Woman's Hour - Male fertility; Gordon Brown on global vaccination; Celebrating Ailsa Burkimsher Sadler and Caroline Norton.

Episode Date: May 4, 2021

Fertility rates around the world are declining. It's partly through choice, as couples decide to have smaller families. But it's also the case that sperm levels among men in Western countries have halved in the past 40 years. . So what's going on? Shanna Swan, a Professor of Environmental Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York thinks we should be paying much more attention to the chemicals in our environment that come from everyday products - as her research is showing consistent effects on sperm counts, sperm quality and overall male fertility. She joins Emma to talk the chemicals we should be aware of, the effect they're having, and what we can do about it. World leaders have been warned that unless they act with extreme urgency, the pandemic will overwhelm health services in many nations in South America, Asia, and Africa over the next few weeks. It's argued that failure to achieve so-called global 'vaccine equity' will hit women hardest, because they dominate the informal sectors that have been worst affected by the pandemic and it's women who do most of the increased unpaid care in the home that Covid brings. There are also real concerns that if girls globally continue to miss out on education, gender equality goals could be set back years. Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is leading a campaign to persuade the world's richest nations to commit to funding global Covid vaccination, testing and treatments. He joins Emma.From today, mothers' names and occupations will finally be featured alongside fathers' details on marriage certificates in England and Wales, thanks to years of campaigning both inside and outside of parliament. But let's not forget the woman who made it happen. Ailsa Burkimsher Sadler started the campaign for change back in 2013. Caroline Norton was a woman at the centre of one of the most highly publicised court cases in 19th century Britain. Her determination to fight for custody of her children and the rights to her own income and property had far-reaching ramifications, with the first ever pieces of feminist legislation arising as a direct result of her campaigning, the Infant Custody Act of 1839. She has been celebrated with a heritage blue plaque being placed on her London home. Lady Antonia Fraser unveiled the plaque, and has written a biography of Caroline Norton called ‘The Case of the Married Woman.’

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning. Hope the bank holiday treated you well. And to launch you back into a slightly shorter week, today's programme is filled with the unique energy changemakers bring, those who are fighting to alter something. Our first guest, the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, is leading a campaign to persuade the world's richest nations to commit many more funds to global COVID vaccination, testing and treatment efforts so that developing countries

are not left behind. It's argued that vaccine inequality will hit women and girls hardest, something we will explore more shortly. Also on today's programme, the woman who made mother's names on marriage certificates in England and Wales a reality from today. Yes, that change from today. Professor Shanna Swans also joining us, a scientist trying to make society pay attention to dramatically falling sperm counts.

And we'll hear the story of Caroline Norton, the incredible woman who fought to change the law in favour of mothers having some semblance of rights over the children they'd birthed and raised, courtesy of Lady Antonia Fraser. With those changes perhaps ringing in your ears or making you think about the society around you, what have you rolled your sleeves up for and fought for? And thought to yourself, I'm not having that. No matter how hard the task, how small, how large, how impossible it may have seemed. What have you campaigned for? What campaigns, perhaps you didn't start them, have you gone out and supported?

Why? Why did it matter to you? 84844 is the number that you need to text. Perhaps you didn't win, you know, but something changed along the way or you learnt something you could share with us this morning. Those stories are what we're in the market to hear. Do get in touch on social media, we're at BBC Women's Hour or email us your stories and experiences through our website. The foreign ministers of the G7 countries are meeting face to face for the first time in two years in London. Today, threats to democracy and global vaccination are high up on their agenda. World leaders have been warned that unless they act with extreme urgency, the pandemic will overwhelm health services in many nations in South America, Asia and Africa over the next few weeks. It's argued that failure to achieve so-called global vaccine equity will hit women hardest

because they dominate the informal sectors that have been worst affected by the pandemic. And it is women who do most of the increased unpaid care in the home that COVID brings. There are also real concerns that if girls globally continue to miss out on education, gender equality goals could be set back years. Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is leading a campaign to persuade the world's richest nations to commit to funding global COVID vaccination testing and treatment. And Gordon Brown joins me now from Edinburgh. Good morning. Good morning, Emma. How urgent is it that rich countries put their hand in their pocket? Really urgent because we've got very little time to lose.

