The Joe Rogan Experience - #1638 - Dr. Shanna Swan

Episode Date: April 21, 2021

Shanna Swan is an environmental epidemiologist whose work examines the impact of chemical exposure on reproductive health and child development. Her book, "Count Down", is available now.

Hello. Hello. Welcome to the show. Thanks for doing this. Thanks for having me. I'm very concerned with what you're saying. Your book, Countdown, says that the modern world is threatening sperm counts, altering male and female reproductive development, and imperiling the future of the

human race. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I believe you, but I'm scared. I think we should all be kind of scared. Now, what is it specifically about the modern world that scares you? Oh, gosh, a whole bunch. But what I write about in this book is the problem with the decline of our reproductive health and the chemicals in the environment that we're surrounded with every day, all the time, that are playing a big part in it. Not the only part, but a big part in it. And so they're playing a part in affecting our hormonal production? Is that what's going on?

Yes. That's actually a good part of what they do. They interfere with our hormonal systems in various ways. So they could increase production of a hormone like a pro-estrogen. They could decrease, say, an anti-androgen, decrease testosterone. They could mess with our thyroid hormone and so on and so forth. So they change levels, but they also change how they're transported. And they interfere with making them available to other parts of the body, basically. And you got it right.

I mean, that doesn't sound so scary to people, but the consequences sound really scary, which is that we're, you know, by every measure, our sperm count, our miscarriage rates, our fertility rates, our testosterone levels, they're all going south, if you will, at the rate of about 1% per year. And specifically, which chemicals are responsible for this alteration? A whole bunch of them. And as a group, they're called endocrine disruptors because they disrupt the endocrine system, right? And so I spent a lot of time studying one particular class of those which have the ability to lower testosterone. And the reason I did that is because I'm interested in reproductive health. And testosterone is so critical, as you know, for men and women's reproductive health.

So that class is called phthalates. It's a terrible mouthful to say. Phthalates. Phthalates, right. And they sound weird, but they're very, very common. And if you gave a urine sample today and send it off to the Centers for Disease Control, you would see that you have a lot, you know, not only phthalates, but other chemicals and plastics and other chemicals in your body right now.

You could do that. It costs a little bit. Are we getting these from food? Are we getting these from water? What are we getting these? All of the above. All of the above. All of the above. But the phthalates are probably mostly coming from our food. And that's kind of surprising. Do you want me to tell you how? Yes, please.

Yeah. Okay. So let's think of a little experiment. So go into a hospital, into the neonatal intensive care nursery. I'll come back to the food. And there's a baby lying there, and that baby has a lot of lines coming into her body. And that's delivering food, nutrients, oxygen, whatever the baby needs. And the tubes are soft, squishy plastic. So as the food nutrients comes through the tubes, goes into the baby, the baby metabolizes them, goes into the urine because they're water-soluble. And then we get the urine, we measure, and we can see what's in it. And the amount of phthalate that's in that urine is exactly

proportional to the number of lines come into the baby. So if you understand that, you understand how food could be contaminated with phthalates because milking machines have this. And, you know, all kinds of processing machines have this soft plastic. So this stuff is coming into the food somewhere between the time it's picked. And by the way, phthalates could be in pesticides as well. I'll tell you why in a minute. And then they're introduced not only through those tubes, but also through the packaging. They're wrapped in soft plastic sometimes. And then in our homes, we might

cook in, microwave in plastic, for example. All of that just, it's not, doesn't stick to the plastic. It's not chemically bound. Hops into the food, gets into us, gets into a pregnant woman's womb, affects the offspring. And I hope to be able to tell you how it does that. But that's what I've been studying for about 20 years. So these plastic covers that, like, if you buy food and it's wrapped, like if you buy peppers or something like that and they're wrapped in plastic, that plastic is leaching onto your food a certain amount of these phthalates, no matter what.

Different plastics are different, and I can't speak to all plastics, and some people take a lot of care to wrap their food in safe plastics. What are safe plastics? Yeah, so it's a changing landscape as new things are introduced, but there's an old saying, which I think is pretty much still true, which is four, five, one, and two, all the rest are bad for you. What does that mean? It means that if you had a

plastic cup here, we could look at the bottom of it and you'd see a recycling code. You've seen those right yes in the triangle there's a number and that number is one two three four five six seven so if you want to know is it is it um jamie doesn't have one of his you have to look at the bottom there it is yep what's that plastic bottle it just has the symbol. It doesn't have a number on it. Well, some do and some don't.

Four, five, one, and two, all the rest are bad for you. That's pretty easy, right? So, unfortunately, the wrappings on the peppers and so on don't have a number on them. But by and large, I can't say. It really varies. But I do know that anything that comes in plastic, you do not want to put in the microwave. Absolutely do not want to. Oh.

Yeah. Really? Yeah. So microwave foods that are in plastic containers. No. No bueno. No bueno. Take them out.

Put them in ceramic. Put them in glass. It's really good. And in general, if you can, get plastics out of your kitchen. When did all this come to light? When did people start understanding the negative consequences of plastics in your food? and your food? Well, they came to understand it first in animals, because that's the way science works. You know, first you do animal studies, and then you try to replicate them in humans, right? And so in around 2000, they did some experiments where they fed a rat food contaminated with phthalates. And then they looked to see how the offspring developed. Right? And what they saw was that the males were born different than the females and different from unexposed males. Do you want me to tell you how different? Yes, please.

Do you want me to tell you how different? Yes, please. So this will really interest you, I think. What happened is, so let's go back. So before the phthalates, you know, early in pregnancy, the genitals are just a single ridge. Same in males and females. Undifferentiated. Okay? Same in males and females. Undifferentiated. Okay? And then at a certain time, and in mice and rats, it's 15 to 18 days of gestation, the testicles start making testosterone.

And then that gives the signal to produce the male typical genitals. So if they don't have the testosterone, there will be ovaries, and if there is testosterone, there'll be testicles, and so on and so forth, right? And that migration requires testosterone at exactly the right time and the right amount. It's very delicately programmed, okay? So if that happens, if everything goes well, then the penis will develop. It'll have a certain size. And then there's something which is very key to my research, which is something you might know by the name of the taint. That taint, or we call it anogenital distance. Yeah, it's not really a technical term, is it?

But anogenital distance is. Yes, but taint. It's hilarious listening to a PhD say taint. Right. Well, I'm saying that because I'm talking to a lot of people who might not know. The area known as the taint. Okay. Yes.

Known on the street as the taint. Yes, the streets. Or the gooch or the grundle. The gooch. I've never. I've never said known as the gooch. Yes, the streets. And or the gooch or the grundle. The gooch. I've never. You know about the gooch? Yeah, I just saw something the other day. Didn't know what a taint was.

And they're like, oh, you mean the gooch. I've never heard the gooch. Yeah. I thought the gooch was like a baseball player. Well, it could be that also, but. Isn't there a guy named the gooch? Maybe he's named after. Sorry.

And also ABC. Have you heard ABC? ABC? No, I have not heard that. How does that one go? Aspall Connector. Oh, the Aspall Connector. Okay.

Yeah. Okay. But enough for a woman. Yes, you can measure... Yeah, it's not called... But you can't call it an ABC. It's not called the ABC very much. Okay.

Sorry. So here you got this distance, and it's been measured in animals for like 100 years. And what they use it for was first to just sex the animal. So the litter is born. There's a lot of little pups. They want to separate the males and the females because they're going to do different things. And they just hold them up by the tail and they look. And the reason you can do this is because in the male, it's much longer.

It's 50 to 100% longer. Now this is, stop and think about this, there's nothing else in the body that's that different between males and females in terms of size. Organs yes, but size no. You know our heights don't differ by 50 to 100%, our weights nothing, nothing. It's this is it. This is the mark. Is that in all animals? It's almost all mammals. Really? The hyena is a little different. We could talk about that. Yeah, I know about those. You know about those, yeah. I have a whole bit about them. Yeah. So, you know, the females are masculinized, so they have a longer

AGD, right? But for most mammals, it's this way, okay, including humans. So here's this little pup that's born, and if he's unexposed, he'll have a good, you know, standard penal size and AGD, and he won't have any malformations of his penis and so on. You know, he'll be normal. But if his mother was exposed to phthalates, everything can go south. And what happens is the penis is smaller, and the AGD is smaller, and the scrotum is smaller, and the testes are maybe not descended. In other words, it didn't finish the process. It was arrested, if you will. So we say that that pup is incompletely masculinized.

