Frog Fantasy: A Case for Healthy Skepticism

No, this is not about the Frog Prince. Rather, it is a cautionary note about politicized science and equally politicized supportive op-eds.
Readers will recall the frenzied cries from the left bemoaning the wanton destruction of nature by a greedy and callous entrepreneurial society. Instant the amphibian equivalent of the Noble Savage -- the noble frog. A defenseless victim of the depredations of unrestrained and pernicious capitalism, the frog was elevated in status (at least for the ad hoc polemic of the moment) to the finest of God's creatures. How could we so long have ignored his pain?

With that wonderful mixture of outrage, moral superiority and frantic worry about eschatalogical implications so often found among self-anointed elites, Nicholas D. Kristof tells us (NYT) It's Time to Learn from Frogs: "Some of the first eerie signs of a potential health catastrophe came as bizarre deformities in water animals, often in their sexual organs." Having set the stage he continues, "Frogs, salamanders and other amphibians began to sprout extra legs. In heavily polluted Lake Apopka, one of the largest lakes in Florida, male alligators developed stunted genitals."

This is terrible! What can be the cause? Mr. Kristof, in due course, explains: "Apprehension is growing among many scientists that the cause of all this may be a class of chemicals called endocrine disruptors. They are very widely used in agriculture, industry and consumer products."
He goes on to paint a picture of the horrors portended for humans: genital deformities, misshaped sexual organs and cancer, early puberty in girls, obesity, insulin resistance and diabetes, effects on male and female reproduction, breast development and cancer, prostate cancer, neuroendocrinology, thyroid, metabolism and obesity, and cardiovascular endocrinology, brain development and sperm counts.

Now this is scary stuff; it scares researchers too: “Among some scientists, there is real apprehension at the new findings — nothing is more terrifying than reading The Journal of Pediatric Urology…” and a Johns Hopkins professor tells us: “It’s scary, very scary.”
Mr. Kristof concludes with this exhortation: “Those deformed frogs and intersex fish — not to mention the growing number of deformities in newborn boys — should jolt us once again.”

Which brings back – full circle -- to the frog.
An interesting article by editor Matt Walker appeared in Earth News on June 25 – fortuitously three days before the Kristof piece in the Times. The Headline reads: Legless frogs mystery solved. Mr. Walker cites Stanley Sessions, …“an amphibian specialist and professor of biology at Hartwick College…”, who says:
“Deformed frogs became one of the most contentious environmental issues of all time, with the parasite researchers on one side, and the 'chemical company' as I call them, on the other… There was a veritable media firestorm, with millions of dollars of grant money at stake [bolding mine].”

Prof. Sessions, working with Brandon Ballengee, a colleague at University of Plymouth in the UK, found that the problem was not unique to the US. After further collaborative study and observation, they discovered that dragonfly nymphs were snacking on tadpoles – the tasty bits, such as extremities and eyes. A fascinating short video (embedded in the article) persuasively seems to confirm their findings.

Matt Walker concludes, saying: "Sessions is careful to say that he doesn't completely rule out chemicals as the cause of some missing limbs. But 'selective predation' by dragonfly nymphs is now by far the leading explanation, he says."

So we cannot yet know the true effects of endocrine disruptors; they may turn out to be as devastating as Mr. Kristof and the scientists he cites predict. Whatever the case I think we may imagine that the “millions of dollars of grant money will no longer follow the frog.