It's a race between the virus and the vaccine. And we see in India how if you don't get the vaccine in quickly enough, things get out of control. And I fear that's going to go to Africa. And, you know, women and girls, and I've been concerned about this for some time, have been hit hardest and hit in so many different ways. You mentioned, obviously, the informal care sector. Think of the formal health and care sector. 75% of the workers are women. They are most vulnerable to catching the disease. Then think of women who lose their jobs or are furloughed or are sent home.

They have far less social protection, not only in the West, but right across the world. So 75% of women are in the informal sector. And when they have to stay at home, they don't have money. And therefore, the tendency is to go back to work far more quickly, but risk a lot more. And the other thing that's really concerned me in the last few days is what's happening to healthcare sectors right across the world, because they are deluged by COVID cases, and they're not able to do what normally they would do. So maternity care is suffering. I've had 12 stories from Save the Children's director, Kevin Watkins, about how maternity care has been removed, oxygen taken away when it's needed, because that's had to go to COVID. We really cannot allow the rest of the healthcare sector, and particularly women and infant mortality, to suffer as a result of this. And I've seen some figures that suggest that infant mortality is going to go up 150,000 around the world.

Maternity loss of life, 50,000. Now, these are figures that are completely unacceptable. And we know also that vaccinations for polio, tuberculosis and all the other diphtheria are not being done at the moment. 250 million vaccinations not done. So, so many times over have people been hit directly, but also indirectly. Yes. And even today, a report out about the calamity of maternal deaths in Brazil following 803 pregnant and postpartum deaths. Authorities now warning women to delay pregnancy as alarm rises over the pandemic. This is a real problem because one good example, but it's a tragic example, is just the lack of oxygen.

We're seeing that in India, but it's right around the world. Now, for some months, people have been urging that we prepare for the shortage of oxygen, and just not enough money has been put into that. So COVAX and ACTA-A which are the international bodies that are trying to bring things together just do not have the finance that is necessary so you could build up oxygen supplies and wherever they were needed medical oxygen should should be put across the world to those who are suffering. I'm happy you brought

that up because COVAX the international program donating surplus vaccine to poorer countries to the tune of 734 million pounds. Many would say that does show perhaps commitment enough as everyone fights this. You argue it doesn't. Can we talk through the figures of how much what you're proposing would cost and how you've calculated that? Well, I think it's about 30 billion a year that we're going to need so that we can vaccinate most of the world. We've got to start from the proposition that this is in our self-interest as well as a charitable act. Nobody is safe anywhere until everybody is safe everywhere. If we don't have mass vaccination around the world, the disease will spread, it will mutate, and it will come back to hit even those people who've been vaccinated in our own country, Britain.

And so no country is really going to be finally COVID free until we're all COVID free. Just like smallpox in the past, you've got to find a way that every country gets the benefit of vaccination. So 30 billion a year. Now, I've worked that out. If it's spread across the richest countries, it's about 25 cents. cents, or you call it 20 pence in Britain per week that we would have to spend as a government per person to get everybody vaccinated around the world. It's a very small price to pay, given that we're losing so much money in economic activity and economic output. And I've worked out for America that they would gain seven or eight times as much as they spend if they were prepared to finance the vaccination programme around the world. So we can't afford not to act. And yet the cost of acting is far less than what we're having to spend on rescue in other areas. 25 cents per person, 20 pence per person per week is not a high price to pay to vaccinate the rest of the world. And yet, you know, this isn't what our

present prime minister is saying. We have asked for a recent or the latest government line on this. We haven't seen the EU sign up to this. We haven't seen Joe Biden talk about doing this in these terms. Why is it left to people like yourself who used to occupy the highest office of state to make this case? Well, I know that as someone who's chaired the G7, which is meeting, of course, the foreign ministers today and tomorrow, and the G20, that if you have leadership and you want something done, you can get it done. America's actually put up $4 billion to pay for the vaccination programme and the COVAX interventions. Britain has actually put up a billion dollars to its credit.

But we need to do more to get to the $30 billion figure this year and next year. And what I want is a burden-sharing arrangement. You see, we treat raising money to fund vaccinations as if it's like a charity fundraiser. You're having a whip round. You're passing the begging bowl round, so to speak. That's not the way to do it. You've got to have a plan.