Now, the amount of phthalates that get into the pup system in utero, is that possible to achieve those levels in the modern world with human beings? Absolutely. It is. And I'm going to tell you what I did to show that. I showed that. Wow. So when I heard this story, I was flying on a plane to Japan to go to a conference. I was with a friend who was a chemist for the Centers for Disease Control.

And he said, Shauna, you should study phthalates. And I'm going, why? I'd never heard of you should study phthalates and I'm going why I'd never heard of them what what why phthalates and he said well we have been measuring them at the CDC and they're in everybody they're in pregnant women and this group of scientists in the National Toxicology Program has shown that they altered the development of the male newborn. And they called that the phthalate syndrome. That's what it's called. That collection of changes that come about after the mother has phthalates is called the phthalate syndrome. So I thought, well, does that happen in humans? Same question you asked, right?

So how would you answer that question? Then I'll tell you what I did. How would I? Well, you would hope that you're not running experiments like you're running them on animals. Right. like you're running them on animals. Right. Are you measuring the blood of the people that are having children that have issues with development, development issues in the way the children look when they're born?

Is that what you're doing? It's really close. So phthalates have the property that they dissolve in water. It's water-soluble. And so they go into the urine. So for this class of chemicals, if you want to know how much is in your body and my body, we've got to measure the urine. Other chemicals, like flame returns, we would look in the blood. So it depends what the chemical is, but your right idea, look inside the body. Okay. Then rather than looking at kids with problems, what I did was I just took a whole population of pregnant women and I got their urine, measured their phthalates, got their kids, measured their kids. So then I had the problem of what to measure in the kids

because nobody had made this translation from an animal genital developmental system to a human. And so that was kind of a challenge, you know, figuring out how to do that. But we did that. And we developed this system for this exam for measuring all these things that you measure in a rat, we measured it in our children. And then we showed, and this was big news when it came out, that the mother's salads did alter the genitals of the boys. So that was the first evidence. That was 2005. And then we published some more in 2008. And then we, fortunately, I got money to do it all again. NIH doesn't like to pay for replication.

It's very expensive. These things are $5 million a study, by the way. Well, it seems like it's very important, though. Yeah. So they gave it to me. They gave my money to do it again. So the second time, I did it better because I really knew what I was looking for. And I got urine actually in three points in pregnancy. And I measured the kids exactly when they're born. So everything was much more precise. And I found it again. So everything was much more precise, and I found it again. So now there's no question, I don't think anyone questions,

that at least this class of chemicals, which we know lower testosterone, alter the development of these boys. And then I asked, well, what does that have to do with sperm count? Because actually for a long time, we haven't talked yet about sperm count, but I've been studying, tracing, you know, what's happening with sperm count. I'll tell you the history of that in a minute. So then I thought, well, is this related to sperm count? Well, these are babies.

They don't have a sperm count. But in rats, it looked like the AGD was permanent. So if you had a short, just like if you have a small hand, you know, your stature is set at birth, right? So the AGD, if you're born small, and my friend Earl Gray, who was a toxicologist, said AGD is forever. We don't know that for sure about humans, by the way, because we haven't had the 20 years yet. But if you believe that, then a sensible thing to do was to take a group of adult men who could give you a sperm count and measure their AGD. Right? And then you could see whether those with a shorter AGD had a lower sperm count. GD had a lower sperm count. And then you would have one pretty solid piece of evidence that chemicals in the environment lower sperm count. Are you with me? Yes, ma'am. Okay. So I did that

study too. So I got students in Rochester, New York to volunteer for 75 bucks to participate. And they gave us a semen sample, and they gave us opportunity to measure them, also a questionnaire. How does one measure kids' taints? Do they just bend over and you bust out a ruler? I happened to bring you something to show you. I noticed you had this measuring device. Jamie's volunteered to let you measure his taint, by the way.

That's why I have a sub-pants on. So this is not for a baby. This is for our Rochester Young Men's Study. And it looks kind of fierce, but we had the points taken down and yeah I use one of those to measure pool cue tips there you go all right so you know all about it yeah turn it on you want 13 millimeters that's what I like but only for so look I also brought you a little diagram so you can see where we measure. Okay.

But we can't show this. I don't know how to show this, but I'll show it to you. So the calipers are in, they're in millimeters or in inches or both? Both. You can, yeah, yeah. And so what you do. Oh, boy, you got a diagram of the tank. Is there a chart online I could look up like a, how about I just hold this up?

Okay. Yeah. That works too. Yeah. All right. look up like a how about i just hold this up okay yeah that works too yeah all right can we have a selfie with you and me in that picture yes ma'am okay all right so what i wanted to so when i published this the uh the headlines were size matters but it's not what you think.

Right. Right? Yeah. And so I got all these people asking me, what should it be? What's good enough? What's big enough? So I did this translation from the millimeters for you. So here it is. The two inches is the median.

Okay? And in this population. And here's the kicker if it was less than two men who had less than two inches were seven times more likely to have a sperm count in the subfertile range i can tell you what that is as men who had an agd longer than two inches. Wow. Seven times. It certainly is related to sperm count. And then another study in California showed that infertile men in an infertility clinic versus men who had come, had born a child, had smaller taint length. When did this stuff start getting into our food supply? Has that

been estimated? So, the growth of these chemicals tracks with the growth of the petrochemical industry because they're made from petrochemical byproducts.

So if you look at a curve of the growth, it starts around the 1950s. So back in 1950, you have people loving science, jumping on the science bandwagon. There's this better living through chemistry that everyone's talking about. And everybody is just wanting everything made of plastic. You know, it's the new craze. It's the new, you know. And it just took off. It went faster than a straight line, you know, exponentially up. And so somewhere in there, it started having an effect.

But we're not sure. But I did look at the decline in sperm count over time. So we could look at that as an indication that this is not the only thing that's affecting sperm count, by the way, these phthalates. But that's one where I feel I can say this with confidence because I measured those babies and I, you know, I did it. I did the science and I did it again. And other people have done it. And so it's, I believe it's solid. And that's just one example of the many chemicals that can affect our hormone system.

Well, it's very frightening because that, very frightening because that's not a reversible thing. That's correct. That is absolutely correct. So the stunted development of these children is permanent, and it's probably incredibly widespread when you think about the use of these plastics and the amount of plastics. I of plastics to give me people have plastic cups and plastic plates and plastic this and plastic that and tupperware and is that for me yep calipers i can measure pool cues and taints so this is uh is this well known?

I mean, I haven't heard this before. And I'm wondering, is this because I'm ignorant of this? Or is this because this is, I mean, you were saying this was all discovered in the early 2000s. And your last study was 2005, is that what you said? No, the last, I mean, the first study was 2005. 2005. That was the first one. The animal studies were earlier, but that was the first human one. And they've been going on ever since. The problem is that we don't talk about the consequences of this. We as a society,

we don't talk about sperm counts are going down, testosterone is going down, you know, we're having more and more children by assisted reproduction. I don't know about you, but, I mean, do you know anybody who's had trouble having a child? Yes. Everybody says yes. It's quite a few people, but in general, I notice it's usually older people that have had a career. And then when they get into their late 30s or their 40s, then they decide to have children. It's very difficult. Yes.

Aging is definitely a problem. But it's not the only problem. And there are many young – if you talk to your nice nurse that I forgot her name. Mercy. Mercy. She told me about two of her young friends who have had trouble having – it's not just the – it's the, it's the older ones, you know, they're more prevalent. So you hear more of them, but young people too are having problems and it's, it's everywhere and it's increasing. So, um, I think now we're going to start paying attention because we're feeling the impact,

you know, until it comes home to roost, as you say, it's not going to make us change anything. But I think this might. Yeah, I was reading something about lowered testosterone counts and that lowered sperm counts is happening with people and they were trying to figure out why, but they had not made the connection to your work. It was just an article about trying to recognize what's causing this trend. So listening to what you're saying, it really hits home. That's terrifying because I'm thinking about how many people this affects and how many people consume things that are either wrapped in plastic

or they microwave things in plastic or they drink bottled water. We stopped drinking bottled water here a while back just because it was wasteful. Right. And I'd heard about plastic leaching into waters and how it could do something, add estrogen to your body or something like that. I'm like, well, it just seems like a bad idea to just drink out of plastic all the time. And they said it was a bad idea when you leave. Like we lived in California.

