The Megyn Kelly Show - McCarthy's Speaker Fail, and Alarming Decline in Sperm Counts, with Eric Bolling and Dr. Shanna Swan

00:00:00.400 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:11.780 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:15.100 Coming up, a fascinating deep dive into the declining fertility among young men and women worldwide.

00:00:22.940 Men are losing their sperm, the sperm count, the sperm strength, and their testosterone is going down.

00:00:32.520 And I will be speaking to one of the world's leading environmental and reproductive epidemiologists.

00:00:37.880 This is the woman whose study has been revered since 2017 on why this is happening and how we can stop it.

00:00:45.460 She has spent decades studying the impact, things like household products, the food that you eat, and we'll get into the specifics.

00:00:53.840 Pharmaceuticals have on our reproductive health.

00:00:57.440 And the numbers are not good. They're not good.

00:01:01.580 We've got to reverse this trend.

00:01:03.100 Just reading up on her research and advice was fascinating and alarming.

00:01:06.240 And if you have children and would like to have grandchildren, pay attention.

00:01:10.520 All right. First, though, new round of voting set to take place this hour, maybe for the next speaker of the House.

00:01:17.840 This morning, former President Trump weighed in robustly for the first time,

00:01:21.720 telling Republican holdouts to, quote, vote for Kevin, close the deal, take the victory and watch crazy Nancy Pelosi fly back home to a very broken California.

00:01:31.180 End quote. We will soon find out if that statement matters at all.

00:01:36.280 Joining me now, Eric Bolin, the host of The Balance on Newsmax.

00:01:42.040 Eric, my God, what a mess.

00:01:43.820 So they did three votes yesterday.

00:01:45.960 Nineteen Republicans voted against McCarthy on the first vote.

00:01:48.880 Nineteen voted against him on the second vote.

00:01:50.580 Twenty voted against him on the third vote.

00:01:52.440 Now, people who we both respect, like our former colleague at Fox, Chad Pergram, who's, you know, with respect to Chad, super smart, a little nerdy, been covering Capitol Hill forever, saying, I don't think he's ever going to be.

00:02:04.340 I don't think he can do it like that is extremely in doubt whether Kevin McCarthy can ever become the speaker now.

00:02:08.840 And Trump is telling these holdouts on the GOP side, who are all very Trumpy, people like Lauren Boebert, vote for Kevin McCarthy.

00:02:16.980 You know, just my daughter, she always says, take the L, take the L.

00:02:20.420 Trump saying, take the W, just take it.

00:02:22.780 And we get a statement from Matt Gaetz, who's one of the holdouts this morning, who says to Fox Digital, I have no intention to fall in line behind Kevin McCarthy, notwithstanding what Trump says and responds to that Trump statement with the following sad exclamation point.

00:02:39.640 This changes neither my view of McCarthy nor Trump nor my vote.

00:02:44.740 And you have everyone from President Biden to former President Trump to Karl Rove to just, I mean, Republicans up and down the line saying this is an absurd embarrassment.

00:02:57.500 That's what Biden said. This is embarrassing. It's not a good look on the world stage.

00:03:00.980 It's also not my problem, he said.

00:03:03.060 So where do you stand on it and how are people supposed to be thinking about this right now?

00:03:07.500 Well, first of all, Happy New Year, Megan.

00:03:09.640 And yeah, what a way to kick off the new year with some infighting on the GOP side and the Dems just licking their chops saying, ha ha, look at them.

00:03:18.000 They can't even get their act together.

00:03:19.960 My comment to the CNNs, Anderson Cooper and Don Lemon, they're just loving it and making kind of fun of the GOP.

00:03:26.940 Let's get it right on the right rather than doing it first.

00:03:30.180 You and I used to work for a guy who said it's very important to be first, but it's more important to be right, even if it risks being first.

00:03:37.460 And I think what happens is I feel McCarthy doesn't represent the MAGA wing.

00:03:44.700 And I'm not saying the Trump wing.

00:03:45.860 I'm saying the MAGA or the America First wing because I'm not sure what's going on with Trump in Trump world right now.

00:03:52.380 So you have Boebert, you have five Gates, Boebert, Bishop, Chip Roy.

00:03:59.000 There's like five originals who said they're never Keviners and then a nine additional.

00:04:03.960 So the vote, as you point out accurately, was first vote was 19.

00:04:07.280 Second vote was 19.

00:04:08.320 Then someone nominated Jim Jordan.

00:04:10.240 Jim Jordan got 20.

00:04:11.460 So it's going in the wrong direction.

00:04:13.400 Here's the thing.

00:04:14.700 I don't think Kevin McCarthy is going to be the speaker.

00:04:17.060 I just don't think it's going to happen, especially since Gates, after Trump came out and said, vote for Kevin, he is probably going to be a great speaker.

00:04:24.700 And Gates said, no way.

00:04:26.240 It doesn't matter.

00:04:27.020 I'm still not voting.

00:04:28.340 If those coalition of five don't vote, which I think they're poised not to vote for McCarthy.

00:04:33.780 It's gone beyond politics.

00:04:35.120 Now it's personal.

00:04:36.900 McCarthy's going to have to step away at some point, whether it's vote four or 40.

00:04:40.920 At some point, he's going to have to say, I'm not going to get it.

00:04:43.760 And then there has to be some horse trading, some compromising on who it's going to be.

00:04:47.420 My fear of what usually happens in D.C., Megan, I wrote a book called The Swamp because it is a swamp.

00:04:54.340 And my fear is that all the back door horse trading, the smoky back rooms where the guys are getting back there.

00:05:01.400 Now the guys and the gals are back there.

00:05:03.440 Oh, what do you want?

00:05:04.080 What chairmanship do you want?

00:05:05.460 What kind of budget can I give you for that committee to make you vote for me, Kevin McCarthy?

00:05:12.960 I mean, if there's no other indication of why the man should not be the Speaker of the House, he moved his stuff in the day before the vote or the day of the vote.

00:05:22.740 And I think that is just an absolute F you to the caucus that says we want change.

00:05:28.160 I'm a boy.

00:05:28.780 I like these people.

00:05:29.540 I like the disruptors, the holdouts.

00:05:31.460 And not because they're Trump, because I can't figure out what Trump's doing.

00:05:34.700 Don Trump Jr. says vote for Kevin.

00:05:36.760 Trump says vote for Kevin.

00:05:38.120 Wait, the people who are holding out kind of represent what you were, Mr. Trump, a disruptor, change of the guard, draining the swamp.

00:05:45.700 So regardless, I agree with Gates.

00:05:47.800 It doesn't matter what Trump wants right now.

00:05:49.180 It's not about him right now.

00:05:50.200 It's about getting the best speaker.

00:05:51.840 And right now, one final thought, what happens if he is the Speaker?

00:05:58.440 What did he have to do to get the Speakership?

00:06:00.460 Will we ever trust this guy as having the best interest of the country at hand or the best interest of Kevin McCarthy?

00:06:08.040 Because right now, this is the first time in 100 years we're going to 150 years now if we go another vote or two.

00:06:14.900 This has never happened for time to move on, Kevin.

00:06:17.460 I feel like they're all like that.

00:06:18.880 I don't just feel like politicians always do ultimately what's in their best interests.

00:06:24.220 You know, that's why he flip flops and goes where the wind blows.

00:06:27.000 It's like it's self-preservation in the role that he's chosen.

00:06:31.540 I think the nine holdouts also are beholden to their constituents who put them in office and their biggest donors who have an agenda.

00:06:38.920 That's why it's so cynical for people like you and me who are on the outside but have to cover it.

00:06:42.120 It's like, all right.

00:06:44.140 In any event, if they replace Kevin McCarthy, what's going to change?

00:06:48.240 The name you keep hearing as a possible replacement is Steve Scalise, but he's not going to – is he really going to run the House that much differently than Kevin McCarthy would have?

00:06:56.680 I mean, the Republicans, it's not like they're suddenly going to back Democrat agendas.

00:07:00.880 Well, all right.

00:07:02.440 Look at it this way.

00:07:03.180 I know what Jim Jordan represents.

00:07:07.200 He represents small government.

00:07:08.560 He represents going after, you know, intel departments that are political.

