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SAY GOODBYE TO HAPPY MEALS
Plunging Sperm Counts and Shrinking Penises Aren’t As Hilarious As They Sound
Chemically induced greying of the planet is an unexpected existential threat
Human ingenuity is endless. Climate change, nuclear war, artificial intelligence; we keep coming up with new and innovative ways to make ourselves extinct. Now we can add “failure to reproduce” to the list of possible apocalypses.
A new meta-analysis covering 53 countries found that sperm counts have dropped by fifty percent between 1973 and 2018, and that the trend has accelerated in the twenty-first century.
The research, from an international team led by Prof Hagai Levine and Prof Shanna Swan, confirms and builds on a 2017 meta-analysis examining semen quality (in terms of reproductive effectiveness, not taste or texture) which concluded that sperm counts had fallen dramatically in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.
The updated study confirms that men in South and Central America, Asia and Africa are also shooting a lot more blanks than they used to.