In 2017, something fairly unprecedented happened in regards to male reproductive health: People actually started talking about it.
What kicked off the fracas was an alarming paper in the journal Human Reproduction Update claiming that men’s sperm counts were just half of what they once had been.The study was a meta-review of research looking at sperm counts over the past four decades, and it included 185 studies that encompassed more than 40,000 men. Between 1973 and 2011, the paper’s authors concluded, the men’s sperm counts fell by more than 50 percent. The trend wasn’t leveling off, either. The authors conclude that “research on the causes of this continuing decline is urgently needed,” a fairly intense rallying cry in the strait-laced world of academic publishing.
The paper kicked off a frenzy of media coverage on the so-called “sperm crisis,” with journalists asking whether we might someday soon find ourselves in Children of Men territory. The 2006 sci-fi thriller depicts a world where human reproduction has ceased entirely, with apocalyptic results.