00:07:13.880 He stated it.

00:07:14.760 He stated it several times what he represents.

00:07:17.200 I don't know what Kevin McCarthy is.

00:07:18.840 I know that the last thing Kevin McCarthy did before the changing of the House guard is he helped facilitate a $1.7 trillion on-the-bus bill without any pushback at all from the Republicans.

00:07:32.780 And all of a sudden, we spend another trillion, almost $2 trillion of taxpayer money on what?

00:07:38.000 We're not really sure.

00:07:39.080 I don't know what McCarthy represents.

00:07:40.680 I have a hunch with the likes of Karl Rove pushing for him aggressively on Fox News and Ronna McDaniel Romney pushing for him on Fox News.

00:07:50.500 He feels to me like he represents the establishment wing of the party, what the conservative or, you know, the more right-wing conservatives would call the rhinos of the party.

00:08:00.940 But wait, let me ask you.

00:08:01.900 Let me jump in and ask you that.

00:08:03.120 So Marjorie Taylor Greene is – she's Trumpy.

00:08:08.020 She's supporting Kevin.

00:08:10.680 Trump.

00:08:11.720 Trump is Trumpy.

00:08:12.800 He's supporting Kevin McCarthy.

00:08:14.880 As you point out, Don Jr.

00:08:16.800 And then Elise Stefanik, she's supporting Trump.

00:08:20.540 Even Kevin McCarthy is pretty Trumpy at times, right?

00:08:24.020 He came out, for example, after January 6th and completely condemned Trump, but then within weeks was down there with his arm around Trump like, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.

00:08:32.300 So I don't know.

00:08:33.020 But the point is, there are a lot of – oh, and Jim Jordan.

00:08:35.780 Jim Jordan's supporting Kevin.

00:08:37.460 Jim Jordan says, I don't want these votes.

00:08:39.040 And I support – and he's the one who made the speech introducing Kevin McCarthy as the speaker candidate.

00:08:44.540 I think for a second, Megyn Kelly and Eric Bolling, friends for life and forever.

00:08:49.300 Do you think for a second any of those, Steve Scalise, Elise Stefanik, or Jim Jordan, or – do you think for a second they wouldn't love to be the Speaker of the House?

00:08:58.720 I mean, this is a major position.

00:09:00.560 It's a very powerful position.

00:09:02.720 You lead the party.

00:09:04.300 You meet with the president regularly.

00:09:07.040 You have the cushy office overlooking the National Mall.

00:09:10.360 You have the higher paycheck.

00:09:11.960 I think they all do.

00:09:13.000 And they just – listen, Jordan's brilliant.

00:09:15.580 He didn't look thirsty.

00:09:16.540 I mean, the biggest drawback for me with McCarthy, if I were one of them, the guy's too – he's too – he wants it so much.

00:09:25.160 He's willing to compromise everything to get it.

00:09:27.820 It's just creepy to me.

00:09:29.200 I don't like it.

00:09:29.540 It's just another version of a presidential candidate.

00:09:32.660 I mean, they're like that too.

00:09:34.620 They're all narcissistic, self-aggrandizing.

00:09:37.640 They say what they need to say to get elected.

00:09:39.500 They all lie.

00:09:40.620 I'm sorry.

00:09:41.140 That is the truth.

00:09:41.940 It's a sad truth of American society.

00:09:44.720 So he's a mini version of that, seeking an executive – does Nancy Pelosi not fit that bill?

00:09:49.100 Hello?

00:09:49.960 I don't know.

00:09:50.700 You're right.

00:09:51.400 Jim Jordan is probably playing the game correctly by looking like he doesn't want it.

00:09:55.560 Could he get the support of the more moderate Republicans?

00:09:59.920 I mean, he had a scandal of his own with his wrestling team at his university.

00:10:04.760 Kind of fell out of the news cycle because he kind of fell out of the news cycle.

00:10:09.100 But I don't know.

00:10:10.400 Could he get those – he might get those nine votes, but is he going to lose too many in the middle?

00:10:15.480 Yeah.

00:10:16.660 Almost to a person, you talk to Republican congresspeople, and they respect Jim Jordan.

00:10:21.980 They like what he does.

00:10:22.800 They like he's aggressive.

00:10:24.000 I mean, he's no holds barred in the hearings, in the committee hearings.

00:10:27.420 He's amazing on the House Judicial Committee.

00:10:29.820 He's the best cross-examiner.

00:10:31.420 The best.

00:10:32.000 And, you know, some of the pushback that I have been talking about, Jordan, for a long time, the pushback I get is, yeah, but we don't want to lose him as a chairman of the House Judicial, especially when they're going to go after Hunter Biden and Joe Biden and this huge agenda.

00:10:47.060 But I think the speakership is so – I'm just thinking how many times you've talked about Nancy Pelosi over the years.

00:10:53.380 That would be whoever ends up being the speaker for the Republicans.

00:10:56.560 That will be Nancy Pelosi going forward.

00:10:58.640 The power is incredible.

00:11:00.060 You're meeting with the Senate majority leaders.

00:11:02.120 You're meeting with the president.

00:11:03.100 You're making decisions that affect the country.

00:11:04.940 And the Congress has the checkbook.

00:11:08.780 So you want to talk about rolling back some massive spending initiatives that Biden's, you know, signing away with executive order.

00:11:15.280 The speaker starts that.

00:11:17.200 The speaker decides what the agenda is going to be.

00:11:20.000 I just would like the best person as a conservative.

00:11:24.520 I'd like the best person.

00:11:25.780 I don't think Kevin McCarthy is it.

00:11:26.980 I think Jim Jordan could be it.

00:11:28.280 I think Steve Scalise may be it.

00:11:31.340 I don't know.

00:11:32.160 Maybe the others, at least Stefanik, has a lot of – checks a lot of boxes for me because she's smart.

00:11:38.840 She's in New York.

00:11:39.960 She's fiscally conservative.

00:11:43.000 I have to say it would be kind of cool to see a young female Republican speaker of the House.

00:11:48.200 I mean, we've never had that before.

00:11:49.560 So, you know, the Democrats are obsessed with identity politics.

00:11:52.440 Maybe some of them would cross over and vote for Elise Stefanik.

00:11:55.580 I doubt it.

00:11:56.600 But it's kind of getting crazy here.

00:11:58.920 I will say this.

00:11:59.840 There's a reason that there's a vote.

00:12:01.120 You have to see if the votes are there.

00:12:03.060 And the votes are not there for this guy.

00:12:04.660 So I don't really understand the – this is embarrassing.

00:12:07.740 I don't really understand.

00:12:08.700 Like, I'm not as close to it as a lot of these politicos.

00:12:11.320 I don't – you know, I'm not neck deep in that process.

00:12:13.580 But I don't find it embarrassing.

00:12:15.360 There's a reason we have a vote.

00:12:16.420 He's not getting the votes.

00:12:17.420 They're going to keep redoing it.

00:12:18.300 By the way, the latest news, just as we came to air, was they may try to postpone the vote today to tomorrow,

00:12:23.120 which means he hasn't shorn up his numbers any.

00:12:27.680 So I don't know what's going to happen.

00:12:29.220 But I can see the media just absolutely relishing this.

00:12:32.980 And you're right.

00:12:33.880 Some of the sort of the more establishment Republicans –

00:12:36.120 little sidebars that could happen, and it would be terrible that, you know, Democrats could vote for McCarthy.

00:12:43.280 And we saw that little – there's some video of AOC talking to Gates and then talking to Gosar,

00:12:51.220 who are two holdouts, not Never Kevin people.

00:12:53.900 And she allegedly – and the word is that the videos – her talking back and forth rather aggressively saying

00:13:00.220 McCarthy has tried to cut a deal with the Democrats for – to peel off a few Democrats

00:13:06.500 so that if they don't vote, the threshold for him becoming Speaker goes from 218 down to, let's say, I don't know, 205,

00:13:14.540 and then he would have the votes, right?

00:13:16.320 So she said we're not on board with that.

00:13:18.460 Even worse would be if McCarthy cut a deal for a Democrat to vote for him, then as a conservative, as a Republican,

00:13:26.180 if you're dealing with the Democrats already and you've basically handed them the keys to the kingdom.

