
Most men in the US and Europe could be infertile by 2060 - aaronbrethorst
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/08/most-men-in-the-us-and-europe-could-be-infertile-by-2060?utm_content=buffer2e258&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
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c3534l
If you take any trend in any direction and extrapolate it linearly, you will
always wind up with an absurd number. I lost two pounds this week. At this
rate I'll be dead in a year or two and weigh negative 50 pounds on the third.

~~~
Clubber
I wish I could say I lost two pounds this week. I probably gained. I will be
the size of the known universe eventually.

~~~
siberianbear
I assure that this is not your fate. Eventually you'd become so large that you
collapse into a black hole, and then you'd slowly evaporate due to Hawking
Radiation. Nature has a feedback mechanism for everything.

~~~
ithkuil
Provided that your density is low enough you don't necessary become a black
hole by just gaining weight.

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oaeu23tnoe0
This is a load of crap.

>if the data on sperm counts is extrapolated to its logical conclusion, men
will have little or no reproductive capacity from 2060 onwards.

No, that's not extrapolating to its logical conclusion. That's extrapolating a
trend as if it will continue without changing. In reality, even at these lower
levels, sperm counts are considered in the normal range.

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rebuilder
Taking a trend with an unknown cause and extrapolating seems unlikely to yield
accurate predictions. The actual news here is that in USA and Europe, male
sperm counts have fallen 50-60% between 1973 and 2011. That's alarming enough
on its own without sensational headlines like this.

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clumsysmurf
"Even in adults, exposure to chemicals, such as bisphenol A, which are thought
to affect fertility, can have a negative effect"

BPA is very common in paper receipts you get when buying stuff from the store.
A study in JAMA showed that for people who handle receipts often, it is
detectable in urine:

[http://www.newsweek.com/youre-absorbing-bpa-your-receipts-
st...](http://www.newsweek.com/youre-absorbing-bpa-your-receipts-study-
shows-230178)

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meric
Sperm count is correlated with testosterone levels, and testosterone levels
have also been dropping.

[http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/18/modern-life-
rough-o...](http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/18/modern-life-rough-on-men)

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EmilStenstrom
I never thought The Handmaid's Tale was a documentary about the actual, real
future ahead of us...

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snissn
Is there justification to continue the extrapolation?

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s3nnyy
> found no decline in sperm counts in men from Asia, Africa and South America
> ... US/European men will have little or no reproductive capacity ...

Still, this is alarming that we don't know why this happens.

~~~
fwdslash
More low-level radiation access? (smartphones/computers/smartwatches)

More refined sugar?

Less physical activity?

I really wonder what it could be, though.

~~~
michaelmrose
Computers and phones don't provide any radiation of the variety you are
thinking of. It's not merely a matter of degree it's a difference in category.

For more info look up ionizing radiation.

~~~
MichailP
Are you suggesting that microwave oven doesn't work because it doesn't use
ionizing radiation? Nonionizing radiation CAN have effects on humans, and
current regulations are only based on temperature effects i.e a proxy like a
SAR value. But there can be many effects of nonionizing radiation even before
it raises tissue temperature level.

~~~
eesmith
I believe michaelmrose is suggesting that while microwaves are indeed a form
of (electromagnetic) radiation, "low-level radiation" usually refers to low-
levels of ionizing radiation, not low-power EM sources. While fwdslash might
indeed be talking about low-level microwaves, there are many in my experience
who think that "radiation" only means "ionizing radiation" or "atomic
radiation". (Hence, "nuke it in the microwave".)

Again, in my experience, people who are aware of the distinction tend to write
"More low-power microwaves" than "More low-level radiation".

For a semblance of hard numbers, "low-level radiation" gives 735 hits in
PubMed Central ([https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/?term=%22low-
level+radiatio...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/?term=%22low-
level+radiation%22) ) and 338 in PubMed
([https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=%22low-
level+radia...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=%22low-
level+radiation%22) ).

'"low-level radiation" microwave" gives 32
([https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/?term=%22low-
level+radiatio...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/?term=%22low-
level+radiation%22+microwave) ) and 2
([https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=%22low-
level+radia...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=%22low-
level+radiation%22+microwave) ), respectively.

One of the latter is
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17886009](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17886009)
where you can see "low-level radiation" _is_ used to describe microwaves: "On
the radar station area, blue tits nested in high exposed nest-boxes (67,0%)
and great tit occupied mainly these boxes, which were exposed to low-level
radiation", where that radiation is "pulse-modulated microwave radiation of
1,200-3,000 MHz."

It's just not common.

The topic, by the way, concerns sperm counts. You write "there can be many
effects". Is a change in sperm count one of them? Many people have done
experiments on the effect of microwaves from mobile phones on organisms. I was
at a biology conference about 25 years ago where one of the speakers talked
about their research, so surely this has been tested already.

Also, radio and TV techs have been working with high-power EM for decades.
There's so much power in the air around some towers that florescent tubes can
glow. If low-power microwaves have an effect on fertility then we should have
seen an effect on those workers long ago, yes?