It was hot. And if you had a water bottle in your car, you should never drink it after it's been sitting in there. The same thing. But I never made the connection to the developmental cycle of a child. That child is the most sensitive organism. It affects adults too. But because there's just

so much going on there, right? Everything is developing then. That's the most critical period. And like you say, it's forever. So let me give you a good example of this. Smoking. Smoking is not a good thing for reproduction. It's not a good thing for sperm count, okay?

If the mother smokes, then on the average, her son can lose 40% of his sperm count. If the father smokes in that period before he conceives the child, there's 60 to 70 days that the sperm is being created. In that period, that sperm is vulnerable to what he's exposed to, like smoking. So then that child has also about a 40% lower sperm. And that's not fixable. However, if the man smokes himself, his parents didn't, he did, he might have a 20% reduction, and then he goes off, He might have a 20% reduction, and then he goes off, and then he's good to go. So it's very different if the exposure occurs in utero or postnatally or in childhood or in adulthood. Yeah.

So it's the unborn child that we really need to protect the most. Yeah. This is really scary information. And I'm wondering why this is not more popular. Why isn't this not on the news first story? This is affecting the development cycle of how many children? I mean, are we even? That's crazy. It is crazy. And it takes a long time to get this word out. And I wrote Countdown for this reason. I've been talking about this to my peers at meetings, conferences, writing papers.

I've written over 200 papers that say this. But it's a very small circle of people. It's know each other and know the facts. And that's where it stays. In order to get it out, I have to talk to you. I have to talk to your listeners. I've given, well, over 100 interviews in the last two months. I mean, I'm just saying this to everybody I can because it's got to get out there. I just can't believe I haven't heard it before. That's what's so terrifying to me. When I received the pitch, I read the breakdown of what your work was and what you discovered,

and I was thinking, why don't I know this? How come I don't know this? This is crazy. Like, this is, what it's called? Okay, let's just talk. Maybe this is grossly exaggerated, maybe. But no, it's under-exaggerated. that maybe i'm maybe this is grossly exaggerated maybe but no it's under exaggerated i mean or it's it's under reported rather it's definitely under reported i just don't understand how it could be this seems like a significant issue

it is a significant issue and hopefully more people are recognizing but look people don't if if you have a problem with your cholesterol i'm sure you don't, if you have a problem with your cholesterol, I'm sure you don't, but suppose you had a cholesterol check, you go to a cocktail party, you say, I went to the doctor, I had a high cholesterol, I'm going to not eat this and this. You wouldn't say, I went to my doctor and have a low sperm count. Right? People don't talk about this. They don't talk about their reproductive health. And here's one of the

surprising things is that low sperm count that's related to phthalates, that man is going to die younger. Nature doesn't want him around. It affects the whole body. He's going to have likely to have more heart disease. And most likely that is what's going on, right? Like the body has with a low sperm count body, the body is obviously damaged by this process in the womb. Right. And longevity, vitality, just everything has to suffer.

I mean, have you made a connection with this and depression or with anxiety or any other things that are affecting people to disproportionate amount? I haven't looked at that, but I can tell you it affects libido. Yes. Right. But that is why I asked because there's a gentleman that's a friend of mine named Dr. Mark Gordon, and he's worked with a lot of people with traumatic brain injuries. And one of the things that happens with damage to the pituitary gland is a decrease in the amount of testosterone that's produced by the brain and the testes. And then what happens after that is severe depression. And this connection between severe depression and lowered testosterone is pretty significant. He's done a lot of work with this group called the warrior angel foundation with

another friend of mine andrew marr and they have worked with these soldiers and now he's also done some work with football players and fighters and a lot of other people with head injuries and he's shown this direct correlation between severe depression and lower testosterone anxiety a lot of like mental health issues. I would imagine that these kids that are born with this disruption in their developmental cycle and they have lowered sperm count, like I bet everything is, everything's decreased. Everything's a mess. Yeah. I'm definitely going to follow up on that and look at that. I can, what we've just, you know, we followed our kids. Our kids are now

in our latest study, nine years, eight, nine years old. So they're not, they're not there yet. So I don't have those endpoints, but we do know that when we asked, for example, by the way, women need testosterone too. And it's related to women's libido. So in our study, we did ask the woman about her sexual satisfaction frequency and so on, and higher levels of phthalates were associated with lower sexual satisfaction. And of course, it's related to erectile dysfunction, which, by the way, is now, you know, rapidly rising and testosterone replacement is being used by younger and younger men. So it's a big thing. It's affecting all of our, you know, reproductive health. Is this in other countries as well? Yes. Have they measured this in different

countries, like countries in the developmental world and the countries where they use less plastic versus countries where they use more plastics? No, I don't know of a study like ours in a developing country. But we have studies in other countries, for sure, in Europe. But one measure of where it's a problem, I would say, is where is sperm count declining? And I mean, the kickoff for this book, Countdown, was a paper that we wrote in 2017 in which we showed that sperm count in Western countries had declined kind of catastrophically. So let me just tell you the numbers. Think back to 1973. That was the first, that's the start of our trend. And at that point, the median, that's the middle of the distribution, was 99 million sperm per milliliter.

That's a good, healthy sperm count. 73. At the end of our study period was 2011. In those 39 years, it had dropped from 99 to 47. Yikes. Over all Western countries. All Western countries? Yes, averaged over all Western countries, yes.

Wow. That's more than a 50% decline in under 40 years. That's crazy. Yeah, thank you but it's that i would imagine this is just i keep repeating myself but i'm sorry i would imagine this would be a big news story i don't understand why you have to come to some meatheads podcast to explain this to people that that's when i'm getting the word out on things like that it really scares the shit out of me Because I'm like how is this not being picked up By major news organizations

And 60 Minutes And all these different programs Why are they not sounding the alarms We need to figure this out And we need to figure it out now Right What if it keeps trending down this way It is

So what we did in our curve We said okay that's 40 years What about if we go 30 years Maybe it keeps trending down this way? It is. It is. So what we did in our curve, we said, okay, that's 40 years. What about if we go 30 years? Maybe it's slowing down. Nope. 20 years. Slowing down? Nope.

10 years? Nope. We saw no indication that the trend was slowing down. It's going to have to. Let me just point out, because if you bring it down to zero, just think what that means. Median of zero means half the sperm would be negative. Counts would be negative. Not possible.

Can't have a negative. Right? Right. So it's going to have to, just think about the curve coming down, coming down towards it. It's going to have to flatten out. There'll be none. There'll be no sperm. You'll have a zero sperm count.

I mean, if it's really dropping down by, it's basically 50% in the time period from 1973 to 2011, as I would just say, that's bananas. I mean, the fact that that can even happen and there's not alarms being sounded. I know. We're changing human beings. Absolutely. Like what it means to be a human being. That's right. Developing human being is a different thing now.

Right. Because of poisons. Right. Wow. That's really scary. It's really scary when you think about that what you're saying about people having a hard time reproducing and where this could lead to a dramatic drop-off in the population. Like we're worried about overpopulation. Right. But

if this is real, the children that are being born today, if they have this issue and then we're looking at them 20 years from now, the reproductive sort of cycle starts kicking in in terms of them having babies and raising families. What's the numbers going to be? What are they going to be for their children? Right. Wow. And here's another thing to think about. Wow.

And here's another thing to think about. So a mother is exposed to some phthalates, other chemicals, the phenols, the line tin cans, and the flame retardants, and the pesticides. They're all bad. They all can do this in different ways. But let's just talk about this phthalates. So the mother is exposed to the phthalates and she's carrying, let's just say, a son in the womb. And then he has within him what's called the germ cells of his sperm, right? So she's exposed, the child is exposed,

and the next generation is exposed. So from one person being exposed, you're exposing three generations. So you're right to say, think about the later, you know, the kids coming and the kids coming after that. But here's the good news. Should be some good news, right? Yeah. But here's the good news. Should be some good news, right? The good news is that in a very elegant study in the University of Washington, Pat Hunt showed that if you have a guy, mouse, who was exposed and had impaired fertility and sperm count, and then you cleaned up everything about his environment and that and for his child's environment and his child's child's environment in three generations we can recover reproductive health but what

happens in three generations if we don't clean everything up then the trend continues downward right and how do we clean things up? That's the real question. All this stuff comes from petrochemicals and plastics. That's a significant part of our world. That's right. And also a part of the world that has a very strong lobby that does not want a decrease in sales. Absolutely right.