00:13:32.040 Right, like what power is he ceding in order to get the role?

00:13:34.580 By the way, this just hitting now.

00:13:36.320 They're on the way to the floor.

00:13:37.400 And McCarthy now says we will have another vote today.

00:13:40.180 My gosh, the drama, the drama.

00:13:42.660 OK, but no matter what happens in the House, no one's going to jail, at least not yet.

00:13:46.180 But contrast that with Sam Bankman-Fried, who is facing a massive, massive shitstorm of trouble.

00:13:53.960 I mean, this guy, Andy McCarthy, had a great piece just talking about how bad it is.

00:13:57.980 If you look at the federal sentencing guidelines and the charges against him, just how bad it is and how if this guy gets convicted,

00:14:04.620 he's probably going to prison for life, for life, given the federal sentencing guidelines on fraud,

00:14:09.380 on people who are in a fiduciary role, meaning one of trust and, you know, where you're supposed to be looking out for people.

00:14:13.820 And he was arraigned in Manhattan federal court before U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan pleaded not guilty to eight counts of fraud and conspiracy.

00:14:22.240 They have set October 2nd as the tentative trial date.

00:14:25.740 So there's speedy justice for you.

00:14:26.940 It's actually pretty fast.

00:14:28.120 And he's out now.

00:14:29.380 He's out on two hundred and fifty million dollars bail.

00:14:32.760 But somehow he managed to post it.

00:14:35.440 What we're reading is that he was ultimately released on something closer to his own recognizance because while the prosecutors demanded his parents post their home as collateral and co-sign the bail deal,

00:14:47.160 he didn't actually have to put up the cold, hard cash.

00:14:50.540 And now this guy who's alleged to have defrauded people to the tune of over two billion dollars, at least that's the low end, is roaming about.

00:14:58.560 I guess we're banking on the fact that he doesn't want to screw over his parents and have them lose their home.

00:15:03.300 Who knows whether he's got other cash stashed elsewhere and whether that's a real, you know, concern.

00:15:09.280 But what do you make of it?

00:15:10.440 Because there we now know that those two top executives have cut a deal.

00:15:15.380 They've they've pleaded guilty.

00:15:17.440 Carolyn Ellison, the ex-girlfriend, Eric, 28, she cut a deal.

00:15:21.220 So did Gary Wang, 29, who co-founded FTX, this crypto exchange.

00:15:25.460 They pleaded guilty to charges, including wire fraud, securities fraud and commodities fraud.

00:15:29.960 They have they have turned to state's evidence.

00:15:33.200 And he is up a creek.

00:15:34.700 That's a legal term.

00:15:35.840 He's up a creek, Eric Bolling.

00:15:39.080 He's doing 25 to up a creek.

00:15:41.120 Look, I don't get this sympathy.

00:15:45.260 You're not showing it, but others are.

00:15:47.180 My wife's like, oh, I feel so bad, feel bad for him.

00:15:50.080 He has this sympathetic look to him.

00:15:52.720 But but folks, if you rob a car, if you're a minority and you steal a car, you're going to go to jail for 25 years.

00:16:00.800 If you, you know, smash and grab, you're going to jail.

00:16:04.180 For some reason, it's almost like this guy's a white collar criminal.

00:16:07.240 He's he stole two billion dollars and we're going, oh, well, it could have been thirty two billion dollars.

00:16:13.760 It wasn't as bad as Madoff.

00:16:15.240 He stole sixty four billion from friends.

00:16:17.600 He defrauded people who trusted him with his money.

00:16:20.400 He should go to jail.

00:16:21.340 He should go to jail, as McCarthy points out, for a very long time.

00:16:25.200 I saw Gasparino on Fox day before yesterday when during the plea or right before the plea.

00:16:30.360 He said, oh, you know, I don't know if he's going to go to jail.

00:16:32.340 Are you kidding me?

00:16:33.300 Send him away for a long time.

00:16:34.580 He he's rocking the the trust in the financial system.

00:16:38.720 He crushed trust in cryptocurrency single handedly.

00:16:42.900 I think he's got to go.

00:16:44.600 But one of the things that no one's really pointing out, he gave he gave that 28 year old Carolyn Ellison,

00:16:51.480 who's been with him for three years with with FTX.

00:16:54.940 He gave her Alameda trading.

00:16:56.640 It's a wing.

00:16:57.660 She he threw two billion dollars and said, trade this.

00:17:01.260 Now, I know what this is.

00:17:02.100 I come from that trading world.

00:17:03.720 That's Sam Bankman free laundering two billion dollars.

00:17:06.860 It's not her trading.

00:17:07.920 She's a rookie trader.

00:17:08.820 You don't give someone a rookie trader that kind of money to try and trade and make money with.

00:17:13.680 She's never going to do it.

00:17:14.840 It was a vehicle for Sam to run customer money through a trading vehicle, Alameda Trading,

00:17:20.240 and come back and turn it into laundered money that he can loan to friends to buy real estate,

00:17:25.840 that he could buy his 40 million dollar.

00:17:28.300 Oh, wait, let me stop you there because I don't understand.

00:17:30.080 I don't understand laundry in my own home and I don't understand laundry at the crypto scene.

00:17:36.660 So explain why would he need to use Alameda, the hedge fund, to, quote, launder the two billion?

00:17:42.220 Why couldn't he just kind of steal it from the FTX exchange and start going out and spending it?

00:17:47.500 You know, he took it from the FTX exchange.

00:17:49.020 Why don't you just use it then?

00:17:50.060 How does it get laundered over at the hedge fund?

00:17:53.120 It's easier tracked when you just steal it.

00:17:55.900 It's like the why, you know, if you've ever been to Vegas, I spend a lot of time in Vegas.

00:17:59.060 Sometimes you see some very shady looking characters, you know, putting 20, 30, $40,000 on a wheel, on black or on red or at a blackjack table.

00:18:09.700 All they're doing is they're laundering the money because they're taking cash.

00:18:12.980 It lists probably drug money or prostitution money.

00:18:15.420 Cash comes in big piles.

00:18:17.340 They'll go to Vegas.

00:18:18.120 They'll put it down.

00:18:18.740 They'll turn it into chips.

00:18:19.920 They'll risk it.

00:18:20.560 They'll lose two or three percent because the casino takes two or three percent on some of the games.

00:18:24.760 And they'll get back their chips and they'll get turn it back into casino cash.

00:18:28.300 You can't track the money.

00:18:30.000 That's exactly what Sam Bank and Freed did with customer money.

00:18:33.720 He took it from FTX, deposited customer accounts, ran it and said, oh, we're going to we're going to trade your money in Alameda trading.

00:18:42.100 She trades.

00:18:42.920 She loses.

00:18:43.740 It comes back with whatever's left over after her losses.

00:18:46.500 And then it's not necessarily going back into FTX.

00:18:49.320 He broke the rules, broke the law and turned it into his own slush fund and borrowed and loaned it to friends and bought stuff with it and spent lavishly on parties.

00:19:02.180 Every employee at FTX had a two hundred dollar food, you know, Uber, Uber Eats allowance every single day.

00:19:09.920 Every employee.

00:19:11.000 Every day.

00:19:12.320 Classic.

00:19:13.340 He was just a fun thief.

00:19:16.380 Wow.

00:19:16.920 OK, so this is very interesting because I will say in reading Andy's piece, he makes the point that you just made.

00:19:21.880 He says the guidelines are severe and he says, I've always believed the fraud guidelines are too harsh.

00:19:28.900 Sam Bank and Freed may be a terrible person, but he didn't commit murders.

00:19:32.660 Um, yeah, that's how a lot of people are looking at it.

00:19:36.420 He didn't murder anybody.

00:19:37.280 So how could he be going to jail for life?

00:19:39.120 But murder like you can ruin somebody's life by taking their life and you can also ruin it by taking away their fortune, their reputation, their life savings.

00:19:47.540 I mean, just look at all the people who killed themselves after the financial crisis in 1929 and 2008.

00:19:52.620 You know, this is a severe and very risky business stealing people's life fortunes.

