Anyone who’s read “The Handmaid’s Tale” will find this article singularly disturbing.

An Alarming Decline in Sperm Quality Could Threaten the Future of the Human Race, and the Chemicals Likely Responsible Are Everywhere

The opening of epidemiologist Shanna Swan's new book sounds a bit like science fiction: We are half as fertile as our grandfathers were. And if the trend continues, we may very well reach a point where the human race is unable to reproduce itself.

In Count Down: How Our Modern World Is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race, Swan’s take on the procreative capabilities of the modern man is clear-eyed and terrifying. The data tells some of the tale. Sperm concentration—the number of sperm per milliliter of semen—has dropped more than 50% among men in Western countries in just under 40 years.

[gq.com]