You've got to say, if you pay this and you pay that, depending on your ability to pay, then we can actually finance it all. And I've worked out that Britain would pay something like 5% of the costs, Germany probably 6%, Italy and France about 4%, America would have to pay about 25%.

But I think there's a willingness to consider this now. And I want it on the agenda tomorrow of the G7 when the foreign ministers meet, but more important perhaps when the finance ministers meet and the leaders meet, because they could seal a deal that people said, look, we'll pay our share if you pay your share, and let's cover the world in that way. And as I say, nobody is safe till everybody is safe. And so the way to do it is to say, let's share the burden and let's get it done quickly. And there is an

urgency, as you said at the beginning, because the slower we are in vaccinating, the more the variants and the mutations happen and the more it comes back to threaten us. And whether it's your holidays going abroad or whether it's actually working at home, if you're not safe because so many other people are spreading the disease, then you do want to see action. Can we afford that?

This is against the backdrop, of course, of people hearing about cuts to aid, to international aid. Can the UK afford this? Well, the UK's cuts to overseas aid are indeed a mistake at this time because we are needing to help other countries to protect ourselves. To protect ourselves locally, we have to act globally because the disease just continues to spread around the world if you're not prepared to do something about it. You say they're a mistake, but others would say that there needs to be a different way of doing aid. We won't get into that full debate now but about better scrutiny about where that money goes but I suppose my point is if we've got that backdrop if voters are hearing that you know

we're cutting that pot can we afford to do what you're saying? But when I tell you that we're spending as a result of all the aid in the world, all the aid put together, only seven or eight pounds a year on the education of an African child, nobody can think that's too much. Any parent would realise that if spending money on education is really important, and I don't believe it is wasted, but the point is, this 30 billion is a very small sum of money. America just invested two trillion in a fiscal stimulus that had to happen because the world was not protected against the virus. This is not 0.5 percent of that cost just for America. So it's really possible for this to be done.

It's not a huge sum of money. When I chaired the G20 in 2009, we had to underpin the world by a 1.1 trillion stimulus. 1.1 trillions. This is 30 billion. It's a fraction of that sum. And it's really money that I keep saying we cannot afford not to spend, but money that we know is well spent because the cost of a vaccination for an individual is very low. It's just getting it to everybody that is the real issue. You have also joined with many other former world leaders and leading thinkers as well around the call for patents on Covid vaccines to be suspended. There's been this comparison to what happened around HIV and the patents around the drugs there that were lifted after years of campaigning.

But the vaccine manufacturers, the big pharma companies, they're not on board. They say it's not about profits. It's actually about technical expertise, safety and quality assurance. Are they wrong? They're not wrong that it's important to get the best research and the best development of vaccines. And I'm really proud of Sarah Gilbert in Britain and all the people that have been involved in developing these new vaccines. But the issue when I was in government, we got to an international agreement. It was called TRIPS, which meant that there was some money paid for the patent.

But we tried to get to generic drugs as quickly as possible. But we said then that if there was a crisis, if something really big happened, there had to be a temporary waiver on patents. So we had to find a way of getting the drug to the countries that could produce it quickly enough. And so at the moment, we have no manufacturing facilities of any substance in Africa. We ought to have that. Now, you could either have a licensing agreement or a temporary waiver,

but under the international agreements we had, there is scope for this to be done. And already, of course, AstraZeneca, to their credit, have said that they're not going to charge for the patent when it goes to be developed in India and elsewhere. And other companies can do the same. I think this is possible. Remember, we're still having to pay for the vaccine.

And so we still have to raise money. It's the patent that you're talking about in terms of the cost that companies pay for using that patent. And the manufacturing skill, which is incredibly complex, as has been explained, about this particular vaccine, which, as you talked about, has been reached at record time. Emma, nobody's saying the manufacturers are not paid for the work they do. What they're not paid for is the patent. They are paid for the production and the distribution. Of course, we've got to cover the logistics. So a temporary patent waiver doesn't make the vaccine free. What it does is it reduces the cost.

And that's something that I think Dr. Tedros, I talked to him yesterday, the head of the World Health Organization, something that he wants to achieve. I suppose what, again, it brings to mind is a huge number of former leaders have signed a letter and pushed for this. And yet we don't see the current leaders saying it.