00:19:58.780 Yeah, I mean, Nadoff's going away for a lot of life and and other, you know, you need a reason not to do this.

00:20:09.560 You need to show the world, hey, if he gets 10 years and walks away with the 250, you know, whatever, whatever he's got stashed somewhere, if he's able to lose two billion dollars somewhere, I'm sure he can put 50 million somewhere else.

00:20:22.480 The guy's really smart. He figured out a way around all the all the bells and whistles, all the all the financial regulatory things he was supposed to be doing.

00:20:31.340 He figured a way around it the way Nadoff did for a long time.

00:20:34.000 He got caught. So he's got money probably stashed everywhere.

00:20:37.840 So we're going to allow someone to go spend 10 years at a at a club fed and then get out and be a billionaire on at age 40.

00:20:46.240 We need to have a reason to tell criminals, you don't want to do this or you're going to end up like Nadoff and many Nadoff.

00:20:55.160 Mm hmm. Yeah, I tend to agree with you.

00:20:57.800 All right. Let's shift gears and talk football, because one of your many hobbies is sports and football and go to a podcast with Brett Favre and talked all about sports and life.

00:21:09.080 And now in the news is this horrific injury that happened on the Buffalo Bills.

00:21:15.900 And the latest involves blowback on forgive me.

00:21:22.120 It's Skip Bayless of Fox Sports trying to find the exact.

00:21:27.260 Hold on. Hold on. I'll find it. The exact tweet.

00:21:30.060 OK, here it is. Skip Bayless is under fire because on his Fox Sports show that he co-hosts with Shannon Sharp after it, I guess.

00:21:37.120 He tweeted in the middle of this debacle that after Damar Hamlin got hurt and had a cardiac arrest.

00:21:44.480 Now we know, by the way, that he was resuscitated not once, but twice had to be resuscitated not once, but twice, according to a family member, once on the field, once in the hospital.

00:21:51.840 Not good, though. The family member says his intubation is now only 50 percent necessary.

00:21:57.360 Not exactly. I'm sure I understand that, but they're saying 50 percent of the breathing may be coming from him, him now and not all from the breathing tube.

00:22:03.260 So they were marking that as a positive sign in his recovery.

00:22:07.280 You know, we have no idea whether the recovery is robust or not.

00:22:11.860 In any event, Skip Bayless tweeted out, no doubt the NFL is considering postponing the rest of this game.

00:22:19.720 But how this late in the season, a game of this magnitude is crucial to the regular season outcome.

00:22:25.800 That is a true statement of fact, by the way.

00:22:28.280 Then he says, which suddenly seems so irrelevant.

00:22:32.120 The regular season outcome, which suddenly seems so irrelevant.

00:22:34.420 Well, I got to tell you, I sound like, OK, I don't I'm not offended.

00:22:40.160 I see what he's trying to say.

00:22:41.520 He's like they he's saying they must be considering postponing it.

00:22:47.840 But this is a critical game, but it seems so irrelevant.

00:22:52.560 Like, that's how is that controversial?

00:22:54.480 Well, it is.

00:22:55.960 My God, NFL players, NBA players, retired pro athletes calling for him to be fired regarding that tweet.

00:23:03.400 Free agent NBA point guard Arzea Thomas replied saying, I hope they fire you, bro.

00:23:08.100 For you to even think of the game is very sad.

00:23:09.860 ESPN NBA analyst Kendrick Perkins.

00:23:12.240 You're a sick individual.

00:23:13.620 Real talk.

00:23:14.080 Hall of Fame wide receiver Terrell Owens, even I know that name, reposted his tweet to Instagram

00:23:19.040 and said, is this is the most despicable tweet ever, adding, I hope you lose your job.

00:23:24.940 Former NBA champion Matt Barnes commented under that post, writing someone going to slap the

00:23:30.540 best out of Skip one of these days.

00:23:34.220 And then today, Skip Bayless and his co-host Shannon Sharp got back into it.

00:23:39.840 Keep in mind, Skip Bayless.

00:23:41.660 Kind of apologized for that tweet already.

00:23:43.640 He tweeted out afterward saying nothing's more important than the young man's health.

00:23:47.600 That was the point of my last tweet.

00:23:49.000 I am sorry if that was misunderstood, but his health is all that matters.

00:23:52.640 Again, everything else is irrelevant.

00:23:53.920 I prayed for him and will continue to.

00:23:55.700 Did not appease the mob.

00:23:57.080 Here they are discussing it on their show today.

00:24:00.320 Skip tweeted something.

00:24:01.500 And although I disagree with the tweet and hopefully Skip would take it down, but I didn't want it.

00:24:07.800 Well, time out.

00:24:08.320 Time out.

00:24:08.640 I'm not going to take it down because I stand by what I tweeted.

00:24:11.500 Skip, let me finish.

00:24:12.380 All right.

00:24:12.720 Go ahead.

00:24:13.720 No, you go.

00:24:15.260 Go ahead.

00:24:15.620 Let's go, Jen.

00:24:16.460 Okay.

00:24:16.840 I mean, I cannot even get through a monologue without you interrupting me.

00:24:19.740 You could have came back.

00:24:20.620 Skip, just let me.

00:24:21.960 I didn't know you were going to bring up this.

00:24:23.020 No, I was just going to say, Skip, I didn't want to yesterday to get into a situation where

00:24:28.200 DeMar Hamlin was the issue.

00:24:29.620 We should have been talking about him and not get into your tweet.

00:24:34.260 That's what I was going to do.

00:24:35.580 But you can't even let me finish my opening monologue without you interrupting.

00:24:39.660 Okay.

00:24:40.160 I was under the impression you weren't going to bring this up because nobody here had a problem

00:24:44.820 with that tweet.

00:24:45.580 No, clearly the bosses wanted you to offer explanations.

00:24:49.380 So clearly.

00:24:49.960 No, they did not have.

00:24:51.540 Let's go, Jen.

00:24:56.240 Thoughts and prayers remain with DeMar Hamlin.

00:24:58.580 That's where the focus should have been and not on a football game.

00:25:01.400 Yes.

00:25:01.640 Let's go, Jen.

00:25:02.200 Thank you.

00:25:03.920 Oh, boy.

00:25:04.740 I didn't know who Jen was.

00:25:05.900 I thought Jen was the producer until, I guess, a reporter named Jen popped up.

00:25:10.520 What do you make of this whole thing, Eric?

00:25:12.120 So when he tweeted that, Megan, he was live.

00:25:15.360 I was watching.

00:25:15.880 I watched the game.

00:25:16.800 And he tweeted that in my Twitter album as I was trying to see what was happening.

00:25:21.760 DeMar Hamlin was still on the ground, on the field.

00:25:24.260 He was on the turf, on his back.

00:25:25.760 They were administering CPR.

00:25:27.840 Basically, he was dead.

00:25:28.820 They were playing God when Skip Bayless tweeted that.

00:25:32.780 I immediately tweeted.

00:25:35.160 I said, wow, you're really going to regret this, brother, soon.

00:25:39.740 Big.

00:25:40.600 And he did.

00:25:41.460 I thought it was disgusting.

00:25:42.480 I thought it was horrible.

00:25:43.700 Wait, why?

00:25:44.220 Why is it disgusting?

00:25:45.400 Why is it disgusting?

00:25:46.060 Because honestly, I'm happy to find Skip Bayless disgusting if disgusting behavior comes.

00:25:50.200 But he's saying, as a sports analyst, to the audience, they're going to consider postponing this game.

00:25:57.460 But how can they do it, given that the season's about to end, and the season suddenly seems so irrelevant?

00:26:04.040 I get it.

00:26:05.720 It's not what he said.

00:26:07.380 It's when he said it.

00:26:09.340 The young man, the 24-year-old, is fighting for his life.

00:26:13.620 And here's a guy, Skip Bayless, with a decent-sized audience, a nice-sized audience, to be like you and I, making a comment because he wants to be first.

00:26:23.960 He wants to get to the record first that he's going to make a comment on whether this game should go on or not.

00:26:29.700 Okay?

00:26:30.580 I did a whole monologue on this yesterday.

00:26:32.760 I think Skip Bayless was being an opportunist for doing it when this young man is trying to survive.

