"What I do with my body doesn't affect you!" Oh, Really.

From the British publication, The Independent, we read this headline:

It's official: Men really are the weaker sex
Evolution is being distorted by pollution, which damages genitals and the ability to father offspring, says new study. Geoffrey Lean reports

The article, published on Sunday, December 7, 2008, begins:

The male gender is in danger, with incalculable consequences for both humans and wildlife, startling scientific research from around the world reveals.

The research – to be detailed tomorrow in the most comprehensive report yet published – shows that a host of common chemicals is feminising males of every class of vertebrate animals, from fish to mammals, including people.

Backed by some of the world's leading scientists, who say that it "waves a red flag" for humanity . . . .

What does this have to do with the subject of this blog? Read on. In a part of the article dealing with the impact on fish, the writer informs his readers:

Female hormones – largely from the contraceptive pills which pass unaltered through sewage treatment – are partly responsible, while more than three-quarters of sewage works have been found also to be discharging demasculinising man-made chemicals.

In other words, contraceptive pills are entering the water supply, chemically emasculating fish, as well as males of other species.

Not only are we males less fertile than our ancestors, there are proportionately fewer of us:

Communities heavily polluted with gender-benders in Canada, Russia and Italy have given birth to twice as many girls than boys, which may offer a clue to the reason for a mysterious shift in sex ratios worldwide. Normally 106 boys are born for every 100 girls, but the ratio is slipping. It is calculated that 250,000 babies who would have been boys have been born as girls instead in the US and Japan alone.

And sperm counts are dropping precipitously. Studies in more than 20 countries have shown that they have dropped from 150 million per millilitre of sperm fluid to 60 million over 50 years. (Hamsters produce nearly three times as much, at 160 million.) Professor Nil Basu of Michigan University says that this adds up to "pretty compelling evidence for effects in humans".

Contraceptives are not the only factor, of course. But it turns out that what you do with your body does affect me.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?'" And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

We never learn, listening again and again to the same old serpent, who whispers in our ears that we can be like God, knowing good and evil, if we just ignore His injunctions, and that no harm will come of it.

See http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/its-official-men-really-are-the-weaker-sex-1055688.html