The Disappearing Male?

[heart]

The Disappearing Male - Doc Zone | CBC-TV

The Disappearing Male

"'We are conducting a vast toxicological experiment in which our children and our children's children are the experimental subjects.' Dr. Herbert Needleman

The Disappearing Male is about one of the most important, and least publicized, issues facing the human species: the toxic threat to the male reproductive system.

The last few decades have seen steady and dramatic increases in the incidence of boys and young men suffering from genital deformities, low sperm count, sperm abnormalities and testicular cancer. Some researchers say that declining male fertility rates could be the first sign of extinction.
At the same time, boys are now far more at risk of suffering from ADHD, autism, Tourette's syndrome, cerebral palsy, and dyslexia.

The Disappearing Male takes a close and disturbing look at what many doctors and researchers now suspect are responsible for many of these problems: a class of common chemicals that are ubiquitous in our world.


Found in everything from shampoo, sunglasses, meat and dairy products, carpet, cosmetics and baby bottles, they are called "hormone mimicking" or "endocrine disrupting" chemicals and they may be starting to damage the most basic building blocks of human development.

Facts about Male Infertility
Sperm counts have been cut in half in the last fifty years - and 85% of that is abnormal.
In the last few decades there has been a 200% increase in male genital birth defects.
Male birth rates have declined. Since 1970 there have been nearly 3 million fewer baby boys... "

 

[Didums]

The Y chromosome gets smaller and smaller each generation.

 

[ygolo]

Damn. The video links say "content currently unavailable."

Did they work at one time?

 

[Willfrey]

Bring on the polygamy!

I have a hard time stomaching radical theories like these without established references.

Facts about Male Infertility
Sperm counts have been cut in half in the last fifty years - and 85% of that is abnormal.
In the last few decades there has been a 200% increase in male genital birth defects.
Male birth rates have declined. Since 1970 there have been nearly 3 million fewer baby boys... "

Where were these facts gathered? Are these stats just 'exploding' becuase we now have more accurate tools to measure them by? 3 million fewer boys, is that based from a projected figure in the 70's? How does it compare to fertility in women?

Ugh, hogwash I say! Hogwash! No sources cited on the article, also it smacks of the whole 'buy natural, no chemicals, we're killing our planet' rhetoric.

 

[rhinosaur]

I don't know about what was cited in the article -- I would agree with you that those statistics are extremely ambiguous. Moreover, the part that Heart posted resorts to using conjoined statements to imply a connection, which is misleading and manipulative.

However, endocrine disruptors are very real. They've already caused all sorts of nasty shit, such as infertility in species and weakening of egg shells. As a result, many have already been lifted from the shelves, but there are hundreds of these chemicals that are still used every day, with unknown consequences. Furthermore, WWTPs aren't required to remove many of them, so they are simply released into streams. Besides the obvious environmental issue, if the WWTP is above a pumping station, they go right back into the water supply.

Here are a couple of resources that you may find more objective than the scare-tactics article above. Note that the term 'estrogens' is (essentially) synonymous with 'estrogenic compounds/chemicals.' These are part of a larger class of chemicals called endocrine disrupting compounds, EDCs.

1) Environmental Agents: Endocrine Disruptors
2) Google Answers: estrogen
3) Evidence for the migration of steroidal estrogens through riverbed sediments.

 

[Colors]

Only 3 million? We're gonna have to pump more endocrine disruptors into the environment to balance out the gender ratio imbalance in Asia.

 

[Kora]

I can't wait for that to happen

 

[Mondo]

Until we find a better substitute to plastic, I don't think much is going to change-

 

[Nillerz]

This is entirely feminisms fault.

</thread>

 

[Salomé]

Common knowledge for some time, I'd have said.

Survival of the fittest? I'm down with that.

 

[heart]

Common knowledge for some time, I'd have said.

Survival of the fittest? I'm down with that.