~~~
MichailP
Not necessarily, what if it is long term effect? What if it is some kind of
resonance involved, i.e. it only shows it face when there is certain geometry
and frequency present? Plus there were some courts rulings about phones
causing cancer ... [1]

[1]
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/21/italian-c...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/21/italian-
court-rules-mobile-phone-use-caused-brain-tumour)

~~~
eesmith
Courts never make mistakes in science?

As I kid I visited a broadcast transmitter up on the mountains with its own
hydropower generator. There was staff on-site who had worked there for years.
How long do you think is needed to compare working 8 hours a day at a 500kW
radio transmitter broadcasting all the time vs. holding a smartphone or using
wifi with only a few hundred milliwatts? (mW values at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBm) .)
Again, there's enough RF power from the transmitter to make a florescent bulb
glow.

The biophysics would pretty incredible, even unbelievable, for a certain
geometry and frequency to make a difference. Microwaves are a few centimeters
long, and longer than sperm or even the testes. What mechanism could make them
so specific to frequency?

But putting that aside, different countries use different frequencies
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_frequencies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_frequencies)
says "Many GSM phones support three bands (900/1,800/1,900 MHz or
850/1,800/1,900 MHz) or four bands (850/900/1,800/1,900 MHz), and are usually
referred to as tri-band and quad-band phones, or world phones; with such a
phone one can travel internationally and use the same handset.")

If there were a significant problem with one specific frequency then it would
appear in an epidemiology comparison.

Fundamentally though, your line of questioning can have no end. What if it
only affects people with one of about 30 point mutations? What if it's only
for those who have a diet with an excess of selenium? What if it's only at a
certain power level? What if ... what if .. what if?

Each of these is hard to test, and given the difficulty of the biophysics it's
hard to justify spending a lot of money when other options, including "More
refined sugar?" and "Less physical activity?", seem more likely.

------
hbcondo714
Just like the movie Children of Men

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Men](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Men)

------
basicplus2
Glysophate causes sperm count drop and cancer

[http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/03/pesticides-
res...](http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/03/pesticides-result-in-
lower-sperm-counts/)

~~~
s3nnyy
Might help to wash veggies with Natron (baking soda) before eating to remove
at least the pesticides on the surface of the food?
[https://happyherbivore.com/2012/12/how-to-wash-veggies-
bakin...](https://happyherbivore.com/2012/12/how-to-wash-veggies-baking-soda-
vinegar/)

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Axsuul
If it is indeed due to our increasingly toxic environment, then we should
perform studies based on different diets and the types of foods each group
consumes. My hypothesis is that our food sources are huge culprits here.

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nigrioid
Quite a mix of propaganda & fear on that website. It's a trend I'm noticing
more and more lately.

~~~
conanbatt
If the trends continue, the fear propagated by website will be so absolute
everyone will kill themselves immediately.

