collaboration
Shanna Swan of the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York City is a leading researcher into the effects of so-called endocrine-disrupting chemicals on human fertility. A 2017 paper she co-authored came to the startling conclusion that sperm counts among men in the industrialized world fell nearly 60 per cent from 1973 to 2011, in part because of the effects on the hormonal system of chemicals widely used in consumer products. Other factors include obesity, smoking and alcohol.
In her new book,
Count Down, Swan makes her case against endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Her goal is to generate public concern about these substances and to spur government action to ban them. These chemicals include phthalates, used in plastics, floor coverings, personal care products, toys and medical devices; BPA, used since the 1950s in plastic bottles and the linings of food cans; and flame-retardant chemicals called PBDEs, commonly used in upholstered furniture, mattresses, carpets a
What’s behind declining sperm counts and fertility?
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What’s behind declining sperm counts and fertility?
What’s behind declining sperm counts and fertility?
In the 1992 dystopian novel,
The Children of Men, P. D. James tells the story of a world where no child has been born in 26 years. It’s a world without hope or purpose. Mass suicide by the elderly is common, and the not-yet-elderly are urged to watch pornography in vain hopes of stimulating libidos and reproduction.
It might surprise you to learn that many of the innovations deployed to counter the coronavirus were once obscure Pentagon-funded projects to defend soldiers from contagious diseases and biological weapons. The life-saving vaccine developed in record time owes a debt to these programs. To learn more, we met the man who has been leading the rapid vaccine effort, retired Colonel Matt Hepburn. An army infectious disease physician, he spent years with the secretive defense advanced research projects agency or DARPA, working
on technology he hopes will ensure COVID-19 is the last pandemic.
Dr. Matt Hepburn: If we wanna say we can never let this happen again, we re gonna have to go even faster next time.
Original:
It’s been hard to make sense of the headlines on COVID lately.
Just in the past weeks, we’ve seen ones like, “New strain detected in Israel” or “California’s new strain reduces immune response.”
Others have warned of a surge of “dangerous” variants and even “super mutations” that might evade vaccines.
But much of this kind of conversation is misguided, argues one of the nation s top virology experts.
“The narrative is screwed up in a way,” says Vincent Racaniello, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University. For one, he says, there is only one known
Stealth Chemicals: A Call to Action on a Threat to Human Fertility yale.edu - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from yale.edu Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.