Mankind's long-term survival is under threat due to 'feminisation', and award-winning scientist has said. Dr Shanna Swan said her research had found sperm counts in men in Western countries had dropped by more than 50%. She said that micro plastics and other pollutants were preventing male babies from developing properly.
That, she said, was causing an overall “feminisation” of humanity. Men were less fertile and affected by erectile disfunction more - there were also more babies being born with small penises, reports the Daily Star.
Dr Swan said humanity was in the grip of a "global existential crisis"
"In some parts of the world, the average 20-something today is less fertile than her grandmother was at 35," Dr Swan writes, dubbing the situation a "global existential crisis" in her book. While a number of toxic chemicals are affecting our declining fertility, she singles out phthalates, which are chemicals used to make plastics flexible for use in food packaging.
Phthalates can impact how certain vital hormones are produced. In experiments, lab rats exposed to phthalates had male babies with a smaller penis and scrotum, with their sperm counts being lower.
“Chemicals in our environment and unhealthy lifestyle practices in our modern world are disrupting our hormonal balance, causing various degrees of reproductive havoc,” she writes in her book Count Down. "Babies are now entering the world already contaminated with chemicals because of the substances they absorb in the womb," she said.
Some of the chemicals, called PFAS, are described as “forever chemicals”, because they aren't broken down in the environment or the human body. Instead, they build up over decades, massively impacting fertility and having a devastating effect on babies’ development.
And the higher and higher levels of these chemicals in our bodies has brought humanity to a breaking point. In her book, Dr Swan writes that there are five factors that define a species as “endangered”.
"Only one needs to be met," she says, "the current state of affairs for humans meets at least three".
