BLUF
This article explains that everyday chemicals could be having devastating effects on reproductive health and causing a rapid decline in fertility rates.Summary
There are growing concerns that the fall in fertility rates are not being taken seriously. Shanna H. Swan and Stacey Colino—who co-authored the book ‘Countdown’ on the subject—have penned an article for Scientific American on their concerns about environmental pollutants causing what they consider to be alarming drops in human fertility rates. Swan and Colino assert that fertility rates worldwide have dropped almost one-per-cent per year since 1960. The primary cause, they believe, are hormone-altering chemicals known as endocrine-disrupting chemicals, or EDCs. These EDCs are found in everyday items such as food packaging and cleaning supplies. The authors believe that EDCs are responsible not only for declining fertility rates but also for other serious reproductive health issues. Swan and Colino assert that it’s time for EDCs to be removed from these everyday items and replaced with chemicals that don’t affect human hormones.