And has anybody fought this? Has anybody debated you on this? Or does anyone deny the data? No. Not yet. Wait till after this podcast. Well, right. I'm sure there'll be a lot of pushback from your listeners.

But there's, okay, first of all, we can do better. One place, let me just say, we used to do terribly with drugs. The regulation of drugs was terrible. That's why we had thalidomide babies and other terrible breakthroughs. And then the FDA got it together and learned how to regulate drugs. And we're pretty safe now. And we know, for example, how to test vaccines and so on and so forth. So we can work toward a viable regulatory system if we want to. So I believe that. In Europe, they're many steps ahead of us because they have instituted something called REACH. Now Now under REACH, if a guy, manufacturer wants to put a chemical into commerce, into a plastic bottle, into a

personal care product, where they are also, by the way, he has to show that it's not harmful before he does that. So there has to pass a series of tests. In this country, we don't have that regulation. In this country, it's put it in and we'll see if it's harmful. No prior regulation required. You see? So it's really, really different. The bottom line is like, we have only like 11 chemicals that are not allowed in our personal care products. In Europe, they have 1,100. They also don't allow commercials for drugs. Yeah.

We have a lot of screwed up stuff over here. Right. So, you know, what we have to think about is how do we get angry enough and concerned enough to change the regulations so that we're protected? Now, what can be done? Has that been looked at? Well, two questions. First, what is happening to women? And what is happening to female babies? We're talking about lowered sperm count. What's the effect on female children? So this delicate testosterone balance that I talked about can go the other way for females,

but that's not through something like phthalates. It's through other chemicals possibly. We just published a paper that, and this is early, I'm not gonna, you know, this is not the same weight of evidence at all as I have for the phthalates, but we just published two papers in which we showed that when mothers were exposed to higher levels of a certain pesticide, which is in Roundup, which is, have you heard of Roundup? Clivephosate. Glyphosate? Yeah. So that antigenal distance in the girls was long, was more masculine.

And that was shown in rats as well. So that may go away. This was the first study. It was a small study. I don't know that that's going to stick. But that's the kind of thing that could be going on, that there are chemicals out there that alter increased testosterone. They're called proandrogens. And they can mess up females in sort of in the opposite direction. But it doesn't have that same effect on males, correct? Like glyphosate?

No, glyphosate doesn't. No, I don't think so. Not in our kids. So the animal data is a little not clear, but in our kids, we didn't see anything in the males. But the point is that there's lots of stuff out there that's messing with our hormone systems. And so that's where we should be looking. We should be looking at, you know, what's going on out there that we're taking in all the time, by the way. Right. We call them everywhere, all the time, chemicals, you know, because they're just coming in. We can't stop them. We don't know. We don't know what's in our bodies. And you know what? It's not fair that we as consumers should have to worry about this, I don't think. Right. I mean, why do I have to? Well, it's a complete failure on the part of the regulators.

Right. The people that are supposed to be watching out for the general public and not allowing these things to get into our bodies. Just the fact that Roundup is still available, Monsanto continues to sell it. And also the fact that it clearly is terrible for people when it gets into your body. It's not, it's not a benign thing whatsoever. Right. And that's just one. Right. What other things are affecting the development cycle? Oh, my gosh. So there are, you know, theres of Teflon frying pans, coatings of your jacket that you wear in

the rain, you know, repellent, those coatings, and they're also on paper, you know, keeps the grease from going through to the box when you buy a pizza. Those coatings are also hormonally active and very, very prevalent. I haven't studied those myself, so I don't want to talk a lot about their effects, but I know they have reproductive effects. I know they affect, for example, fetal growth. So rainwear, like that kind of stuff? Yeah. Yeah. The repellent, the repellent, you know, anything that puts a barrier, any barrier, a chemical barrier. They're called the PFAS. Sometimes they're called PFAS and PFOA. They're different classes of chemicals, but perfluorinated compounds.

Then there are the phenols, the bisphenols, which, by the way, you probably, did you ever try to buy a BPA-free bottle? I don't know if you ever tried. Yes. Yeah. Right? So they're labeled BPA-free. So what happened was people got really upset about BPA. It had a lot of reproductive effects.

And so they took it out. And that's good. But what happened was, and this happens over and over and over again in chemical cycles, they put something else in. They put in BPF like Frank and people S like Sam. And BPF and BPS are, particularly BPF is equally if not more risky than BPA.

And the bottle says BPA-free. That's true. But it doesn't say bisphenol-free. Right. Right? So I think that's a dirty trick. And we call it whack-a-mole. Yeah.

What can the general public do to eliminate as much of these harmful chemicals as possible? to avoid. But I could say you could think about, thank you, think about walking through your kitchen and looking for plastics and trying to swap out ceramic and glass or metal, not for the microwave, of course, but and in your bathroom to look at your personal care products. They won't say phthalates by and large. Because you're not consuming them? I don't know why they're not required. No, it doesn't say phthalates on our spaghetti sauce that has phthalates in them either.

We can come back to that. But I don't actually know what the regulation is. I know for sure they don't have to be labeled in fragrance products because those are trade secrets. If you buy a jar of spaghetti sauce that's in a glass jar, you're still getting phthalates? Probably, yes. From the tomatoes, the packaging of the tomatoes? you're still getting phthalates? Probably, yes. From the tomatoes, the packaging of the tomatoes?

Probably from the processing. So when you go from a tomato to a sauce, you have to process it. And so that processing introduces phthalates. If you go, think about a cow. This is different, but it's the same principle. So the cow is being milked. Maybe this cow is on a wonderful farm with the picture of the farmer and the grass, and it's an organic farm, and everybody's happy. And then he milks the cow or she milks the cow through a milking machine that has tubes.

What are those tubes made of? Plastic. Plastic. And so they go into the milk. Foul. So I actually am hoping to do a systematic study, which I'm calling farm to fork, where we take a bunch of products, see what's in them at the farm, see what's in them at the table, and see where it's introduced along the way. Because nobody's done that. We don't really know where they come in. So we don't really know how to keep them out. Yeah.

And that would be if you're trying to eat organic. Even in that sense, if you're having milk and it's coming through tubes, if you're having anything that's wrapped in plastic, even if it's grass-fed, organic, there's still – you're wrapping it in a plastic. Yeah. But I would say the number one thing is do not microwave it in plastic. Is that accelerated or is that just like a way that it gets into the food much quicker or much higher doses? Yes, because it's so warm.

Yeah. And those little packets that it's so warm. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's, um, and, and those little packets that it's sealed in are not good. Yeah. So we have a lot to do to keep these out of our bodies. Um, and like I said, it's not, it's not really our job to do that. Well, I don't think most people have any idea that this is that big of an issue. And when you're saying all this stuff, and I'm terrified of this because I feel like, and I'm glad you wrote this book, and I'm glad you did these studies, but I feel like this has caught people completely off guard. And I'm glad you did these studies. But I feel like this has caught people completely off guard.

And then I'm picturing a supermarket and just going down the road looking at, like, packages of lettuce and things wrapped in plastic and meat wrapped in plastic and chicken and, like, wow. You know, probably those single-layer wrappers that those things are coming in, I don't know. I haven't tested those. And that's one of the things I want to do with this project. But probably those are not so bad. I think the ones that have been sealed in are worse. And ideally, I would say, if you can go to, like I go to the farmer's, I live in New York, I go to the farmer's market down in Union Square, I buy stuff, you know, I take a bunch of carrots. I take it home. I put it in the fridge.

