A prolonged decline in male fertility in the form of sperm concentrations appears to be connected to the use of pesticides, according to a study published Wednesday.
Researchers compiled, rated and reviewed the results of 25 studies of certain pesticides and male fertility and found that men who had been exposed to certain classes of pesticides had significantly lower sperm concentrations. The study, published Wednesday in Environmental Health Perspectives, included data from more than 1,700 men and spanned several decades.
“No matter how we looked at the analysis and results, we saw a persistent association between increasing levels of insecticide and decreases in sperm concentration,” said study author Melissa Perry, who is an environmental epidemiologist and the dean of the College of Public Health at George Mason University. “I would hope this study would get the attention of regulators seeking to make decisions to keep the public safe from inadvertent, unplanned impacts of insecticides.”
It looks like the experiment itself was comparing sperm levels between direct exposure and indirect exposure. That tells us that high concentration and direct exposure reduce sperm and establishes the pesticide as capable of doing that. But it doesn’t tell us much about the global decline. Nothing in the article actually links the two together, and they haven’t even linked the actual study.
We know that some harmful substances are benign in small quantities. The everyday radiation we’re exposed to by naturally occuring isotopes doesn’t do anything. On the other hand, X Rays are safe, but the technicians actually have a noticeable increase in cancer risk if they don’t leave the room when they actually take the X Ray. So the latent background radiation there is enough to make a difference.
Ultimately, we still don’t know if the latent exposure we get to these pesticides is enough to cause reproductive harm. If there isn’t a scientifically significant difference in sperm levels between vegans and non vegetarians, I’m inclined to think this isn’t the culprit. But it’s worth further research and cutting back on usage anyway of course. It could be that we’re exposed to enough to cause a decrease in sperm, but not enough that dietary differences would be visible.
(This is why foods and consumer products can have incredibly complex molecules and still be safe. The concentration makes it benign – most of the time. This is why food additives are an interesting topic.)
I was told that we haven’t even established that there is a global decline in sperm numbers. That the methods of counting in the past weren’t as good as modern ones, meaning it isn’t a controlled variable of one time.
Also, a long the lines of what you said, I wonder if the number of people with direct exposure has gone up the past few decades or down. Less of the human race is involved with farming as farms have grown in size and output.
That the methods of counting in the past weren’t as good as modern ones, meaning it isn’t a controlled variable of one time.
That’s actually mentioned an article.
Is this a bad thing? Fewer kids in the future seems like a win.
It’s not for countries with shrinking populations. The most sustainable model is a roughly constant population, which we’re going to reach sometime within the next 50 years. A shrinking population means an aging population, which comes with its own host of issues (see: Japan and Korea).
It’s purely anecdotal, but go to a small town in Iowa and you may notice something a little unexpected - there’s seemingly a larger than normal population of gay and transgender people.
Again, anecdotal, but I visit there frequently for work. My gut tells me the crop treatments are screwing with hormones…unless there’s some other explanation.
Sure thing, Alex.
People mock the gay frogs thing, but pesticide runoff was mucking with frog hormones, causing a genuine physical sex shift. Frogs are capable of shifting sex under specific conditions, and the chemical pollution was forcing the change. Huge ecological damage.
It was perhaps the single time alex jones was correct about anything, and if he hadnt called the frogs gay he probably wouldnt have been mocked for it.
It was making them trans, not gay.
I honestly wonder if being exposed to xenoestrogens in the womb is why I’m trans.
I’m not unhappy about it, just something I think about!
Next stop: children of men
Given the role reversal, wouldn’t it be Children of Women ?
Either way, whatever drops the pop … ulation.
Lets get it into the drinking water.
