A group of international scientists from the U.S. and EU have released a peer-reviewed pilot study that suggests the anogenital distance of baby girls is becoming more male-typical, due to their mothers being exposed to glyphosate when they are in the womb.

The Study, which was published on Monday, in the well-respected Elsevier peer-reviewed Journal ‘Environmental Pollution’, is a major breakthrough in our understanding of glyphosate as a hormone hacker (endocrine disruptor).

Prof. Shanna Swan and Prof. Jia Chen, who are two of the Study authors and are both Professors at Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, sent the statement below to Sustainable Pulse;

“In this pilot (N=100), we examined the concentration of glyphosate and its breakdown product (AMPA) in urine collected in mid-pregnancy in relation to anogenital distance at birth. We found that higher exposure to these pesticide-derived chemicals was associated with a longer (more male-typical) anogenital distance in girls, an association we also observed in an earlier rodent study.  These preliminary findings suggest that glyphosate is an endocrine disruptor with androgenic effects in humans. Given the increasing glyphosate exposure worldwide, larger studies should evaluate glyphosate’s developmental effects on endocrine and reproductive systems.”