I eat it. That will definitely not introduce anything into the product. What happens to fully developed people that encounter phthalates if they encounter them in large doses? Like, say, someone like yourself. Like, if you started eating microwaved food and you've got a large dose of phthalates in your diet, what would happen? I don't think we know. We haven't studied the effect of adult exposures of somebody my age. go to say assisted reproduction. Beautiful series of studies at Harvard

showed that the amount of chemicals in their urine and blood when they come in for their assisted reproductive procedure influences how that procedure comes out. So how many eggs can be retrieved, how many are implanted, how many actually progress to a live birth is related to the chemicals in

their body at the time they start the procedure. So that's an effect of an adult, to an adult, of an adult exposure, you know, that I know of for sure. I don't, it's very possible that these are related to aging and diseases of aging. They certainly affect the brain, we know that from our studies. So, but you know every one of these questions requires, like I said, five million dollars. And you got a lot of chemicals and you got a lot of questions. So we really got to get busy. And you also have a lot of companies that have a vested interest in continuing business as usual,

and they want to deny as much responsibility for having these chemicals in our bodies as they can. Yes, and not to swap out ones we put the finger on with other ones that we haven't tested yet. And what you're talking about, too, is that to turn this around, in general, you're talking about multiple generations in order to bring the developmental cycle back to normal. That's right. That's crazy. I wonder if there's a trend in terms of, like, looking at young male athletes. Wow. I wonder if there's a trend in terms of looking at young male athletes. Wow.

You're looking at male athletes and phthalate and the development and what's possible. I think that would be a fabulous study. A fabulous study. In general, what has the response been when people find out about this and when people read the data and see your book and read the information in it? Many people have a reaction like yours. This is really serious. We have to take this seriously. We have to do something about it. And there are people, I'm sure, that don't believe it.

Are there people that have been dismissive? There have been some people that have been dismissive of the kind that say there's too many people in the world anyway. Who says that? I can show you. Those people. Too many people in the world anyway. But imagine that that's your solution. There's too many people in the world anyway. But imagine that that's your solution. There's too many people in the world. So let's ruin babies so they can't reproduce. Right. And they're depressed.

Right. And have small taints. And penises, by the way. Yeah. Whoops. All of this sounds really horrific. I mean, but really that has been the response that some people have, that this is probably—

maybe they look at it in terms of, like, nature has a way of working itself out, whether or not it's voluntary or whether or not it's just an incidental part of the system. Right. And that's essentially what's going on here. This is an incidental. This is nature's way of dealing with an overpopulation problem. Yeah. Some people say, yes.

Well, it kind of makes sense that this does sort of balance itself out in some very bizarre way. But you know what? It's not just humans. Do you know that many, many species on the planet have the same problem? And we can cause these problems in animals with these chemicals in the laboratory. So when you say it's nature's way of working things out, well, is that working its way out for the species that are becoming in danger? Well, I think they're just a side effect of nature working its things out with us. our production of food and packaging of food somehow or another gets to these other animals,

that's just an accidental process. And it's not our responsibility. Oh, it's certainly our responsibility. It's all of our responsibility. But it's really the responsibility of the people that are packaging food. It's really the responsibility of the people that are involved in getting the stuff to us and how are they getting it to us and how are the phthalates getting to us. If there was any other thing that someone was doing that turned out was affecting the entire human race because of their business, just fill in the blank. If we found out that whatever it is, cell phone use or driving a car, looking at your dashboard was somehow or another affecting the reproductive cycle of the human race, there would be drastic consequences. People would be talking about this.

Maybe. I would imagine. Maybe. Maybe. But again. This is not everybody's favorite topic, as I mentioned. And it's, by the way, it's painful for women especially. Let me just, we haven't talked about that.

But you know that for centuries women have been blamed for the fact that a couple can't get pregnant. The guy assumes he's good to go until he needs to prove himself. And then if he can't, it's got to be on her. Most men don't have a clue about their sperm count. I don't know about you, but I can tell you, I think that every man should know his sperm count. Not only because he might want to have a child, but because it might tell him something

about his overall health, by the way. So here's this woman that's being blamed. She's also being, and by the way, infertility, we now know, is about 50-50 in terms of blame. I don't think blame is the right word. Yeah, it's a weird word. Weird word, right? But you can find a female cause about a third of the time, a male cause about a third of the time, a male cause about a third of the time, and a third of the time, it could be both or you don't know. So that's kind of 50-50. And then you go, if they manage to conceive, then a high percent of pregnancies have miscarriage. The miscarriage rate is probably over 50%. And that is also attributable to phthalates, you think? No, I don't. I think it's going up. It's going up. It's the same rate as sperm count is going down, by the way. What do you think is causing that?

I think it's a lot of chemicals that are causing that. Different chemicals. Different chemicals. And I studied some of them. I studied chemicals in water at one point. I studied solvents in water and showed they were related to miscarriages. Man-made chemicals are not great for our reproductive health. What chemicals are associated with miscarriages? Well, I can't say that off the top of my head, all of them. But the ones that I've studied, I studied that those were the chlorination byproducts so when you chlorinate water the high levels of certain chlorination byproducts

and also solvents that are used to clean chips and other you know certain high so chlorination meaning tap water or also meaning swimming in pools that are chlorinated and getting it through your skin my study was on homes, tap water in homes. But probably there's some risk from pool climbing. Has anybody studied the miscarriage rate of active swimmers? Not that I know of. It seems like that would be a big one, right? Yeah, yeah.

Because most certainly if you're training in a swimming pool or swimming on a daily basis, you're getting dosed with chlorine every day, especially if it's a public pool. Yeah. So the big picture is that we have these thousands of chemicals that we can't get a handle on. There was a law. It was called the Toxic Substances Control Act, and it was published in 76. And at that point, when they put that in, they said, OK, here are thousands of chemicals. They've been out there for a long time. Nobody seems to worry about them. They're all OK. They were called grandfathered in.

They were not regulated. They were called grandfathered in. They were not regulated. We have that legacy on top of the lack of testing of new chemicals. So there's very little regulation of all of these chemicals that are circling in our environment and entering our bodies. I and my colleagues, you know, are few compared to the problem, and we need more resources, and we need more people worrying about this. And I think the first step is to just have people like you and your listeners and people I talk to on all these shows I've gone on, you know, recognizing, thinking about it, just thinking about it. You know, wow, this seems to be a problem. Maybe I should worry about bringing this and this and this into my house. Maybe I should read these labels. Maybe I should, you know, because it hasn't been in our consciousness. It's another way of thinking. There's a decrease in lifespan that's associated with large population centers, whether it's, you know, Los Angeles or New York or living, but living in urban areas, there's a decrease in lifespan.

They think it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 years. And they don't know if it's because of break dust or pollutants or particulates in the atmosphere. They don't know what it is. But has there been a study on, well, I'm sure there probably hasn't, on sperm counts in rural areas as opposed to sperm counts in high population areas? I actually did that study. Oh, okay. I shouldn't have been sure. But the answer is not what you'd expect. Oh, really? Yeah. So in this study, we got four groups of people, and that turned out to be men and women and I can tell you why.

And they were, one of the centers was Columbia, Missouri, where I was living. And that's rural. It's agricultural. They grow a lot of corn and soy there. And one of them was Minneapolis, urban. And then there were some, I'm just going to talk about those two. And in those two centers, we saw that men in Missouri had half as many moving sperm as men in Minneapolis. Did they associate that with farm chemicals? Yes. That's the next study I did. Yes. That's the next study I did. So then I took men with good semen quality and bad semen quality and measured how much of the pesticides were in their bodies. And there were significantly more pesticides in the sample of men who had poor semen quality as compared to good semen quality. Now is this because is it airborne? Is it like we're talking about enormous corn fields and glyphosate and all these other

different chemicals or they work their way into the air itself because they spray? Or water. Water. Run off from the fields into the water. And then it pollutes the water supply. Right. Or air. I didn't study how they were getting this. But they weren't workers. They weren't agricultural workers. And they weren't living on farms. They weren't farmers. Just regular folks. They're just regular folks living in that area, including me.

So that was pretty dramatic. That is very dramatic. I've driven past, I have a buddy of mine who lives in Iowa. And, you know, you drive down there and you see these enormous fields, like huge, huge fields of corn. And I've always wondered, like, where's all that going? Like, for sure, they're spraying this stuff. who are spraying it and getting on, you know, they're even more highly exposed. And those studies of high exposure, you know, here's an example. There was a pesticide that was used to grow pineapples. It was nematicide. It killed nematodes and dibromochloropropane. And so there was a picnic and the wives were talking and we haven't gotten pregnant. We haven't either. Really?