Why is it so different, Gordon Brown, between when you're in office and when you're out of office? Well, I keep asking myself that. Why does it take a year to get something on the agenda when you could have done it in two minutes when you're in government? It's very frustrating, I've got to say to you. But I think we had a terrible year, a failure for cooperation last year. I mean, when the pandemic broke out, there was no cooperation. People didn't work together in the way they should. Scientists and medics were working together. People wanted people to work together,

but governments were not really working together. I think this year there's a new spirit, partly because of President Biden, partly because Britain's chairing the G7, partly because Italy's chairing the G20. I think things can happen this year. And so it's getting these things onto the agenda. And I want the foreign affairs ministers to be talking about this tomorrow. And I hope everybody will press them to do so. And once it's on the agenda, I do hear from America that there's a willingness to consider this. And, of course, they would have to pay most.

And, of course, their developers would suffer most from the loss of the patent returns. So I think America is really important to that. But the whole of the European Union should also be stepping up. Well, we'll see what happens there. But we are talking about public money, how to spend it. Trust is a major part of that. Finally, as a former prime minister, can I ask you about these ongoing allegations

that the current prime minister is facing into the refurbishment of somewhere you've lived, the Downing Street flat, how it was initially funded. Now the subject of an investigation by the Electoral Commission. Is his position untenable if he's breached the rules? I think if he's breached the ministerial code and he's told the House of Commons something that turns out not to be true, that becomes untenable. But I think the issue at the moment is, can you have rules for gifts? People should not be receiving gifts because they're in government, because you become beholden to people, you become in their debt. You cannot have that. And clearly, gifts person should be entering public service simply for private gain. So you've got to have rules that stop people making money by becoming commercial lobbyists for firms, sometimes foreign firms, pressing their own government after they've left office. It's completely unacceptable. Public service cannot be a platform for private gain. No, no. And of course, there was obviously the cash for honest scandal during the Labour years. You'll remember a great deal

talked about this, but people will be thinking, can I, you know, can I potentially trust the prime minister or not as the polls show? You're saying his position would be untenable

if he's broken the rules in line with, for instance, the Scottish Conservative leader, Douglas Ross, who said Boris Johnson should resign if he's found to have broken government rules

over flat renovations. Should he really, though, if he's done a good job with getting people vaccinated? Of course, we've got local elections coming. But really, is his position untenable? Well, you can't you can't break the law or break the rules simply because you say you're doing something else. You've got to abide by the rules. And I think the Prime Minister could say clearly, I will not accept gifts that are not declared. And I will not engage with people who are commercially lobbying me on behalf of private companies. And I will not allow conflicts of interest to develop where my staff are working for private firms, as well as supposedly working full time for the public

service. Now, if he would state that these principles were principles that he would uphold, and then publish the information that backs up that he's doing all that, then I think people would be satisfied. But you can't really evade a question of wrongdoing by saying, you know, my mind's on something else. You've got to do the right thing all the time. Gordon Brown, thank you very much for your time. A message here from John. He says, standards in public life sadly no longer a thing. The Prime Minister said he's covered those costs in full but the investigation pertains to where the funding came from in the first place and with regards to a statement around the latest

with funding of the global Covid vaccination not a latest one from the government but that is something of course on the table with the G7 so more details to come on that. You are getting in touch in your droves around campaigning. Let's talk to someone about their successful campaigning and then come to your stories, because praise be, from today, mothers' names and occupations will finally be featured alongside fathers' details on marriage certificates in England and Wales, thanks to years of campaigning both inside and outside

of Parliament. But let's not forget the woman who made it happen. Elsa Berkeshmer-Sadler started the campaign for change back in 2013. How are you feeling this morning? I'm really pleased, Emma, yes. Just as I suppose, congratulations to anybody that's getting married from today in England and Wales, and particularly their mothers who can take their place on the certificates with their names and occupations. I was quite intrigued to see some of the reports today about who was, if you like, given credit. And I know it's not necessarily about that around this, but private members bill bought by the Bishop of St Albans,

the Right Reverend Dr Alan Smith, then taken forward by a Conservative MP, Tim Loughton, welcomed by the Home Office Minister, Kevin Foster. We thought we'd like to talk to the woman, though, who kicked this off. You. Well, thank you, Emma. Yes, my mum will be very pleased about that because she's already messaged me this morning

