Count Down: How Our Modern World Is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race

Disclosure: I work at Legacy, a leading fertility company. Our CEO admires the work of Dr. Swan and so purchased the book for each team member to read through.Countdown is very much an academic work in the style of Orientalism or On the Origin of Species and feels as though its sweeping insights will impact policies, perspectives, world plans. It is as urgent as Silent Spring or The Jungle. Throughout the book, Swan demonstrates that sperm counts and concentrations have been dropping - and not dropping, but dropping cataclysmically, dramatically - over the past 50 years. Her earlier work identified the drop in Western men. Here she lays out a case showing it is impacting not only all men, but all animals, too.Why is it happening? The core culprit, she submits, are endocrine disruptors. Drugs, plastics, phthlates, 'forever' chemicals that we've been manufacturing and circulating into our environment and bodies since especially World War II. She presents her argument in a highly digestible format with strong evidence, decades of meticulous research, and caution about how to interpret the research. This is how you wish every academic would communicate complicated work to the general public.The associated arguments that connect out of that far-reaching theory are, frankly, sweeping. The most obvious impact is that fertility rates are not only plummeting because couples are choosing to have children later in life and women are empowered to prioritize careers but also because when they DO try to have children later in their life, it is harder than it would have been at that age just 30 years ago. Lifestyle changes are clashing with biological changes, suggesting fertility rates will continue to plummet in an unsustainable way. The suggested impact is societal instability. What Swan does not state that many in the media have since her book released is that the end state could be a broadly infertile population.Swan is keen to point out the psychological impact these biological changes are having. Often women take blame and feel self blame when they experience miscarriages. Swan points to growing bodies of evidence that show men's sperm are often responsible for whether there is a miscarriage or not: the higher the DNA fragmentation in a man's semen sample, the more likely there will be a miscarriage.Perhaps the freshest perspective here is Swan's argument that endocrine disruptors are wreaking hormonal havoc on fetuses in the womb, leading to hormonal imbalances that result in children being born in to the wrong sex. Swan makes this argument considerately and somewhat convincingly. And although it's not an apples to apples comparison, she points to the increase of sexual dimorphism among animals who have been affected by these same 'forever' chemicals that the changes happening to our bodies are happening to all life on this planet as well. The implications of our having placed nature out of balance, much like we have with climate change, are troubling.I left this book, unfortunately, very cynical. I appreciated the information on lifestyle changes that can result in my sperm performing better. But I worry about our societal ability to act on the research that effectively invisible chemicals we've begun using everywhere are resulting in life's hormonal ruin. We have been slow to act on climate change, whose impact, relatively speaking, has been invisible and slow, but whose solutions are well understood. The solutions for eliminating our environment of endocrine disruptors are far less understood, the urgency from the public to act is far smaller (I didn't know this was a problem!), and their invisible rate of change on our bodies has been, relatively speaking, far faster. It worries me about where we'll be as a society 25 years from now.

This is a must read for everyone, not just those wanting to start a family and having issues with infertility.It is imperative that we educate ourselves about what we are giving up by allowing plastics in our lives. We need much, much more oversight and testing into the thousands of chemicals that are being introduced yearly in our environment and our bodies.Fertility rates are decreasing by 1% a year! Sperm banks are having more and more difficulty finding donors with high enough sperm counts to donate.It is an eye opening book.

One of the best books I’ve read

It's been posited for awhile that the rise in various forms of sexual dysfunction among humans might be due to environmental pollutants. The average earlier age of puberty among girls, lower sperm counts and smaller genitals among men, the explosion of gender confusion and gay frogs! The environment has been polluted for decades with various chemicals, some called EDCs, Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals, many of which mimic the biological action of estrogen and other hormones. The majority of the book is dedicated to the science behind these phenomenons. Very interesting if you're into that kind of thing. As far as actionable material, the second to last chapter has about 10 pages of recommendations for protecting yourself and your unborn children, while the last chapter is a call to action for a change to the systems by which man made chemicals are regulated. Very informative, although I would have liked more detail in the actionable recommendations, thus the four starts.