And gradually they did a study of these men who had zero sperm. Zero. Zero. And then they banned DBCP. And in about, I think, four to five months, the men's sperm returned. So that's the thing about adult exposure. You can reverse it. So that's kind of the good news, that you can reverse it.

The only good news all day. Wow. But I don't understand. I mean, I don't know. When you talk about monocrop agriculture on large scale like these enormous cornfields. I don't know how they do that without pesticides. Yeah, I honestly don't know, but I hope there is a way. And I think there are people that are working on that, you know, regenerative farming and so on. I don't know. The thing about regenerative farming though, they don't, they don't do monocrop agriculture. That's true. The whole idea of regenerative farming is that you try to mimic nature. Right. The cows eat the grass, they poop, the poop becomes the fertilizer, the fertilizer helps the plants. This is not what you see when

you have these enormous cornfields. So maybe those enormous cornfields are not good for us. They're not good for us. Right. Yeah, I think that's pretty safe to say. They're not good for us. It's just not a natural scene. Like when you see the amount of manipulation that's required to grow 1,000 acres of corn or whatever

in one spot, like that's not, you don't see that anywhere in nature. Right. Or 1,000 cows in a yeah yeah a small enclosure yeah it's we're so strange human beings are so strange like what we've done to in the to the environment in such a short time that what's crazy to me is if you go back to you know 18 20 200 years ago there's none of this yeah there's none right zero so in 200 years we've completely ruined the ground we've completely changed the way we cultivate food

we've added all these chemicals to our environment to our water to our air, changed sperm counts, changed reproductive cycles and reproductive quantity. Very strange. And I would say post-war is where it really took off. Post-World War II? Mm-hmm. When the use of plastics increased. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Well, what's terrifying to me is, like, if we can have that significant a change in 200 years, what's possible in another 200 years? And is all this happening exponentially, which it probably is? The declines that we see in miscarriage and fertility and sperm count and so on are not exponential. They're linear. But the growth of the plastics industry is exponential. How come the exposure isn't exponential if the growth? I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. Maybe it isn't exponential. Maybe I misspoke. It seems to be faster than linear, though. Yeah. So would you like to take a quiz? Sure.

Okay. I love quizzes. Oh, good. So we have something called the Jizz Quiz. Okay. But you have to go. You have your phone? Yes.

Okay. And your listeners can take it too. Okay. Yeah. So you go on to Dr. Shauna Swan. All right. This is your website? This is my Instagram. Oh, okay. I'll go on to Dr. Shauna Swan. All right. This is your website? This is my Instagram.

Oh, okay. I'll go to your Instagram, Dr. Shauna Swan. Hold on, please. And you should see under the highlights on the left, you should see the Giz Quiz. Oh, it tells me I have no internet connection. There's no internet in here? Well, you might have it. I might not be logged in. So maybe you can do it.

I gotcha. Do you see a page that looks like this? Uh, yeah. I have the night mode on, but I gotcha. So you see the jizz quiz? Oh, perfect. You're right. The jizz quiz. Click on the jizz quiz, young Jamie. Here we go. Come one, come all. You're great. The jizz quiz. Click on the jizz quiz, young Jamie. Here we go. Come one, come all.

You're hilarious. Okay. What's your fertility IQ? Many men and women feel fairly confident about their fertility intel, but research shows a surprisingly high percentage of people don't know as much as they think they do. Are you one of them? Answer these six questions and find out. Well, I've reproduced, so I'm pretty sure my sperm works.

But I could be wrong. As far as sperm go, which of the following can contribute to whether a man is likely to be considered infertile? One, his sperm concentration. A, excuse me. B, the size shape of his sperm. C, the way his sperm moves, swim, D, all the above.

I would say D. Is that correct? Yeah. Okay. Click that. Click that. You have to click D. D. Can you do that?

I can't. This is your Instagram. You can't really click on that. That's like an Instagram story. Okay. Okay. Answer D. Aside from a total absence of sperm, total bummer, we know, no single sperm parameter can predict that a man will be completely infertile.

It turns out when the sperm concentration, motility, the sperm's movement or swimming ability, and morphology, the size and shape of the sperm, are measured, each one matters in identifying infertile men. But there is an additive effect. When one of these measures is in the infertile range, a man is two times more likely to be infertile as a man with none of these measures in the infertile range. When two measures are in the infertile range, a man is five to seven times more likely to be infertile. And when all three fall are subpar, his odds of being infertile are 16 times higher. So you're really messed up. Yeah. That's not good. Okay. What's next? Okay. Question number two, does the size of my taint matter? Well, we already know that.

Totally. Yes. Wow, a lot of people don't get it. That's people with little taints. They're in denial. Okay. The answer is yes. While the official term for taint, people that are listening, it was like 40% said no.

Or 40% said yes, 60% said it didn't matter. But it does matter. said no. Or 40% said yes, 60% said it didn't matter. But it does matter. While the official term for taint or gooch is anogenital distance, ACD, size really does matter. The length of the guy's ACD will reflect his exposure. We talked about this. Okay, we already know this one. Let's go next. Number three, what proportion of infertility cases can be attributed solely to the man? A, less than 10%. B, about 11% to 24%. C, 25% to 33%.

D, 34% to 45%. I'm saying D. We can't click on it. Won't let you. Let's go. Answer C. Interesting. Less than I thought.

Infertility used to be considered mostly a woman's problem. That seems so sexist. Yeah. In recent decades, it has become increasingly recognized that male reproductive issues can cause approximately one-half to one-third of infertility cases. I would assume it was more than that. cases. I would assume it was more than that. Same proportion as female reproductive challenges do. The rest are believed to stem from

a combo of male and female factors. It takes two to make things go right. Oh, it takes two to make things go right. Here we go. Testosterone replacement therapy can increase sperm count in men with low testosterone levels. That's false. Good. Only 47%

think that. Oh, they better check it out. They don't understand that your body produces less when you exogenously introduce it. Go up so I can read that. It's true that a connection between testosterone level and sperm count, but testosterone placement therapy doesn't help sperm. Here's why. When a man wears testosterone patch or applies testosterone gel to his skin, the hormone enters his bloodstream and his testosterone levels go up. So far, that's good, right? Problem is his brain interprets this rise as a sign that plenty of testosterone is available

and sends signals to the testicles to stop making more. This may cause a decline in sperm production. Not what a guy wants. Okay, next. Okay. Next. Question number five. Besides a lack of exercise, which of the following lifestyle-related factors is associated with male infertility? A, smoking cigarettes. B, alcohol.

Sugar, sweetened beverages. C, lots of TV. D, all of the above. Most certainly D. Right. Okay. D, this may seem like a whole lot of bad news, but the upside is... Oops. Most certainly, D. Right. Okay, D. This may seem like a whole lot of bad news, but the upside is... Oops.

Okay. No, it's okay. That's okay. This means that if a man cleans up his lifestyle, gives up cigarettes, heavy alcohol use, sugar-sweetened drinks, and couch potato habits, and takes steps literally to slim down and be physically active, his sperm count and his sperm integrity may increase significantly. Next.

A man's age can affect his female partner's miscarriage risk. True. 82% agree. True. Research suggests that for men ages 40 and older, their female partners have a 60% increased risk of miscarriage compared to the aspiring dads under 30. This may be largely because with advancing age, there's an increase in the presence of abnormal genetic material within the sperm. At any age, a pregnant woman is more likely to miscarry when sperm is faulty, but neither partner may realize this.

That's a miscarriage of reproductive justice. That's a big thing with men who drink heavily. Correct? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Number seven. Oh, that's it. The jizz quiz. How'd you do? I got them all on the jizz quiz. I think I cheated though. I cheated because I knew because of you, we talked. Yeah. So yeah. I aced the jizz quiz. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if I should we talked. Yeah. So. Yeah. I aced the jizz quiz. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if I should say that.

It's cute. Yeah. It's very funny though. It's very catchy. Yeah. So people can take that. Oh, let me make sure I follow you on Instagram. Definitely need to do that.

Thanks for playing. Great. Bam. Great. Thanks for playing. And then there's the book. So all those factors, I mean, all that stuff's very interesting. But what like now that we know this, how do we get this word out other than this podcast?