saying that nobody's mentioned you yet. Well, we have here on Woman's Hour. And just to say, you were doing this purely because you saw it as an anomaly. And like some of our listeners, you thought you'd pick it up, just try and do something about it? Yes, I just noticed it in 2013 and I was just so incensed by it. I'd got married in 2001. I had to get my marriage certificate out and I thought, well, perhaps it's changed. It had changed between then. Found out that it hadn't and I just thought I'm going to set about getting this changed and I

suppose followed that sort of proud feminist and suffragette history of going about collecting signatures and creating publicity and really looking for minds that wanted to change people that wanted to come on board and agree with me. Well last time we spoke you said you're going to celebrate with your mum when you could see her again. What are you going to do that today or what's the plan? Because today is the day. Well, yes, both my mother and my mother-in-law have lived several hours away from me.

So, so far I've been able to meet them in the garden. But, yeah, I think I'm going to have to wait till the indoor celebrations so that we can actually, you know, celebrate in person. How does it make you feel to have made a change? Well, very, very proud, very pleased that I actually bothered to do it. And I'd like to sort of encourage other women to sort of campaign for change. If there's something that you're thinking about that's not right, then, you know, if you do nothing, then nothing will change. But if you do speak up, then you can make a change. Well, it's taken years, but here we are. We wanted to mark the moment. Elsa, thank you for talking

to us. Elsa Berkimsha Sadler. That's the name you need to remember today. We're often talking about women not taking credit for their work. And there you go. A message here from Helen, who's listening in Dorset. She says, hello, in 2011, I started campaigning to stop my local Dorset council from cutting the county's lollipop men and women to save money as they said it wasn't a statutory service. It took me a year to persuade them to change their mind. In that time, I collected 10,000 signatures, led a march, badgered everyone who would listen. I created a blog highlighting the risk to children. I visited Parliament. I spoke on the politics show.

I got dancing lollipop people on the one show. I never thought it would take so long, but I learned a lot. And I'm really happy every time I see a lollipop person whose job I saved. They do such a great job keeping children safe. Helen, thank you for that. You are very busy indeed. Kathy, it does take over your life in Devon. I've campaigned for decades for animal welfare and food production.

Cruel practices persist because they're kept out of sight and people want cheap food. Ignorant of why it's cheap, the campaign goes on. I was brought up, Emma, by a campaigner. As a teenager, I was involved with the family and getting rid of capital punishment, then CND and all that. And when the women's movement started, all the campaigning and hard work to get women's aid refuges and rape crisis centres later campaigning for the church of england to ordain women at about the same time campaigning to get carers recognised and being involved in the setting

up of what's now called carers uk and through all of that dealing with name calling and attempts to stop us will that do for now yes it will anna in york good morning you sound extremely busy i'm very motivated i think that's the thing if you are part of of it, it's part of you. But if you're just starting out like some of you also, you're very invigorated, but also it can be, as just alluded to there, quite stressful, to say the least, with what can come back at you because you're trying to stop something or change something. Well, think about how it might have felt in the 1800s. Caroline Norton was a woman at the centre of one of the most highly publicised court cases in 19th century Britain. Her determination to fight for the custody of her children, the rights to her own income and property, had far-reaching ramifications. She is thought to have heavily influenced the passing of the Infant Custody Act of 1839,

one of the first pieces of feminist legislation. English Heritage have just celebrated Caroline's life with a blue plaque placed on her London home. Lady Antonia Fraser unveiled that plaque and has written a biography of Caroline called The Case of the Married Woman. Good morning. Good morning.

She's born in 1808. Tell us a bit about her background and personality before we get to the campaign as she began to be. Well, the important point about her was that she was Irish blood. Her grandfather was Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the playwright and MP, and she being the daughter of his son, Tom. And I think that gave her, I speak as one who's Anglo-Irish, it gave her a sort of sparkle and an energy and vivacity,

which made her a very attractive creature. She was also very beautiful with black hair, marvellous big expressive eyes, which everybody commented, wicked eyes, the way she used them. So she was a card. You know, I think we'd have liked her very much. She marries the MP George Norton in 1827 at the age of 19. How does their marriage develop into him actually becoming physically abusive towards her? I think the important point is that marriage was the fate of a girl like her at that time.