Shanon has given every reader a glimpse into the present and generational threats that are compromising the health and vitality of the human species. It’s time for change. We can no longer rely on “damage control” approaches and have to shift to an “anticipatory” one. She has armed here audience with the knowledge to help course correct before it’s too late.

Count DownI have only heard a few sound bites on the news about declining sperm counts. I was shocked by some of the claims in this book, so I Googled (DuckDucked) the author to see where she was coming from. Dr. Shanna Swan is one of the world’s leading experts on health / environmental research.Any couple desiring to have a family should read this book. You don’t need a medical degree or medical dictionary to understand this presentation. Dr. Swan uses familiar words if they convey the meaning.Declining male sperm count is only one of the many factors in successful conception and having healthy children. It is also interesting how the decreasing fertility problems are linked to many of our other environmental, nutrition and pollution problems.Dr. Swan admits that many details about human conception are not yet known, but she points to possible research needs and offers some solutions to reduce the problems.The answer to global over-population might be the falling birth rates but it might also lead to human extinction if other problems don’t kill us off first.Yes we live in a dangerous time considering the climate, nukes, financial disparity, government corruption, chemical pollution, etc. Some issues can be at least slowed down while we try to find solutions.

Countdown is one of those IMPORTANTLY PROFOUND books which should be in every public and school library and should be compulsory reading for every industrial and government official worldwide. I along with some other world citizens and governments initially became aware of similar content mentioned in this book back in August 1993 via a UK TV programme, which won 'The Documentary of the Year Award' and was considered so important that the American Congress asked for a private screening.The additional information from this book has confirmed to me that we as a species are basically poisoning and polluting our own nest by past and present manufactured products, the effluent from some of those manufacturing processes and the way in which we ourselves contribute to that by our way of living and thereby surviving on this planet.Some Governments are tackling this problem head on such as the European Union some 20yrs after the UK TV programme was shown by issuing a Directive to all EU Member States that by a certain time period, around about now, they should have in situ supplementary filtration systems to facilitate the extraction of Synthetic Oestrogens from Domestic Sewage Works prior to the fluids being discharged into the adjacent river systems.However the legacy of our contributed contamination which we all have sustained from the water and food chains plus the environment is such that our present and future health will continue to be affected resulting in various physiological and psychological anomalies affecting all life on this planet. Long term this will significantly affect the reproductive ability of our and other species which if not effectively challenged by Government Legislation and also hopefully by voluntary and collective action by industrial executives worldwide may result in the possibility of the encroachment of species extinction over the next few hundred years, it is that serious.My only serious criticism is why such additional information mentioned in this book has taken almost 30 years since 1993 to be made available to the general public in this form and why taking into consideration the continued worldwide scant ignorance of this subject that the media are not shouting out loud to have worldwide legislation past to counter this scandalous situation.

I came across this work by reading few articles about the fertile decline around the world at staggering rates.The book focus on reproductive health as one of the causes (many others are included) and how limiting humans who want to reproduce to do so.I was amazed at the effect of this chemicals and the effect it has specially on male adults and babies.I went on to read it to understand what chemicals to watch out for.Recommended

Well-written and informative... Relentlessly bleak, but that's not really the author's fault.

I am fascinated with every page in the book. Although scientific, it is easy to read and understand. It has really made me think about the environment around me and I have learnt so much!

I just finished COUNT DOWN by Shanna Swan. It's easily one of the most acute and relevant books for everyone especially 18, 19 year old and twentysomething men and women, everyone who wants to have children at one day, every thought leader, business leader, politician, policy maker and judges. The younger you read this the better. This book is a wake up call. We must do something. The first step is to buy and read this book and recommend it to everyone you know.This book is about a dramatically dropping sperm count (yes, this is a problem [not only in humans]), how chemicals are affecting (and destroying) our fertility and creating gender fluidity.