00:26:40.680 I think the people on the right, some of my friends, some people I used to work with, tweeting, questioning whether the vaccine, the NFL mandate on the vaccine, had something to do with this young man laying dead on the field.

00:26:55.340 I thought that was a political opportunism.

00:26:58.180 I think Skip was a sports opportunism.

00:27:01.240 They all were doing it for their own good, not for the good of a young man dying on the field.

00:27:05.800 Dying.

00:27:06.180 And he did.

00:27:07.300 He's flatlined twice, as you pointed out.

00:27:09.420 He was brought back.

00:27:10.340 He is alive, but yes, I agree.

00:27:12.040 I don't have a lot of people speculating, having conversations about what the NFL should or shouldn't do, or whether or not he should or should not have had a vaccine or not.

00:27:19.100 But just don't do it when his family is watching him from the stands, dead on the field, and they're administering CPR.

00:27:26.200 And that was happening simultaneous.

00:27:27.940 And that's why he had a problem with favor.

00:27:29.740 Okay, I get it.

00:27:30.360 I get the timing makes it more insensitive in your view.

00:27:33.020 I mean, I will say on the vaccine questions, like I talked to Dr. Drew about this yesterday on his show, and he is one of the people who tweeted out something to the effect of, I don't want to misstate his tweet, but it was something to the effect of many athletes are dropping.

00:27:47.140 And, like, I do think it's okay.

00:27:51.000 Again, timing is another question.

00:27:52.860 I think it's okay to say what could have caused this, because we don't know whether it was that sudden cardiac death where you get struck in the heart.

00:28:01.560 That's speculation, too.

00:28:03.740 You know, we have to wait to hear from the doctors what actually caused it.

00:28:05.860 But, like, it could have been that.

00:28:07.360 What else could it have been?

00:28:08.580 You know, could it have been that he has some latent heart condition that we don't know about?

00:28:12.540 Like, obviously, people ask questions about the vaccines because we know that they cause myocarditis and people have been dying as a result, even though the mainstream media won't talk about it.

00:28:23.080 And in some cases, we've seen that affect athletes.

00:28:26.480 So, like, I get uncomfortable when it's like you're not allowed to raise any of those questions.

00:28:30.700 You can only go into the lane of he got hit in the heart and that's what caused it.

00:28:34.960 We don't know that.

00:28:35.900 That's also speculation.

00:28:36.820 You and I both have an opinion on whether or not the NFL should have started the game or not and whether or not the NFL should complete the game or not or whether or not the NFL should mandate vaccines for their players or not.

00:28:50.140 My point is, and should always be, if someone's life is hanging in the balance and there are, you know, tens of millions of eyeballs watching a young man struggle for his life, let's put all that other stuff aside just for a heartbeat.

00:29:03.560 And literally, no pun intended, pun intended, until he survives or doesn't, we can find and then we can go and jump into it.

00:29:12.580 My problem is that the media tends to be such vultures just to go out and pick the carcass as it's laying there and see what we can do for our own respective side while someone's life is laying in the balance.

00:29:25.220 But there's opportunism.

00:29:26.380 There's opportunism in these commentaries is what you're suggesting.

00:29:29.420 Yeah, that was it.

00:29:30.220 That was all.

00:29:30.580 Mm hmm.

00:29:31.360 So what do you make of it?

00:29:32.660 Because some people have taken it to football.

00:29:35.980 It's dangerous.

00:29:37.520 You know, speaking of vultures, we're vultures for watching it, for taking in, you know, sort of the abuse of these young men for money and for our own pleasure.

00:29:45.980 I you know, I just don't see this one injury the same at all as like the to a concussion injury where they put him right back out there after he was clearly hurt the week before or days before.

00:29:56.040 Like this is this just seems like a once in a lifetime like this is not an injury if it is the sudden heart injury that comes with a blunt force impact at just the right moment when your heart's beating that that doesn't really happen in football.

00:30:10.500 I'm not sure we can extrapolate anything from this situation to football writ large.

00:30:14.080 But what do you think?

00:30:15.220 Yeah, I don't think you blame football for it.

00:30:17.040 It's a violent sport.

00:30:18.240 If you ask any one of those athletes, if you know, if you make them sign the document says, hey, you might in a rare instance, have this situation where, you know, a helmet could hit you as your heart in the middle of a heartbeat and it could it could kill you.

00:30:31.600 Would you still you still want to play this game?

00:30:33.340 You still want to try and be a superstar athlete?

00:30:35.200 Of course, they're going to all say yes.

00:30:36.920 It's a it's a they all know the risk of that.

00:30:39.720 They also all know the risk of major brain injury.

00:30:42.920 And that's far more common, as you point out.

00:30:45.380 So it's a violent sport.

00:30:46.860 It's a dangerous sport.

00:30:47.740 It's getting safer every single year.

00:30:49.620 They're making they're taking precautions.

00:30:51.500 Personally, I think they can soften the helmets.

00:30:53.680 I think shoulder pads and helmets could be soft.

00:30:55.960 You don't hear the hits like they love on TV, but it'll be a heck of a lot safer.

00:31:00.960 I can't blame the NFL for this one.

00:31:04.180 And I don't think anyone should.

00:31:06.440 You were a big baseball player.

00:31:07.660 That's the sport in which this normally happens.

00:31:09.440 They say like where the baseball hits your heart.

00:31:12.220 I mean, this is a this is a known and identified risk now these days in sports like baseball, hockey, where there's a puck and certain other sports, but not football.

00:31:22.320 Yeah, because the projectile in baseball and hockey is smaller and it hits you in the right spot at the right time in the heart.

00:31:29.140 It creates this commode, commodio, whatever it's called.

00:31:33.920 And it's a rare but can be fatal injury.

00:31:37.000 The helmet is what hit or shoulder helmet is what hit the more hamlet.

00:31:41.480 It's a bigger it's a bigger projectile, maybe not as fast as a baseball or a hockey puck coming at you, but hit him at the right or the wrong time.

00:31:48.880 Exactly.

00:31:49.700 So, yeah, in baseball, little leaguers are now some little some leagues are having their little leaguers wear a chest plate because of the risk of this.

00:31:57.460 So, again, it's not an uncommon or it's not an unknown.

00:32:02.000 It wasn't.

00:32:02.940 Well, and there's so many other risks that are known that these world class athletes accept.

00:32:08.160 And it's not because they want to entertain us or be our little play things.

00:32:11.500 It's because that drive to succeed at sport in athletics is intense.

00:32:16.460 It's intense.

00:32:17.460 It's cultivated by oneself, by one's society or whatever, by one's family from a very early age.

00:32:22.520 And I think you either have it or you don't.

00:32:24.900 Brett, speaking of Brett, you know him well.

00:32:27.720 I interviewed him all on NBC about his CTE, which he's been very outspoken about.

00:32:32.120 He's had who knows?

00:32:33.960 It could be he said thousands of concussions while playing in the NFL.

00:32:38.300 I don't think he wants a do over.

00:32:41.100 You know, I think most of the like look at Brady.

00:32:43.060 He's a quarterback.

00:32:43.820 He knows very well the risks.

00:32:45.460 You're the one everybody wants to hit on every single play.

00:32:48.000 All these very strong guys wearing all those pads and helmets.

00:32:51.020 He continues to play because he doesn't need any more money.

00:32:54.680 He lost his marriage reportedly over it.

00:32:57.120 They do it because there's a drive inside of that love of the game of athletics, of winning.

00:33:03.380 Right.

00:33:03.580 It's like I don't think the blame for whether it's this injury of Damar Hamlin or what happened to Brett or what happens to any athlete who happens to get hurt in the sport goes on the American people for being, you know,

00:33:14.560 to for being vulture-esque in their intake of sports.

00:33:18.520 Yeah.

00:33:19.060 And we don't, you know, there are probably more people who die in construction accidents than football or baseball or any other sport.

00:33:25.940 And we're not saying we'll stop construction.

00:33:28.620 Look, every to what you mentioned to a great example has probably had five high profile concussions in the last two years.

00:33:37.380 I mean, that's a lot.

00:33:39.160 That's crazy to the point where he'll seize up, his finger seize up, or he staggers and falls.

