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The drop in sperm count and changes in sexual development “threaten human survival” and lead to a fertility crisis, a leading epidemiologist has warned.
In a new book, Shanna Swan, an environmental and reproductive epidemiologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, warns that the impending fertility crisis poses a global threat comparable to that of the climate crisis.
“The current state of reproductive affairs cannot last any longer without threatening human survival,” she writes in Count Down.
It comes after a study she co-authored in 2017 found that sperm count in the west fell 59% between 1973 and 2011, making headlines around the world.
Now, Swan says, according to current projections, the median sperm count is expected to reach zero by 2045. “It’s a bit worrying, to say the least,” she told Axios.
In the book, Swan and co-author Stacey Colino explore how modern life threatens sperm count, alters male and female reproductive development, and endangers human life.
It highlights lifestyle and chemical exposures that change and threaten human sexual development and fertility. Such is the gravity of the threats they pose, she argues, that humans could become an endangered species.
“Of five possible criteria for determining what makes a species endangered,” writes Swan, “only one must be met; the current state of affairs for humans meets at least three. “
Swan offers advice on how to protect ourselves from harmful chemicals and urges people to “do what we can to preserve our fertility, the plight of mankind and the planet”.
Between 1964 and 2018, the global fertility rate fell from 5.06 births per woman to 2.4. Today, about half of the world’s countries have fertility rates below 2.1, the replacement level of the population.
While contraception, cultural changes, and the cost of having children are likely to be contributing factors, Swan cautions indicators suggesting that there are biological reasons as well – including increased rates of pregnancy. miscarriages, more genital abnormalities in boys and precocious puberty in girls.
Swan blames “chemicals everywhere,” found in plastics, cosmetics, and pesticides, that affect endocrines such as phthalates and bisphenol-A.
“The chemicals in our environment and unhealthy lifestyles in our modern world disrupt our hormonal balance, causing varying degrees of reproductive havoc,” she writes.
She also said factors such as smoking, marijuana and increasing obesity play a role.
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