There was no other possibility. And she'd lost her true love as she began to think of him who died. And there's George Norton. He's fairly eligible. He's the brother of a lord. He may become a lord. And he's madly in love with her. He's seen her. He's sort of obsessed by her. And it seems a good property at the time, there were laws we just find horrific. Like you could beat your wife as long as the stick was no thicker than your thumb.

I mean, horrors, really. Yes, it doesn't even bear thinking about it yet. It was a reality relatively recently. The prime minister of the day, having just been talking to a former one, also enters, if you like, stage left. How does he get involved? Lord Melbourne, a very attractive character, 30 years older than her, and as you say, Prime Minister, he's a widower. She writes to him at her husband's instigation, that's very important, to say, would you give my husband a job? And he comes round. He's got an eye for a pretty girl.

He's also got an eye for a good conversationalist, somebody who is amusing and interesting. And she lives quite close to 10 Downing Street in Westminster, with her husband being an MP. He takes to calling on her. Now, what happened next? Did they or didn't they? I think people will have to read my book and make up their own minds. People who've read it have made up their own minds, but not always agreeing either with me or each other. And that's part of the fun of the story. Then you get to the tragedy of the story. George Norton, probably spurred on by some Tory politicians, sued him for criminal conversation, we would call it adultery, his wife, and damages. And there's this court case, as you said, in 1836. And it's dramatic. The Times are even rather funny,

as long as your reputation wasn't at stake, with seamy details. But at the end of it, they are found innocent, as I say, rightly or wrongly, read my book. But I was going to say, it spurs her on though, doesn't it, to fight for her rights and fight for her children? Well, what spurred her on was, in spite of being found innocent, she was kicked out of the house by her husband. He lived off the copyright of her works because married women didn't own copyright and worst of all you know and i still can't get over it in a way he took her three children under seven away from her their mother and didn't let them see them on one occasion for 14 months and one of them a little one died of an injury you know an accident which he wouldn't have had under his mother's care. And that was what spurred her on.

It wasn't famous, the spur. It was pain is the spur. And she became a campaigner and she wrote pamphlets and she talked to her political friends. And I felt good for her. You know, I think many a person would have sat down and wailed, but she didn't. She was active. And for the first time, as you said, in 1839, mothers had the right of access to their children by law. I mean, everyone who's read the story, like me when I first discovered it, has been amazed that mothers had no rights, but they didn't. And they didn't necessarily know the story of the woman who fought for those rights to be formalised, to be legally recognised?

No, they didn't. And I was, although there have been other excellent books about Caroline Norton, but because the story came as a revelation to me, I wanted to tell it. But what, you talk about pain there, but it would have been so unusual what she was doing at the time. We've had some stories from our listeners already about their campaigning. And of course, now I'm not saying it's any easier, but there are things that do make it easier, like being able to campaign freely as a woman, to earn money as a woman, to have rights as a woman. Some of the basics just were not in place for her to be doing this.

Yes, and to make a very obvious point, women, of course, did not have the vote. All that came much later. When even her sister, she had devoted sisters, they were known as the Three Graces. Even her sisters thought she was going a bit far writing to the Times, you know, and she's at it again and raised their beautiful eyebrows people thought it wasn't quite nice a woman doing that but caroline she kept going what do you think it was that kept her going um i think two things one was love of her children nobody ever pretended she was anything other than a

devoted mother. That was the first thing. But I think the other thing was a real feeling for the fate of all women, not just women like her, all women. She was interested, incidentally, in the fate of enslaved women and the high death rate. You know, she was obviously very anti-slavery, which she called that a cursed thing, but she was particularly interested in enslaved women. She was a compassionate person. Did she get back together with her children? Finally, after the death of one of them,

then she helped them go to that school. And, you know, she was able to be more like a normal mother. And then she kept going. She wrote, to make money, successful novels. And then it's a very romantic end to her story, I think. She had an admirer. She had admirers. I mean, once the marriage was over, although they weren't divorced, that was a very tricky question in those days. And she didn't want to do anything to upset the balance with the remaining two boys.

