What poisons are in your body?

BEFORE I tell you about my urine, let me stress that it should have been clean. Almost a decade ago, I was shaken by my reporting on a class of toxic chemicals called endocrine disruptors. They are linked to cancer and obesity, and also seemed to feminise males, so that male alligators developed stunted genitalia and male smallmouth bass produced eggs.

In humans, endocrine disruptors were linked to two-headed sperm and declining sperm counts. They also were blamed for an increase in undescended testicles and in a birth defect called hypospadias, in which the urethra exits the side or base of the penis rather than the tip.

Believe me, the scariest horror stories are found in urology journals. If you are a man, you do not wring your hands as you read; you clutch your crotch. So I have tried for years now to limit my exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals.