Comparison Of Pollution And Plunging Male Fertility

1373 Words3 Pages

Pollution and Plunging Male Fertility

Several reliable studies have confirmed that fertility among men has decreased as a result of pollution.

The average male ejaculation is about three milliliters. This amount of semen can contain between 20 million to 300 million sperm per milliliter semen. To determine the approximate number of sperm per milliliter of semen, technicians must place a drop of semen on a slide and, while looking through a microscope, they count the sperm within a certain sector. Men that have sperm counts below 20 million per milliliter are said to have reduced fertility and those whose counts fall below 5 million are considered sterile.

In 1974, C. M. Kinloch-Nelson and Raymond G. Bunge at the University of Iowa, studied the semen quality of men who had fathered two or more children and were about to undergo vasectomies. Of the 386 fertile men studied, 7% of them had sperm concentrations above 100 million per millimeter and the average concentration was 48 million. When they compared their findings to similar studies done in the thirties, they found that sperm counts had been decreasing for 50 years. "They discovered that among healthy adult males who were not being treated for infertility, the …show more content…

He believes these diseases are developing in the early stages of development, because damage to the male urogenital system is evident in some very young patients . "In Skakkebk's opinion, the most likely [causes] are chemicals in the environment which masquerade as estrogen . . . These chemicals, which can have a temporary effect on adults, can cause permanent damage to boys whose sexual organs are not yet fully developed" (Wright

More about Comparison Of Pollution And Plunging Male Fertility

Open Document