The Global Spermageddon | Explorer

Our first story has serious global implications, the very survival of the human species, but it's about something that really couldn't get more personal—fertility. Researchers have recently found staggering drops in male sperm count in Western countries. The big question is, why? Correspondent Tim Samuels agreed to put himself on the front lines in New York to figure out what's up down there. [music playing]

I'm Tim Samuels, in New York, investigating a crisis close to home—the global spermaggedon. [music playing] An alarming new study has found that between 1973 and 2011, sperm counts in Western males—men in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand—dropped from an average of 99 million sperm per cubic centimeter to just 47 million. Theoretically, if the trend persists, by 2050, our sperm may disappear entirely. [music playing]

I'm here to add my sample to the scientific pool, and I am deeply hopeful that mine are still swimming. [music playing]

Hi. I'm Tim.

Hi, Tim. I'm Miriam.

Hi, Miriam.

TIM SAMUELS (VOICEOVER): This is about to get awkward.

OK. Here's your specimen jar. You can come right on in here. You're provided with the materials that you need. And once you're finished, you give me a call at this number.

Is there a special word?

Thunderbirds are go?

MIRIAM: Uh, you're done.

OK [chuckles] OK? Good?

• Yeah.

• I'll see you then.

See you on the other side.

MIRIAM: Bye bye. Cheers. [music playing]

TIM SAMUELS (VOICEOVER): With Miriam analyzing my sample upstairs, I'm turned loose on the streets to fret over my count and the modern-day phenomena like stress and obesity believed to lower it. Don't get me wrong. I take my fertility very seriously. To prep for this count, I've been eating right, exercising, managing stress. Recently, I even started laying off the booze.

But troubling research suggests little of this may matter. Of the many factors contributing to sperm count decline, there's one that's especially hard to avoid—plastics. More specifically, a group of chemicals found in many plastic products called phthalates. Phthalates are added to plastic during manufacture to make it soft and flexible. They're just wonderfully versatile, amazing products. It's just that they also have the effect of altering our bodies' hormones.

TIM SAMUELS (VOICEOVER): Epidemiologist Shanna Swan, who co-authored the breakthrough fertility study, also researches phthalates' effect on the hormone testosterone. Shanna's met me at this 99-cent store to show me how ubiquitous these chemicals are.

TIM SAMUELS: For me handling a plastic bottle, how does it get from there to my testes?

The chemicals that we were concerned about are not chemically bound to the plastic. They are in the composition, but they come out.

TIM SAMUELS (VOICEOVER): Microwaving leftovers in a plastic container is a prime example. When heated, the phthalates leach out of the plastic into the food. We're ingesting them, we're absorbing them, and we're breathing them.

TIM SAMUELS (VOICEOVER): For reasons not entirely known, once inside the body, phthalates seem to inhibit testosterone production. That's scary enough when you're a grown man, but Shanna's research suggests worse damage could be done before we're even born.

Your mother, when she was pregnant with you, what she drank, what she ate, what she was exposed to was actively affecting your body within her body.

TIM SAMUELS (VOICEOVER): For his sex organs to develop, the male fetus needs testosterone in utero. [music playing]

When it's not there at the right time, in the right amount, then he can be what we call incompletely masculinized.

TIM SAMUELS (VOICEOVER): Translation—his testicles may not develop, and his penis may be smaller.

SHANNA SWAN: And he will have a low sperm count.

That's extraordinary.

SHANNA SWAN: It is extraordinary. [music playing]

TIM SAMUELS (VOICEOVER): The fertility study which Shanna co-authored focused on Western men because similar data is less available in other countries, but that doesn't mean the phenomenon isn't worldwide. If that trend continues as is, does it start to pose existential threats to our species?

I am not a seer. I can't predict the future, but I can tell you what doesn't look good. [music playing]

TIM SAMUELS (VOICEOVER): Our poor dwindling sperm. They're working overtime to propagate the human race, but how much longer can they keep up? What would a post-sperm world look like?

Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop drinking. Things are grim. I wouldn't deny it, but I'm a little bit more optimistic.

TIM SAMUELS (VOICEOVER): Bioethicist Arthur Caplan sees a future in which we ditch concerns about raising sperm counts and focus on raising actual sperm with stem cells.

It sounds a little nuts, but you take the cell, you put it in a dish, you put the right chemicals around it, and lo and behold, you can trick it into making sperm cells.

TIM SAMUELS: So is the future of reproduction in 20, 30 years, you know, darling, let's make a baby. Rather than having sex, hold on, I'm just going to take some stem cells, reverse engineer them, and try and select the sperm from there.

I think sex always will have a future, but it may get disconnected from reproduction. Engineering a better baby is the future. [music playing]

TIM SAMUELS (VOICEOVER): Sperm by design. I'm ready to dive right in. [music playing]

Engineered to have my most desirable traits—intelligence, stunning good looks, athleticism, ready to pair with the perfect egg.

This technology will be great when it's ready in 10 or 15 years, but that might be too late for me. So I'm headed back to Weill Cornell to learn how my sample fared. [music playing]

It's a bit like being an expectant expectant father.

Tim, hi.

Peter Schlegel.

• Great. So we're going to go right in here.

TIM SAMUELS (VOICEOVER): Weill Cornell urologist Peter Schlegel specializes in male fertility.

OK, so we've got some results. Miriam is looking at the sample right now. [music playing]

OK, so that's—that's my, uh, my chaps in there?

That is your sample on there.

TIM SAMUELS (VOICEOVER): Time for the moment of truth.

TIM SAMUELS: This is it? Wow. This is—it's mind-blowing to see your individual sperm.

Now, are they swimming just erratically in circles or is there a pattern to this?

Well, they never ask for directions, which is part of the problem.

Yeah.

TIM SAMUELS (VOICEOVER): But now for the potent question, how's my count?

PETER SCHLEGEL: The concentration of sperm in the sample is 87 million. The average man will have 60 to 80 million sperms. You're even a little better than average.

OK. But is the assumption that, had I lived 40 years ago, if we'd been doing this, it would have been better?

Good question. Probably in the previous generation, numbers were higher. [music playing]

TIM SAMUELS (VOICEOVER): OK. So thankfully, my chaps can swim better than I can, and theoretically, seem up to the reproductive task. Now, just the small matter of finding an egg they can call home. [music playing]