00:33:44.860 Ask, too, if he wants to get back on the field.

00:33:47.120 I'll bet you dinner you'll say yes, knowing that the risk is that down the road he may have severe brain damage and he may not be able to remember his own name or feed himself.

00:33:57.720 I mean, look at Muhammad Ali after getting hit so many times.

00:34:00.380 He had later on in life, couldn't even feed himself.

00:34:03.080 But these people knew what the risks were, knew what the future may be like, but that drive and its choice, its personal choice.

00:34:11.060 And again, give these young men the choice to leave.

00:34:15.400 And I'd say 99.9% of people would choose not to, even knowing the risks of a Damar Hamlin or a Tua or a Muhammad Ali or Brett Favre for that matter.

00:34:26.640 And honestly, look, we just to remind the audience, we don't know what happened to Damar Hamlin.

00:34:32.140 We don't know.

00:34:32.780 That's a speculation that it was this event where if you get hit hard in the heart at just the right moment in the beat cycle, this thing, this sudden cardiac arrest could follow.

00:34:43.740 Who knows?

00:34:44.720 It could have been a cardiac arrest due to something else.

00:34:47.800 We just don't know yet.

00:34:48.760 So hopefully the hospital, the doctors will be in a position where they are able to and have the permission of the family to share more soon.

00:34:56.620 And hopefully it's no about it.

00:34:58.020 I saw his uncle saying that he's breathing 50% on his own.

00:35:02.540 He had lung injuries because of the two times he flatlined.

00:35:07.420 And he's breathing, he's back to 50%.

00:35:08.860 But just because he's breathing on his own being negative, it's how long his brain went without oxygen.

00:35:14.860 How long did it take them to administer CPR and get oxygen into his brain?

00:35:19.800 And how much damage did that do to see, you know, he may be able to breathe on his own, but we don't know if he'll ever regain consciousness or to a level that he's functional.

00:35:29.500 Well, that's an important flag.

00:35:31.740 That's an important flag because while he was very lucky in that the paramedics were right there with a defibrillator, thank God, thank God.

00:35:40.420 One never knows because sometimes one's body is so compromised that even once there's been a defibrillator and a doctor doing CPR,

00:35:47.940 the body's not able to receive that input of oxygen in the way it used to be able to prior to the catastrophic event.

00:35:55.380 So this is why we need to hear from the hospital.

00:35:57.080 Again, when the family's ready, when the doctors are ready, we're just hoping that'll be sooner rather than later

00:36:01.100 because everybody's rooting for Damar Hamlin to do, to get better and to be 100% after this.

00:36:06.900 Eric Bolling, such a pleasure, such an interesting conversation.

00:36:09.580 Love seeing you.

00:36:10.600 Love seeing you too, Megan.

00:36:11.740 Happy new to you and the audience and Danny, who's amazing.

00:36:15.180 Her booker, Danny, is amazing.

00:36:17.160 She say thank you very much.

00:36:18.580 All right, we are going to be right back with another fascinating guest talking about a very important topic,

00:36:23.020 The Decline in Sperm Counts and Testosterone Worldwide.

00:36:28.740 Don't miss this.

00:36:33.100 Oh, Canadian Debbie is upset.

00:36:35.080 She is upset.

00:36:36.400 She does not agree with our pal Eric Bolling.

00:36:38.560 She does not think the timing mattered on the Skip Bayless tweet.

00:36:43.380 And her point is, and she's, you know, she's like the Holly Hunter character in broadcast news.

00:36:47.340 She's a ball buster.

00:36:48.440 She's a balls to the wall, you know, television news producer.

00:36:52.600 And she has been for many years.

00:36:54.360 And her point is, we can't be this sensitive in covering a massive breaking news event.

00:36:58.360 And it's literally Skip Bayless's job to ask questions like that.

00:37:02.840 Like what will happen with the game?

00:37:05.160 I asked that question of Clay Travis yesterday.

00:37:08.600 I think even Eric Bolling would say that was fine because it was after the event.

00:37:12.480 And I was saying to her, I can understand, though, as an on-air person,

00:37:15.220 how you have to be somewhat sensitive when the person may be dying.

00:37:18.480 You know, the audience may be experiencing the death of a beloved player.

00:37:21.740 And you can see the distress on the faces of the other players.

00:37:24.980 And her point was, that's not an excuse for you not to do your job,

00:37:28.140 that the NFL officials would have been speculating about what to do.

00:37:31.480 They would have had a decision to make.

00:37:32.660 And I said, well, that's their job.

00:37:33.660 And she said, well, it's also Skip Bayless's job to comment on the sporting event

00:37:37.700 and what its consequences are.

00:37:39.760 So we had a very robust discussion.

00:37:41.580 I wanted to do it on the air, but she's worried her hair doesn't look good.

00:37:45.720 No, no, no.

00:37:46.460 She doesn't like to be on the air.

00:37:49.720 Only some of us enjoy that kind of weird, abusive position.

00:37:53.660 She's not one of them.

00:37:54.880 In any event, you all know Canadian Debbie and love her.

00:37:56.900 So I would love to hear your thoughts on it.

00:37:58.840 You can email me.

00:37:59.880 Email me at Megan, M-E-G-Y-N, at MeganKelley.com.

00:38:04.400 We're taking emails there.

00:38:05.840 While you're there, you can sign up for my American News Minute.

00:38:08.360 I just submitted my latest Stradwick story to Meg Storm, who produces it for me.

00:38:13.660 And it's just terrible.

00:38:15.880 It's just so naughty.

00:38:16.880 My dog is so sweet, but so bad.

00:38:18.900 Okay, now we're going to switch gears to discuss a very important topic.

00:38:24.200 And that is sperm counts plummeting around the world.

00:38:27.040 Maybe you've heard about this, but it's not just sperm counts either.

00:38:29.760 Testosterone too.

00:38:30.860 And what is that causing?

00:38:32.420 What is that doing?

00:38:33.200 What does it mean for your children and the prospect of your grandchildren?

00:38:36.480 The birth rate has been cut in half.

00:38:39.760 These trends are not getting any better.

00:38:41.740 And why is that?

00:38:42.860 Is there something you can do about it?

00:38:44.100 And I can do about it.

00:38:45.040 Here to answer some of these questions is the world's leading environmental and reproductive

00:38:50.180 epidemiologist, Dr. Shana Swan.

00:38:53.840 She's author of Countdown, How Our Modern World is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male

00:38:59.520 and Female Reproductive Development, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race.

00:39:05.960 Doctor, welcome to the show.

00:39:07.500 Thank you so much for being here.

00:39:09.360 So this was, correct me if I'm wrong, but this is really the seminal study in 2017.

00:39:15.040 That you did taking like a comprehensive look at all the studies that had been done and

00:39:20.500 the data as we knew it to determine what?

00:39:23.740 Hi, Megan.

00:39:24.120 First of all, thanks for having me.

00:39:26.440 And so what we were doing in 2017 was looking at all the world's data that's been published

00:39:33.860 in English, actually, is what we were able to look at.

00:39:36.680 And what we were looking for is what's happened to sperm counts over the, you know, close to

00:39:44.960 40 years that we looked at as we can evaluate it in the published literature.

00:39:49.980 And that came out a while ago.

00:39:52.620 And it actually went kind of viral because what we were reporting was that sperm counts

00:39:57.420 have been going down consistently and that they've been basically cut in half over this,

00:40:03.900 say, 40 year period.

00:40:05.860 And it has lots and lots of ramifications, as you pointed out.

00:40:10.600 Other things go down, too, with it.

00:40:12.960 Testosterone is going down.

00:40:14.060 Fertility is going down.

00:40:15.220 And there are effects on the female side as well.

00:40:17.540 So, yeah, these are kind of very dramatic changes that we have to pay attention to and

00:40:23.820 ask why.

00:40:24.340 Now, as I understand it, for the last 70 years, fertility rates have decreased worldwide with

00:40:31.200 a total of 50 percent decline.

00:40:32.500 As you say, it's been cut in half up to 1965.

00:40:35.480 The average woman in the world had more than five children.

00:40:40.000 That's amazing.