But she had admirers. And one of them was a man 10 years younger than her, Sir William Stirling, a great expert on Spanish painting. And she was very friendly with him. I think they probably had an affair, you know, when he was young and unmarried and she parted from her husband. And then she was very friendly with his wife when he got married and had children. And then his wife tragically died at a loss. And then at the end of her life, he gallantly said, marry me.

And they had this romantic wedding, something so touching about it, which she said, call me wife, you know. And she had at the very end the happy marriage. She was the happily married woman she'd always wanted to be. And I find that very touching. Sonia Fraser's written that biography called The Case of the Married Woman. So perhaps some of those things that we do take for granted to think of today and afterwards. I campaigned, Emma, against forfeiture for leaseholders. I got Parliament to discuss it in 2002. I delivered it with my mother, 600 plus letters, threatening forfeiture to each MP so they knew how we felt. We took them from Brighton by train in a wheeled shopping trolley, says Shula, a leasehold campaigner.

That would have been quite the sight. I joined a group to save our library in 2016. It was a struggle, but we succeeded. And now we have Kinghorn Library run entirely by a great team of volunteers, as well as the books. We have an IT suite, jigsaw library, audio books for the blind. It's great teamwork. Elizabeth, good morning to you. Thank you for the Blind. It's great teamwork. Elizabeth, good morning to you. Thank you for that story. Let's talk about perhaps somebody's research here, which also will be changing the way that we view the world and our fertility and our health. billion in just over 40 years time. Those huge numbers are often blamed on women having too many

children. But in reality, fertility has been in long-term decline for decades. Some of this is due to more women actively choosing to have smaller families. But an increasing number of studies show male sperm counts are falling off a cliff and could be making it harder to conceive in the first place. Research in 2017 showed that sperm counts in Western countries had halved between 1973 and 2011. Halved. But why? Shanna Swan, Professor of Environmental Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, joins us, one of the lead researchers on that paper and also author of the book Countdown, how our modern world is threatening sperm counts, altering male and female reproductive development and imperiling

the future of the human race. Thank you for joining us today. I thought we could start with how bad those levels, those sperm levels are today. Where are we at? So good morning, Emma. Happy to be here. Where we are right now, we're not sure, but when our study ended in 2011, sperm counts were 47 million per milliliter. That sounds like a lot of sperm and is a lot of sperm, but it's actually a pretty low number because it turns out if that number goes below 40, then it becomes harder and harder to conceive and takes longer and longer. So below 40, the fertility drops off very, very quickly. And we're now arguably below that point. We're not sure exactly where, but we are in a dangerous zone for sure. Let's come to why in just a moment,

but the focus often is on the woman and what's going on with the woman in terms of fertility. Do you think we really have to shift the axis on how we look at that? Absolutely. Women have been blamed, of course, over the years for being the one responsible for a couple not conceiving. They've been blamed for miscarriages. They've been blamed for all kinds of reproductive failures. And these blames, if you want to call them blames, should be shared equally between men and women. We know now that men contribute at least half to these problems and they haven't borne this responsibility. There are lots of factors that contribute, smoking, exercise, obesity, too many hot baths, but what do you put it down to that's also causing the drop in sperm? So in addition to

those lifestyle factors, which are certainly important, we are exposed every day to thousands of chemicals that have the ability to alter our body's hormones. These are called endocrine disrupting chemicals. And this may come as a surprise to many people because scientists talk about this, but people on the street do not. And these are chemicals in our foods. They're in our household products. They're in our cosmetics and they're in our dust and they're in our air and they're in our water and they're coming into our bodies all the time and they're measurable you can measure them in the united states they're in everybody and they're at high enough levels to do harm and and they're what are they called they're called phthalates am i saying that right endocrine disrupting chemicals endocrine okay but what

sorry what are phthalates how do they fit into this okay good so so phthalates? How do they fit into this? Phthalates. Okay, good. So phthalates are one class of these endocrine disrupting chemicals. And they are also in our foods and their wrappings. Think about soft plastic, right? Soft plastic, squishy plastic, shower curtains, rubber duckies in your baby's bath. All of these things have the ability to lower testosterone. And I think most people know that testosterone is really critical for reproductive health and for sexual function, by the way. And they can affect men and women, by the way, in terms of reproductive health. So it's not just the man that's affected by these. And for people now thinking, hang on,

you've just mentioned the rubber ducky in my child's bath. What can I do about this? I know you don't want to fearmonger, and there are also regulations, many more in the EU. And of course, we'll see how Britain moves forward with those regulations. There are many more to protect people. But what do you do or what can you do? And there are more, I should say, than America to reduce your exposure.

