https://news.sky.com/story/human-penises-are-shrinking-because-of-pollution-warns-scientist-12255106

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Human penises are shrinking because of pollution, warns scientist

Dr Shanna Swan has found that chemicals called phthalates are causing
human babies to be born with malformed genitals.

Created with Sketch.

Wednesday 24 March 2021 14:56, UK

Factory smokestack emitting toxic fumes
Image: Pollution is causing human penises to shrink, a scientist has
warned

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Why you can trust Sky News

Penises are shrinking and genitals becoming malformed because of
pollution, an environmental scientist has warned in a new book
detailing the challenges facing human reproduction.

Dr Shanna Swan writes that humanity is facing an "existential crisis"
in fertility rates as a result of phthalates, a chemical used when
manufacturing plastics that impacts the hormone-producing endocrine
system.

As a result of this pollution, a growing number of babies are being
born with small penises, Dr Swan writes.

Pollution
Image: Humanity is facing a fertility crisis, says Dr Swan

Her book, titled Count Down, examines "how our modern world is
threatening sperm counts, altering male and female reproductive
development, and imperilling the future of the human race".

Dr Swan's research began by examining phthalate syndrome, something
observed in rats which found that when fetuses were exposed to the
chemical they were likely to be born with shrunken genitals.

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She discovered that male human babies who had been exposed to the
phthalates in the womb had a shorter anogenital distance - something
that correlated with penile volume.

The chemical has an industrial use in making plastics more flexible,
but Dr Swan says it is being transmitted into toys and foods and
subsequently harms human development.

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Phathalates mimic the hormone oestrogen and thus disrupt the natural
production of hormones in the human body, which researchers have
linked to interference in sexual development in infants and
behaviours in adults.

Blurred silhouettes of cars surrounded by steam from the exhaust
pipes. Traffic jam
Image: Men may be mostly infertile by 2045, Dr Swan warns

Dr Swan, who is a professor in environmental medicine and public
health at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, based her work
on a series of peer-reviewed research studies.

One study published in 2017 found that sperm levels among men in
Western countries had dropped by more than 50% over the past four
decades after examining 185 studies involving close to 45,000 healthy
men.

Dr Swan believes that the rapidly decreasing fertility rate means
that most men will be unable to produce viable sperm by 2045.

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