00:40:40.580 Up to 1965.

00:40:41.640 Globally, the average per woman is now below two point five children.

00:40:46.120 And what you're concluding is that's not by choice.

00:40:49.680 There is a lot of choice involved.

00:40:51.680 I won't deny that.

00:40:53.080 OK, so there are many factors such as economic factors, the availability of contraception,

00:41:02.680 education, women going into the workforce.

00:41:06.820 And but there are also other influences that we don't have control over.

00:41:12.660 And one of the things I like to think about is humans are one species.

00:41:17.200 There's lots of species on the planet.

00:41:18.740 And there are many, many, many that are declining.

00:41:21.700 Everyone knows about, you know, populations being endangered and diminishing and so on.

00:41:27.000 And the non-human populations don't have the choice that we have.

00:41:30.740 They're not, you know, looking to the availability of contraception or, you know, wanting to go back

00:41:36.500 into the workforce.

00:41:37.280 Right.

00:41:37.660 They are not just not reproducing.

00:41:39.520 And so we have to recognize that we, too, will have a component of this trend, which is not

00:41:46.000 our choice.

00:41:46.940 And that's the one that I'm most concerned about.

00:41:49.160 Hmm.

00:41:50.300 OK, right.

00:41:51.080 Because right around there, 19 in the late 1960s, early 1970s, we had birth control become

00:41:57.700 protected by as a constitutional right, abortion protected as a constitutional right.

00:42:02.940 And all those things might potentially lead to decrease in in the number of children one

00:42:06.800 decides to have.

00:42:07.940 But you're saying that the animals were not using birth control and they were not taking

00:42:12.340 advantage of abortion.

00:42:13.640 And so this is this is this goes well beyond choice.

00:42:17.660 You found that between 1973 and 2011, sperm concentration, meaning the number of sperm

00:42:24.340 per million per milliliter of semen, dropped more than 52 percent among random men in Western

00:42:32.820 countries.

00:42:34.220 That's crazy.

00:42:35.460 That's like that's a huge drop.

00:42:36.960 And then you you took another look in November of 2022.

00:42:39.740 So very recently, 38 studies of men from South, Central America, Asia, Africa, and found that

00:42:48.080 sperm decline, what had it had gone down even more?

00:42:52.360 So that new study, which just came out a few weeks ago, actually, showed two things.

00:42:58.140 One is that, yes, sperm count decline has accelerated.

00:43:02.120 So if you look at the studies after 2000, the rate is now 2.6 percent decline per year, whereas

00:43:10.560 before it was just a little over one percent per year.

00:43:13.860 So that's a doubling of the rate of decline.

00:43:16.260 Pretty alarming.

00:43:17.560 But in addition to that, we saw that in countries for which we didn't have sufficient information

00:43:24.760 in the first publication in 2017, we now had additional information enough to say that this

00:43:32.380 is a worldwide trend.

00:43:34.000 So it's not limited as the first one was to Europe and North America and Australia and

00:43:41.940 New Zealand.

00:43:42.520 We now have it, including Africa and Asia and South America.

00:43:45.960 So we have all over the world.

00:43:47.280 We see this decline.

00:43:48.480 And it's pretty alarming.

00:43:50.360 Yeah, no, it matters because, OK, it's not ideal if no American man can produce a baby

00:43:56.780 in 40 years, but there would be some comfort if we knew that other men in other parts of

00:44:01.460 the world could still produce babies, thus the continuation of the human race.

00:44:05.120 But the sperm counts are going dramatically down everywhere, which now we're talking about,

00:44:10.960 you know, an existential problem, potentially.

00:44:14.660 Correct me if I'm wrong.

00:44:15.720 I read in your research that in 1973, the average Western man had a sperm count of 99 million

00:44:25.880 sperms per milliliter of semen, 99 million, that that was the average in 1973.

00:44:33.320 And now they're saying like normal, it could be considered like between 15 million and 40

00:44:40.940 million per milliliter of semen.

00:44:44.420 Well, that trend, the number was right.

00:44:47.600 You know, initially 99 million per milliliter at the start of our study.

00:44:52.100 And at the end of the study period, we saw only 47.

00:44:55.880 So it was cut in half, cut in half, 47 million sperm per milliliter.

00:45:01.520 By the way, maybe just a point of clarification.

00:45:04.520 So in a sample, you can look at the way you count sperm is you look at the sperm on a plate

00:45:12.940 under a microscope, and the plate is divided into a grid.

00:45:16.720 And then you count in these little squares on the grid, right?

00:45:20.660 And so what you get is a concentration.

00:45:23.580 Number per squares is actually number of per, and then you multiply it and you can say how

00:45:30.680 many sperm per milliliter because you know the volume.

00:45:33.680 Okay.

00:45:33.860 You can also talk about the total sperm count, which is a different thing, which is how many

00:45:38.460 sperm are in the whole sample.

00:45:40.160 And for that, you take the concentration and you multiply it by the volume of the sample,

00:45:44.660 right?

00:45:45.220 So both of those have gone down.

00:45:47.660 The total sperm count has gone down actually a little faster, a little more than the concentration,

00:45:52.920 but they're both reflecting the same thing.

00:45:56.020 How many milliliters in a normal, you know, production of semen?

00:46:02.180 Oh gosh, you got me there.

00:46:03.540 I don't remember.

00:46:04.620 I haven't looked at that for a long time.

00:46:05.320 The point I'm going for is, you know, 99 million, um, or 99, uh,

00:46:11.900 I'll look it up in the break for you.

00:46:13.980 Yes.

00:46:14.340 Because the point I'm trying to get to, yes.

00:46:16.580 Okay.

00:46:16.740 We have to take a break, but I do want to, the point I'm trying to get to is it's gone

00:46:19.680 down, but there's still millions of little sperms.

00:46:22.500 So a lot of us are thinking, well, it's not ideal.

00:46:26.540 Right.

00:46:26.980 But we all know like how many sperm comes out in a semen.

00:46:29.540 It's, it's a lot.

00:46:30.560 It's unlike the women's egg.

00:46:32.260 So how dire is it?

00:46:33.660 That's the question I would leave permeating the air while I squeeze in a quick commercial

00:46:37.360 break and come back to Dr. Shauna Swan.

00:46:39.720 Thank you, ma'am.

00:46:40.380 Be right back to you.

00:46:41.600 And don't forget folks, you can find the Megan Kelly show live on Sirius XM triumph channel

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00:47:09.520 So much fun for you to spend time with on a long trip on a night.

00:47:14.900 You can't fall asleep.

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00:47:20.100 Update for you from the House floor.

00:47:21.560 Just to keep you up to date on what's happening with Kevin McCarthy.

00:47:23.980 It's equally bad for him today as it was yesterday.

00:47:27.240 New York Times on the fourth ballot.

00:47:29.220 We are very much in the same position as we were on the first ballot.

00:47:31.860 There are still about 20 Republicans opposed to McCarthy who appear unmoved.

00:47:37.540 Jake Sherman, reporter for I think it's Punchbowl News, tweets out as follows, McCarthy has not

00:47:44.920 moved a single vote in his favor now.

00:47:46.540 Vote's ongoing.

00:47:47.520 Leadership also worried about not being able to pass an adjournment resolution.

00:47:51.040 I'm not sure what's worse, but things have not improved for McCarthy at all.

00:47:55.760 Talks are fruitless.

00:47:57.280 And it looks once again like Kevin McCarthy is closer than ever to never being Speaker of

00:48:05.580 the House.

00:48:06.120 The never Kevin crowd seems to be getting its way.

00:48:09.160 What that means for the House, for the Republicans, for presidential politics, which will turn to

00:48:14.280 probably this spring.

00:48:15.700 In earnest, we don't know.

00:48:17.140 But it's not a good day for Kevin McCarthy or those who think he should be the next speaker.

00:48:22.520 We'll continue to watch it.

00:48:24.060 Meantime, as I mentioned before the break, we have a special guest today.

00:48:27.140 Her name is Dr. Shanna Swan.

00:48:28.940 She's author of Countdown, How Our Modern World is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male

00:48:33.580 and Female Reproductive Development and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race.

