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Are humans on the brink of extinction? Sperm studies paint grim picture

Studies are always interesting things, and then, there are those studies that actually and truthfully raise a few eyebrows.  Daniel Noah Halpern, who has authored a number of studies (see here), has an interesting perspective on the rates in which sperm counts have apparently drastically dropped. 

Credit: Daniel Halpern/GQ.com 

In a jarring piece for GQ Magazine, Halpern identifies that over the past 40 or so years — sperm counts have drastically dropped “to the point of  legitimate concern for the state of mankind”.    In 1973, sperm counts were reportedly at 99m sperm per liter.   By 2011, interestingly, those numbers had   seriously dropped to just under 47m in total.

And according to Halpern’s profile, uh,  that number continues to drop at “alarmingly high” rates that could indicate very real problems for humans in the future. 

We are producing half the sperm our grandfathers did. We are half as fertile,” writes Halpern, and the numbers prod him to ask: “Would 40 more years—or fewer—bring us all the way to zero?”.

So what’s to blame? Halpern interestingly dug into one common thing most people talk about today: chemicals and how to avoid them. Halpern argues in his GQ piece that “a leading cause in sperm counts dropping, perhaps, could be the fact that humans are ingesting chemicals of various kinds”. 

Read his editorial in full, here. 

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