What can we do? How can we let people know how big this issue is. Any ideas? Well, this isn't just a little piece, but I'll tell you that I have, we're going to make a film. I have several producers. You're going to make a documentary? Yeah. That's good. Get that on Netflix or something. Yeah.

Freak people out. Scare the shit out of them. Maybe even lie a little bit. I'm just kidding. What else you got there? You got more quiz notes? Oh, yeah. I actually have another quiz here.

But these are what we call revelations. Okay. And these are things that you might not know. Try to talk into the microphone. Just pull that. Yeah, yeah. These are things you might not know. And you can just turn them over.

Some of them are about the man. Some are about the woman. Some are about both. So they're in the book. Okay. But try. Just turn them over. Oh.

So what do I do? Turn them over and read the Revelation. Well, it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter? Should I do it this way? Those are the male ones on top. Oh, on top. Okay.

The bottom ones are the female ones? Yeah. Okay. It was once believed that each sperm contained a miniature preformed human being called an – how do I say that word? Homunculus. Homunculus. Really?

Yeah. Is that how you say that? It's spelled animocule? Oh, animocule. Yes. That's how you say that? It's spelled animacule? Oh, animacule. Yes, that's another name, right? That's an alternate name. I was like, wow, why is it spelled so weird? Okay, it was once believed that, I would say that's true.

Well, these are all true. Okay, they're all true. This is not a true-false. This is just fun facts. Oh, okay. More fun facts. So just to go on that one for a minute. So this guy who developed the microscope was the first person to see this, and he saw sperm.

He was the first person to see his own sperm. He thought it was like a little person swimming around? No, but he imagined that. Of course. Yeah. Well, look at that guy. That's hilarious. Great.

Aha. He deads. There he is. And he probably thought it looked just like him. Van Leeuwenhoek. It's hilarious. Aha. He does. There he is. And you probably thought he looked just like him. Van Leeuwenhoek. It's a little tiny me trying to reproduce. Right.

Yeah. I'm sure you're aware of that Sperm Wars controversy. You're aware of that book, Sperm Wars? Yes, remind me. There was a guy that theorized, and I don't think it was supported by facts or further research, but people started repeating it. It was one of those things that people would repeat at cocktail parties or whatever, and you'd be like, wait a minute, what? And I remember, this is pre-podcast, I remember being super skeptical, but the idea was that there was more than one kind of sperm.

There was a sperm that was attacking the other sperm and killing sperm of other men. Right. Yeah. I've heard that too. And that actually there are physiologically the way the woman is shaped and her vagina is shaped and is to make it easier for the earlier sperm to kill off the later ones that are coming in after them. So I think there is something to that. The sperm do kill? Because what I've heard is that there's only one real kind of sperm.

Oh, I don't know about the two kinds. But it may be that there's some battle. There definitely is a battle to get to the target first. Right. There's a race. There's a race. But I don't think they're killing each other. I don't think there's a war going on in there.

You know, I don't know. I don't know. Let's Google. I don't know. Sperm wars. Just Google sperm wars. I'm looking up the book right now. The one claim that already sounds a little-

Skeptical? Yes. Male masturbation is said to discard old dying sperm so that ejaculate contains younger sperm so that it will stay active inside the cervix longer with more of a chance of being present during the window of ovulation. That could be. That could be. Really? Yeah. Because, you know, you're producing sperm all the time, right?

Right. Right? And certainly the ones that are ejaculated are going to be the ones that are already ready and get rid of those and make room for the new ones. I don't know. With that logic, should a man masturbate before he tries to impregnate his partner? I'm not going to give any advice on that. But you already gave a jizz quiz. You can do whatever you want now.

I'm pretty sure I read that it was debunked, that they've never found. Yeah. I think what they were saying is they've never found any real physiological differences in sperm. Like there's not like a different kind of sperm. Right. Yeah, I don't know that I've heard there's been a different kind, but I've heard that maybe the timing of the sperm and the place in the race, so to speak, might affect the survival of the later ones. Here's one.

These days, 26% of men who present to doctors with erectile dysfunction are under age 40. Wow. That's crazy. That's crazy. And you think that has probably something to do? Oh, absolutely. I mean, testosterone is going down worldwide at the same rate as sperm count. All right, here goes another one. Each time a man ejaculates, he releases as many as 100 million sperm. That's true unless you're Tom Segura, and then it's probably 1,100 million sperm. Did you know that?

No. Now you do. Did he have a sperm count? It's an inside joke. Tom Segura apparently has an enormous quantity to his ejaculate. I see. And he was alerting us to this. And he is not a liar.

He is an honest man. That's volume. Yes. The volume and the count are not, and the concentration are not the same thing. Maybe with other men. Mm-hmm. Not with Tom Segura. Okay.

You got a good sense of humor. She can hang, right? You're great. The testicles of a healthy, fertile man produce 200 million to 300 million sperm cells each day. Again, see Tom Segura. Because it's quite a bit more than that. That's a lot. What about overkill, though, huh?

Yeah, Tom's all about overkill. Okay. Men with low sperm counts and infertile men have a shorter life expectancy. That makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. It just means it makes sense that you're less. There's less vitality. There's also there was something about something I read recently about the immune system and muscle quality,

like the amount of muscle mass a man carries on his body is a direct correlation to the health of his immune system. Really? Yeah. I'm looking up. Here's an article from Science Magazine. No evidence for sperm wars. Yes, that's it.

There we go. Great. Looking through here, though, to test the idea, an ecologist took sperm samples from 15 men and combined them in various ways. An ecologist? What a weird evolutionary ecologist. He took a bunch of jizz and just combined it in a soup. And nothing happened is basically what they found out.

Yeah. Well, they probably, maybe the sperm were smart and they realized, like, hey. Or maybe they were dead by basically what they found out yeah well they probably maybe the sperm were smart and they realized like hey or maybe they were dead by the time they got out or maybe they only do it in yeah in place in the critical place right in that warm environment yeah i don't know maybe okay here we go again uh after sexual intercourse sperm can stay alive in a woman's reproductive tract for five days i've heard that that. That's crazy. That's a lot. And you know what it means is that what people think of as, you know, that you have to get it all in one day is not correct. Yeah. That also makes sense that if a woman is not ovulating, but a man has sex with her before she's ovulating, and then all

of a sudden she gets pregnant, that's what it is. The sperm stuck around. The sperm was like, look, I'm not giving up yet. I'm telling you this door is going to open. Men who take testosterone supplements can suffer from reduced sperm counts. We already went over that one. The riskiest period for a man's reproductive development is while he's in the womb. Well, you know that now. Yeah, we know that now.

That's very... Kind of shocking. This is all shocking. Everything you've said is shocking today. A man today has only half the number of sperm his grandfather had. Yeah, you never met my grandfather. I'll tell you that. I don't know what that means. It's be funny it didn't work out a female is born with all the eggs she will ever have

approximately 1 million to 2 million eggs i've heard that but see how what the imbalance is there that's a big imbalance yeah yeah here's this guy mating 100 million every day and you know girl has 2 million for life if she's lucky. And they die off for her pretty quick. In some parts of the world, a 20-something woman today is less fertile than her grandmother was at 35. Wow. So it's not just delaying your first child until you're older that's making fertility decline. This is something that has to do with chemicals.

Right. All right. 50 to 60% of pregnancies that ended in miscarriage are chromosomally abnormal. Wow. That's high. 50 to 60%. Yeah. A lot of those are very early.

Maybe the woman didn't even know she was pregnant. Right? She might have just had some spotting. And there's just some error. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Because, you know, you don't want to put all those resources into a chromosomally abnormal fetus.

This is bananas. Worldwide fertility has dropped more than 50% over the past 50 years. Well, I told you it was the same rate of sperm decline. I know. It's just weird worldwide to read that. Yeah. So back in 1960, the number for fertility is the number of children that a woman has or a couple has. So back in 1960, it was five across the whole world.

So on average, people had five children, right? And now they have less than two and a half. Now, is that from choice or is that from being fertile? We don't know. But it does directly correlate with all the chemicals that you're talking about. And with sperm count. So it's when – and here's what's happening in some countries, it's a lot worse. So like in Singapore – into the microphone.

