Atrophied penises, genital malformations… Pollution has dramatic effects on newborns, warns this scientist

We knew that pollution could cause all kinds of damage. According to Shanna Swan, an American environmentalist, the harmful effects would be detected even from birth, causing deformities in newborns. Last February, she published a book, Countdown (countdown in French) on the effects of pollution on certain functions of the body. The book is captioned “How Our Modern World Threatens Sperm Quality, Disrupting the Reproductive Development of Men and Women and Endangering the Future of Mankind.”

Phthalates in the eye of the finder

If the pollution as a whole is pointed out in the book of the environmentalist, a chemical substance is more incriminated: phthalates. Used to make plastics more flexible, she says they are largely responsible for reducing the size of the penises of little boys, but also genital malformations in girls.

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By performing experiments on rat fetuses, Shanna Swan was able to observe that the latter, in contact with phthalates, had a greater risk of being born with atrophied genitals. The scientist also relied on data from several past studies, which was able to highlight the existence of a similar phenomenon in human babies.

“Serious consequences for humanity”

Our endocrine system, at the origin of the production and balance of hormones, would be directly regulated by phthalates according to the scientist, who does not hesitate to speak of an “existential crisis” for humanity.

This mom is looking for the man who helped her with her baby

Video by Elise Poiret

According to his research, the concentration of sperm has dropped by more than 50% in the past 40 years in Western men. By 2045, Shanna Swan predicts that the vast majority of men will be unable to secrete sperm of sufficient quality to allow reproduction.