Dr. Shanna Swan, a professor of environmental medicine and public at NYC’s Mount Sinai Hospital, is claiming in a new book that manufacturing byproducts are shrinking penises when put up against those of our comparatively massive forefathers, TMZ reports.
*5-second pause* That’s not good.
Swan contends that the substance to blame here is phthalates. Those are chemicals that are used to make plastics more flexible and harder to break. She says that exposure of these chemicals to the endocrine system messes with the natural hormone process. In turn, that messes with the reproductive organs.
To come to this conclusion, she says she cited peer-reviewed studies which show that babies are starting out life with smaller penises. She pins that alleged trend on phthalates, which she says has seeped into some of our toys and (occasionally) some of our food.
To back up her argument, she says that phthalates in rat fetuses had the same smaller-penis-effect. She labels this whole thing an “existential crisis” for our species, especially when linked with the other reproductive problems males are currently having (such as lower sperm counts). By her estimation, if the trend continues, most men will be effectively impotent by 2045.
For those interested in reading further, her book is called Count Down. To put what we wrote above more succinctly, it’s about “how our modern world is threatening sperm counts, altering male and female reproductive development, and imperiling the future of the human race.”