Well, I think we have to do a little inventory of our homes and look for soft plastic or look for plastic that's hard, like a baby bottle or a water bottle, because there are chemicals of other kinds, for example, the bisphenols, which are in tin cans and baby bottles and so on, which also have the ability to lower our hormones. And so we can, as mothers and as women and as, you know, go through our homes and try to have an eagle eye out for these plastics. And then we can watch what kind of food we eat because the primary source is through our foods. And this is hard because we don't have any warning. They're not labeled. But any food that's been processed is likely to have these chemicals. Foods that have been raised on a traditional farm will have pesticides, which are also risky and also may contain phthalates. So I think we just have to really open our eyes to these chemicals in our

lives all the time. And I should mention personal care products. So these chemicals are in cosmetics. They increase absorption. So when we put on a hand cream, we want it to be absorbed. Phthalates help with that. When we put on lipstick. I think it's very important to hear this and we'll keep going. But what you're describing is how we live. I mean, yes, you could go around your house, you can clean it. I know getting rid of dust is important. I know that you're also very passionate about not heating food in plastic containers in microwaves. Just to say that. So what you should put them in crockery or just not use microwaves?

Oh, microwaves are fine. Crockery, you can put them in glass. Glass is great. And just change the way you store and cook your food and try to buy organic, unprocessed food to the extent that you can afford it and that you have the time to deal with those bunches of carrots and broccoli and so on. It's much better to just clean and cook your own. I suppose what I was getting to, though, is, I mean, I always like, as I call it, news you can use, things that you hear that you can put into your life. But a lot of this, are we just going to have to get used to this being in our systems, you know, as part of our daily lives?

I'm thinking about the fact people are probably using much more hand cream at the moment after using antibacterial gel with the pandemic. If we almost have to assume as a group, as a species, that this is part of how we live now. Will we be okay with these declining sperm rates or can we reverse this? I don't think we can go on and just accept this as business as usual. It's too risky. There are many, many species on the planet that have been endangered or wiped out and we don't want the same fate to happen to us, do we? So we really have to make these important changes and do it quickly because the decline is not slowing down. We haven't seen any evidence of that. But we can only do little things, I suppose, by comparison to the companies that are wrapping up

whatever it is, personal product, food, putting the chemicals in to increase absorption. That's correct. And this is a job for the companies and for the regulators to handle this in a way that protects us. And right now it does not. So we're exposed to low doses and lots and lots, actually thousands of chemicals. They're regulated one at a time. They're regulated at high doses. This is not how we're exposed. So they have to be regulated at the levels at which we're exposed and they have to be tested. And thousands of chemicals have never been tested. I'm just going to warn our listeners for a final point here that's quite a candid bit of your research. Men and women have obsessed, I suppose, about the length of men's penis, the penis length, but actually it's the perineum length that can be a better indicator of what

you're talking about. What have you found about this? So that's pretty interesting. We found that when the mother was exposed to higher levels of phthalates during her pregnancy, particularly early pregnancy, that the genitals of the male were less male typical. They were smaller, basically. The perineal length was smaller. The penis was smaller. The scrotum was smaller. The testicles didn't come down completely. So the male development was arrested. It was less male typical. And this played out in adulthood with the men having lower sperm counts and being infertile, more likely to be infertile. So there's a direct link from what the mother takes into her body at the time she's pregnant to the way the man is going to perform

when he's an adult. It's pretty amazing. It is. I'm just taking that in. Are you optimistic about your research changing things? We've talked about change throughout the programme. You're on the science side of it, the research side of it. But of course, you need, as you say, the calls from many regulators in the United States and some in the EU following the publication of my book. I'm very excited by this interest. I believe that together we can do this. But it's going to take a lot of effort because there are big dollars, bucks, EU funds behind keeping things the way they are. Indeed. And we started the programme talking about those big dollars and bucks. Professor Shanna Swan, thank you. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one.

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