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Comment by deftnerd | Hacker News Reader

I've been paying attention to the lowering fertility rate across the world. My instinct, until now, was that it was because of fire retardant chemicals found in furniture that act as an endocrine disruptor. It didn't totally fit though so I felt like there was something else that was a major contributor.

Ibuprofen being a cause of lower sperm counts could be the missing piece of the puzzle. It's also a big deal because Tylenol has been pushed aside for the last 20 years as being more unsafe for children than Ibuprofen.

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At least in Italy, children are almost exclusively given paracetamol (Tylenol) to lower temperature. Ibuprofen is only used as an anti-inflammatory drug, for example if they have faryngitis

Paracetamol comes with its own set of problems. It's somewhat dangerous to people with a variety of liver conditions.

In large enough doses it is dangerous to everyone. The problem is that the large enough dose is much smaller than other OTC drugs.

Are there any good numbers on the fertility among people who actually WANT to conceive, rather than the raw total population rates (which is affected by people who don't want kids - prevented through birth control and abortions)

"One 2012 report, which presented the results of the study of over 26,000 French men, showed that the sperm count had fallen by a third between 1989 and 2005. A 2007 report in the UK presented the results of a study done on one city in the country. It showed that sperm counts had declined by over 29 percent between 1989 and 2002. And more recently, in the summer of 2017, a study by scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem analyzed data from over 43,000 North American, European, Australian, and New Zealand men concluded that the average sperm count had fallen by almost 60 percent in the past 40 years. "

From an article at https://www.inquisitr.com/4757173/the-human-race-could-be-in... dated just a few days ago

Not what GP was asking. Desire might not even correlate with sperm count!

Maybe decreased desire even leads to count and motility decreases?

Funny to see this now, as I was thinking a little while ago of the break-in period for a new mattress I owned, where I dealt with a sore throat or asthma-like condition for a week before realizing the probable cause, after doing some reading about many with similar problems. (I closed off the bedroom with the windows open during that winter period and slept elsewhere for a little while after that.)

To me it's emblematic of the Safety State: a (relative) few die from mattress fires, so now everybody is gassed with possible or probable toxins in hyper-response.

PSA: Careful of those new mattresses…

I doubt there is one smoking gun. It's a basket of causes. Too much exposure to weird chemicals, ibuprofen, not enough zinc, obesity, lack of exercise, etc are all causes.

Death by 1000 papercuts.

My point here is that it's possible that there are many circumstances accumulating but that doesn't discredit efforts for finding the biggest contributors.

You can easily smuggle a couple of razors between the paper sheets.

My money would be on increasing levels of education and healthcare instead of fire retardant chemicals and ibuprofen.

How exactly would education affect the testicles?

He started by talking about global fertility rates. He then mentions lower sperm counts but it's not a given that one is solely or mostly because of the other. Fertility rates are expressed in children per woman, not sperm count.

A large drop in global fertility rates is attributable to lower infant mortality, better access to healthcare, contraception, and education about using it. Also, as levels of education in general rise, people tend to have fewer children.

My instinct, until now, was that it was because of fire retardant chemicals found in furniture that act as an endocrine disrupto

What are your thoughts on synthetic hormones, e.g. used in farming or in contraception? Those enter the water supply and are not broken down.

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