So like Singapore and Korea, they're down to one but is that by choice no no they and they can't the government is like subsidizing them having children paying them to have children building apartments for them to go into if they have children they can't get the number up. Whoa. Did they have a higher use of plastics over there? I don't know why it's more difficult there. I know that, yeah, I don't know. We don't know, have a lot of information about the distribution of these things across the globe, except to know that they go everywhere. So I don't know what the explanation is for that very low fertility rate in Asia, but I know they are extremely concerned. Once a child is born, is there any potential way to mitigate some of the effects of these chemicals in utero? None that we know of.

So it doesn't close the door to some invention or some innovation in theero? None that we know of. So it doesn't close the door to some invention or some innovation in the future. No, no. But right now, we don't know. Anyway. All right, I'm going to keep going. The riskiest rooms for your fertility are your kitchen and your bathrooms,

not your bedroom. That makes sense. The products we're talking about. This is all stuff we already know. Damage from a man's or pregnant woman's exposure to problematic chemicals and lifestyle influences

can harm the reproductive health of multiple future generations. Does that make sense? We talked about that. Yeah, we talked about that. See, now we're here. You know it all. No, I'm learning things from you. Some experts are now considering reproductive function as a sixth vital sign for health.

That makes sense. Right. Yeah. And that's why I'm saying everybody should know theirs. It's a thing though that people, I think you're correct in that men don't want to admit that they have low testosterone or low sperm count or low vitality. It's a pride thing. That's right. Yeah. They're less men. They feel themselves to be less of a man, right? Yeah.

Yeah. But on the flip side, a woman feels something like that also. Sure. She feels like she can't produce. Well, then you have the added effect of the man blaming her. Right. Right? Because if the guy has sex, if he manages to get erect and ejaculate, he's like, I did my part.

Right. Like, guys aren't really checking to make sure that they got good stuff. Increasing numbers of fish, frogs, and reptiles are being born with ambiguous genitalia, including both ovaries and testes. Alex Jones covered this. Remember? He said the frogs are turning gay. That's literally because of pesticides, right? I wouldn't say they're turning gay.

But they are ambiguously sexual. Yes. Yeah. Yes. That's correct. He wasn't really saying they were gay. He was just saying. Yeah.

Homo sapiens are already fit in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service standard to be considered an endangered species. Really? Yeah. But there's so many of us. There's almost 8 billion of us. Even though we're declining in fertility, we're increasing in numbers. Isn't that bizarre? Yeah, but the criteria, if you, I opened the book because I thought this might come up.

The place where I have that, oh, okay, you want me to read it? Sure. Okay. All right. So. because I thought this might come up, the place where I have that... Oh, okay. You want me to read it? Sure. Okay. All right. Oh, you have the bookmark. That's right. This place, in case it came up. So some scientists suggest that it's hard to fathom, but an argument could be made that Homo sapiens already fit the standard for

an endangered species based on U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's requirements, okay? How would that be? Well, of the five possible criteria for what makes a species endangered, only one needs to be met to be called endangered, okay? So the first is that we're arguably experiencing destructive modification or curtailment of our habits. This is wording from the Fish and Wildlife. Well, what this means that we're messing up our air, our food, our water in a way that just modifies or destroys our habitat. And we're definitely clearly doing that. Clearly. We talked about that a lot.

Okay, the next thing is, the next one, the second is that we have, quote, an inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms. Bingo. We talked about that. mechanisms. Bingo. We talked about that. The third one is that there are man-made factors affecting our continued existence. That's three. So we meet the criteria for endangered. Wow. Even though there's so many of us. Even though there's so many of us. This is all hard to swallow. This is like you're not painting a very rosy picture of the future, ma'am.

We all, males and females, start life with the same genital apparatus. Yeah, we all know that. That's why guys have nipples, right? That's that single. Yes, the guys have nipples. But that's that single ridge I told you about that starts out. The default is female, by the way, right? If the testosterone doesn't come along, then it's female development.

So that's what that's about. And last but not least, declines in sperm count and testosterone levels and increases in testicular cancer and miscarriage rates are all occurring at the same rate, 1% per year. Wow. I call it the 1% effect. Shanna, this is all very disturbing. It's all, it's really, there's no rosy outlook on this because when I'm looking at what potential steps can be made to mitigate it I see all these obstacles I see lobbyists I see enormous corporations I see habits that people have had they'll be very difficult to break I see people getting skeptical

even when I read the breakdown of this I didn't think it was as bad as you described it. I thought, like, oh, maybe we can just stop using these plastics and your testosterone will come back. I didn't think about the developmental cycle of children in the way that you've described it. And now I'm genuinely terrified because I don't see people changing their habits that much. And it seems like this is going to cause, it's going to, you need a monumental shift, a gigantic change in order to do something about this. Is that safe to say? Yes. How do you feel about all this? Like after you've done your research and granted you've lived until you started studying this in the early 2000s, right? This is when it started to become a factor. That's not that long ago.

Now all of a sudden you have this view of humanity and the future. And it's got to be pretty disturbing. You're the Paul Revere of tiny testicles and taints. I love that. But jokes aside, I am very disturbed, but I feel – I guess I'm an optimist at heart. I still believe that we can do something about this. We got lead out of gasoline, right? Yes.

We do make changes. We've got pretty much asbestos under control. We've got mercury out of thermometers. I mean, they're just small things, but we've got an hour off of apples. So when people, if you multiply that by hundreds of times, having people go after specific problems that they're concerned about, I think we can do this. We've done amazing things. We produced this vaccine in a year, right, when people said it wasn't possible. they're concerned about. I think we can do this. We've done amazing things. You know, we produced this vaccine in a year, right, when people said it wasn't possible. You know, we put the lander on Mars. You know, and I just, I have a lot of faith that technologies that I haven't thought of,

you know, chemicals that haven't been designed yet will come in and take the place of these chemicals. Well, I hope so too, but I hope it's not like BPFs. Right. You know, where the solution is worse than the original problem. That's right. I'm just skeptical because I think so many industries would have to make a big change and it would cost them so much money that they're going to deny this as long as they can. That's my concern. Look, we know that glyphosate's bad for you.

Monsanto's never stopped selling it, but they have in other countries. Other countries have put the brakes on it. They have it in America. And we know it's not good for you. So we have to, as a society, recognize that we need more governmental regulation. Yeah. And a lot of people don't want that. A lot of people don't want that a lot of people don't want that yeah yeah um this has been a really um confusing podcast because it's just it's not just scary it's scary and i don't sometimes you go oh we have to go do this but this one is one we're like oh there so many problems here. There's so many problems to stop. I don't, I didn't know that it was as bad as it is.

Well, I'm actually glad you're disturbed because you have a lot of followers and maybe they will listen to this and think about this and, you know, help to turn this around. By the way, I ask people to use the hashtag count me in. Count me in. Yeah.

That could be used. That could be hijacked. You should be careful about that one. Count me in is not very specific. I might have just started something accidentally. Count, capital M, capital I. Okay. Yeah.

I don't think the capitals matter with hashtags. Do they? No, I don't Okay. Yeah. I don't think the capitals matter with hashtags. Do they? No, I don't think they do. I don't. They don't. Is there anything else you wanted to talk with us about that you need to get the word out on? I don't think so. I think we covered the next problem, you know, I just say in closing that we had denial of climate change and then some recognition of climate change.

And then finally, people saying there's things we can do about it. And I see the same pattern happening here. Initially, there was a study saying sperm count had declined in 1992, which was dismissed. I was actually skeptical of it myself at first. And then when my paper came out in 2017, it went viral. It was the 27th most cited paper in the world that year. It was on the cover of Time and you name it. So and then people didn't say sperm count has not declined.

They said, yes, we do have a problem. But they didn't make the next step, which is doing something about it. And I think the same progression will happen here as has been happening with climate. Well, I hope so. I hope we become aware of that. I hope we helped sound the alarm with this podcast. And if anybody wants the full story and all the information, do you have an audio book of this available as well? Yes. Countdown. It's available right now, ladies and gentlemen. Please go get it. Thank you very much for being here. I really enjoyed it.

I really enjoyed talking to you. You're very funny and very insightful and brilliant. And so I really appreciate you. So thank you very much. Thanks for having me. It's been really great. My pleasure. All right. Bye, everybody.

Bye. Thank you.