Shrinking joysticks and falling sperm counts are just two consequences of chemicals produced by increased pollution, according to a professor of medicine and public health.

Dr Shanna Swan of the Mount Sinai Medical Centre in New York writes that humanity faces an “existential crisis” as a result of phthalates, a chemical used in the creation of plastics that impacts the hormone-producing endocrine system.


Having already co-authored a study on the West's falling sperm counts between 1973 and 2011, Dr. Swan's new book inspects how environmental chemicals could lead to low sperm counts, affect fertility rates – a modern man, she writes, may have half the sperm count of his grandfather – and penis shrinkage.

"Chemicals in our environment and unhealthy lifestyle practices in our modern world are disrupting our hormonal balance, causing various degrees of reproductive havoc," she writes in the book, which also focuses on plummeting fertility rates. "In some parts of the world, the average twentysomething woman today is less fertile than her grandmother was at 35.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/pollution-penis-shrink-sperm-count-b1821863.html