Ubiquitous industrial chemicals and pesticides have a "toxic effect" on germs that play a key role in maintaining human health and could be a threat to male reproductive health, according to two teams of scientists.
"Many chemicals designed to act only on one type of target, say insects or fungi, also affect gut bacteria," says the University of Cambridge’s Indra Roux, whose team’s probe of more than 1,000 potential contaminants found 168 that are likely a danger to the human microbiome.
"Most of these chemicals had not been previously reported to have antibacterial properties," the research