & Santoro, A. (2021). Pleiotropic Outcomes of Glyphosate Exposure: From Organ Damage to Effects on Inflammation, Cancer, Reproduction and Development. International journal of molecular sciences, 22(22), 12606. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms222212606

NatalieColeMusic. (2022, April 22). I Wish You Love [Video]. YouTube. Retrieved on March 23, 2023, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB53iIkJzmA

National Pesticide Information Center. (1999). DDT (General Fact Sheet). Retrieved on March 28, 2023, from http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/ddtgen.pdf

Serra, L., Estienne, A., Vasseur, C., Froment, P., & Dupont, J. (2021). Review: Mechanisms of Glyphosate and Glyphosate-Based Herbicides Action in Female and Male Fertility in Humans and Animal Models. Cells, 10(11), 3079. https://doi.org/10.3390/cells10113079

Sengupta, P., Dutta, S., & Krajewska-Kulak, E. (2017). The Disappearing Sperms: Analysis of Reports Published Between 1980 and 2015. American journal of men's health, 11(4), 1279–1304. https://doi.org/10.1177/1557988316643383

Wang, L., Qie, Y., Yang, Y., & Zhao, Q. (2022). Binding and Activation of Estrogen-Related Receptor γ: A Novel Molecular Mechanism for the Estrogenic Disruption Effects of DDT and Its Metabolites. Environmental science & technology, 56(17), 12358–12367. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.1c08624

Winstone, J. K., Pathak, K. V., Winslow, W., Piras, I. S., White, J., Sharma, R., Huentelman, M. J., Pirrotte, P., & Velazquez, R. (2022). Glyphosate infiltrates the brain and increases pro-inflammatory cytokine TNFα: implications for neurodegenerative disorders. Journal of neuroinflammation, 19(1), 193. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12974-022-02544-5