If the plastics are truly minicking hormones I am not so sure this would be a beneficial surivial of the fittest thing. It would be an unnatural aspect being introduced into human development.

 

[Valiant]

Another aspect of this is probably lack of sun... Read in one of our national newspapers that Vitamin D is pretty damn important to male fertility.

 

[heart]

Another aspect of this is probably lack of sun... Read in one of our national newspapers that Vitamin D is pretty damn important to male fertility.

This is a good point. Modern living: daily bathing and fear of skin cancer is often said to be bringing our supply of vitamin D down and many argue that the daily recommended dose is inadequate.

 

[Willfrey]

I don't know about what was cited in the article --
However, endocrine disruptors are very real. They've already caused all sorts of nasty shit, such as infertility in species and weakening of egg shells. As a result, many have already been lifted from the shelves, but there are hundreds of these chemicals that are still used every day, with unknown consequences. Furthermore, WWTPs aren't required to remove many of them, so they are simply released into streams. Besides the obvious environmental issue, if the WWTP is above a pumping station, they go right back into the water supply.

Here are a couple of resources that you may find more objective than the scare-tactics article above. Note that the term 'estrogens' is (essentially) synonymous with 'estrogenic compounds/chemicals.' These are part of a larger class of chemicals called endocrine disrupting compounds, EDCs.

1) Environmental Agents: Endocrine Disruptors
2) Google Answers: estrogen
3) Evidence for the migration of steroidal estrogens through riverbed sediments.

Still a tough swallow, while I agree that said chemicals are bad I don't think the problem is by any means epidemic. Until I have conclusive evidence that the tap water and irrigation-fed products I'm consuming is breaking my testicles I don't think I'll switch to bottled water. Using one mildly polluted riverbed (not the water itself) in the UK just isn't enough.

 

[Salomé]

If the plastics are truly minicking hormones I am not so sure this would be a beneficial surivial of the fittest thing. It would be an unnatural aspect being introduced into human development.

All developments are unnatural, at first.

Plastic men have their uses.

 

[Valiant]

This is a good point. Modern living: daily bathing and fear of skin cancer is often said to be bringing our supply of vitamin D down and many argue that the daily recommended dose is inadequate.

Eh, definitely... It's probably why we westerners are ill all the time, too. Climate, habits, culture, tech... I hate lack of sun. Boy am I living in the wrong place for that... -_- I've got about 30 miles to the polar circle!

All developments are unnatural, at first.

Plastic men have their uses.

Thinking nasty thoughts of that stormtrooper, don't ya?

 

[FDG]

Another aspect of this is probably lack of sun... Read in one of our national newspapers that Vitamin D is pretty damn important to male fertility.

This is a point on which scientists disagree with. Male testeosterone levels are at their lowest during the summer, because ultraviolet radiation destroys a precursor of testosterone (this is one of the reasons why everybody at the tropics is black - very white people would become infertile due to excessive sun exposition). Also, many regions (like yours) where the sun radiation is of a low frequency have been inhabited since a long time.
I can bring my own experience into the equation: I used to be a competitive cyclist (up almost to the pro level), and I still cycle a lot, thus I get a lot of sun in comparison to most people I know. I used to have to compulsorily give blood after some important races, and the testosterone levels where always at their lowest in august.

I think that one more thing is to be considered in the equation: an excessively sedentary lifestyle. That definitely decreases testosterone.

 

[Nillerz]

To think that this is all leading to asexual reproduction between females is by far the most retarded concept ever made. Also, it pushes the assumption that men are somehow not needed in society despite the fact that men built most of society.

 

[runvardh]

I suppose eventually a certain minority of women will "finally" be happy.

Edit: na, they'll just find something else to bitch about

 

[Salomé]

Thinking nasty thoughts of that stormtrooper, don't ya?

To think that this is all leading to asexual reproduction between females is by far the most retarded concept ever made. Also, it pushes the assumption that men are somehow not needed in society despite the fact that men built most of society.

Talking of retarded concepts....