00:48:40.020 And just to bring you a couple of the good doctor's qualifications, she's one of the

00:48:46.080 world's leading environmental and reproductive epidemiologists.

00:48:49.400 She is professor of environmental medicine and public health at the Icahn School of Medicine

00:48:53.140 at Mount Sinai in New York.

00:48:54.480 Very well respected.

00:48:55.800 For over 20 years, she and her colleagues have been studying the dramatic decline in sperm

00:48:59.820 count around the world and the impact of environmental chemicals and pharmaceuticals on the reproductive

00:49:04.460 tract development and neurodevelopment.

00:49:06.160 Her July's 2017 paper, Temporal Trends and Sperm Count, ranked number 26 amongst all reference

00:49:12.880 scientific papers published in the world in 2017, I could go on.

00:49:18.560 So she knows of what she speaks.

00:49:21.440 So, Dr. Swan, we were talking about sperm count and all along we women have been told,

00:49:26.880 you know, you only produce the one little egg a month if you're lucky, right, between a

00:49:31.080 certain limited number of years when you hit puberty to prior to menopause.

00:49:36.360 We all know it's well prior to menopause because, you know, from 40 to 51, 52, whatever, you're

00:49:41.700 not really producing a whole ton of eggs that are capable of being fertilized.

00:49:47.320 And so, but the guys, I mean, 99 million per milliliter of sperm, even if it's fallen to

00:49:54.360 40, even if it's 15 milliliter per milliliter of sperm, seems like they're golden.

00:50:02.000 Why is it a problem?

00:50:03.760 It's true that we have humans and excess of sperm.

00:50:10.240 And how many, let's go back to that question, what's the volume of the sample?

00:50:14.460 So the volume of sample is between one and a half and five milliliters and five milliliters

00:50:20.440 is about a teaspoon.

00:50:21.580 So we're talking about half to a teaspoon of sperm per sample, right?

00:50:25.800 And in that you've got maybe, you know, 50,000 in each milliliter, multiply that by three

00:50:32.080 or four, you've got a lot of sperm.

00:50:34.360 However, studies have shown that when that number shrinks to below 50, 40, it's not an

00:50:47.300 exact cutoff, million per milliliter, then it gets harder.

00:50:52.560 It takes longer to conceive a pregnancy.

00:50:55.860 And in addition to the count, we have to remember that these guys have to swim and they have to

00:51:01.660 swim in a straight line.

00:51:02.840 Circles don't get you anywhere and they have to be shaped well.

00:51:08.140 Two heads don't make it and two tails don't make it.

00:51:10.880 And there's lots and lots of criteria for what's a healthy shape morphology it's called.

00:51:17.300 And then there's the chromosomes in there, which are going to be so important for the

00:51:20.600 next generation, right?

00:51:22.380 And those chromosomes have to be normal.

00:51:24.520 So there's also the question of chromosomal abnormality.

00:51:26.880 So there's a lot of criteria, you know, that these sperm have to, you know, satisfy in order

00:51:34.460 to be successful.

00:51:35.760 And it turns out that, um, like I said, when the number drops below around 45 million per

00:51:42.840 milliliter, which is accompanied by the way, by drops in motility and shape and morphology

00:51:49.000 and also chromosomal damage, these things go together.

00:51:52.400 So quantity and quality.

00:51:53.280 The quality goes down and all of these imperil fertility.

00:51:58.960 That's probably more than you wanted to hear, but there it is.

00:52:01.900 It's not, it's not, I, I've, I've joked, I've talked to my kids about, you know, of course,

00:52:06.540 how, how babies are made and how, you know, the, there's all these sperm and like the one

00:52:11.120 sperm makes it and fertilizes the egg.

00:52:12.900 And, uh, my little guy is just so proud that like the very strongest sperm found its way

00:52:17.900 to the egg.

00:52:18.300 Like he's the product of this incredibly strong, special sperm that beat out all the other sperms

00:52:23.800 and found the egg against all the odds.

00:52:26.060 And I know you've written, it actually is against the odds, like conception.

00:52:30.680 It is against the odds.

00:52:32.020 We, we, as young women, we're always told when we were, you know, when you were sort of

00:52:35.400 coming of childbearing age and you're, let's say 15, 16, 17, you're the most fertile person

00:52:40.600 on earth, if you just look at a man the wrong way, you're going to get pregnant.

00:52:43.980 And the truth is, even under the best circumstances with the two most fertile people, the chances

00:52:49.040 are what, that you would get pregnant, um, you know, unprotected sex during the right time

00:52:52.820 of month.

00:52:54.180 Um, well, in, let's see, in a good, you know, a healthy couple, um, you know, about 12% of

00:53:03.780 them won't do it in a year, you know, and, and then first in the first month.

00:53:10.600 Maybe if they'll, a third will do it and that's great.

00:53:13.580 And they'll be, you know, they'll be successful.

00:53:15.220 And then it goes down from there.

00:53:17.220 So, um, yeah, you got to keep trying.

00:53:20.440 So you got to, you got about a 30% chance of, of becoming pregnant.

00:53:24.340 You got a 70% chance of not becoming pregnant and that anybody who's tried to get pregnant

00:53:28.960 and has failed knows how disheartening those numbers are.

00:53:32.320 And they only go down when you get older and when the sperm count is low and when the eggs

00:53:37.380 are getting affected and when the sperm quality is not ideal and all this.

00:53:41.000 So quality and quantity.

00:53:43.080 Can I ask a, maybe this is a dumb question, but does sperm count and quality matter beyond

00:53:49.260 continuation of the human race?

00:53:51.820 Like, is there, is there some other negative effect to that?

00:53:54.720 Yes.

00:53:57.380 Um, there's a study just recently that showed that, um, when a couple had to go to assisted

00:54:04.920 reproduction to conceive, right.

00:54:06.980 So there were problems without saying what the problems were.

00:54:09.520 There were some problems.

00:54:10.360 They had to get help, medical help to conceive the pregnancy.

00:54:13.660 And they did.

00:54:14.340 And there are, you know, basically if things that mess up sperm mess up the entire body because

00:54:29.360 they depend on hormones, which drive the development of every system in the body, including the brain.

00:54:34.620 And so it's not just, um, reproductive function in and of itself.

00:54:39.340 It's, you know, it has impacts for the health of that person.

00:54:43.140 And by the way, a man or a woman who are less fertile will on average die earlier.

00:54:50.940 Oh, what?

00:54:53.000 Why?

00:54:55.160 Well, because it's a signal that something has gone wrong along the way to get to that point,

00:55:02.540 maybe starting as in pregnancy, even when they were in the womb.

00:55:06.080 Um, and, and the things that went wrong are often things with your hormones because hormones

00:55:13.860 we know are very intimately tied to reproductive success, right?

00:55:17.980 Testosterone, you need that estrogen, you need that and so on.

00:55:20.440 So if you, if you mess that up, particularly very early in pregnancy, you're going to mess

00:55:26.080 up a lot of things, right?

00:55:27.660 And, um, it takes, um, a good amount of testosterone at the right time in this program development.

00:55:37.340 Don't forget, it's, it's kind of like a ballet, you know, there's a, there's a, there's a whole

00:55:41.900 script for this, which is, you know, controlled by your genetic makeup.

00:55:46.000 And when the genes are programmed to produce testosterone or estrogen, they got to do it at

00:55:52.520 that time.

00:55:52.960 Otherwise, you know, if you will, the ballet ballerina is not going to be caught when you

00:55:58.580 say at that time, it'd be an accident.

00:56:00.000 There's going to be a problem.

00:56:01.320 All of these things have to follow the script.

00:56:03.900 And, and so when that's messed up, which I believe we can talk about why it can be.

00:56:09.300 Yeah.

00:56:09.500 We'll get to that.

00:56:10.840 Then, um, you're going to, things will go awry, but don't forget.

00:56:14.160 It's not just your generalists that need testosterone.

00:56:17.160 It's also your brain.

00:56:18.780 It's also many systems in your body.

00:56:21.080 And then other hormones can go wrong.

00:56:23.560 Those that control appetite, those that control immune function, those that control every system

00:56:28.420 in your body can be messed up.

00:56:30.120 And when that happens, you'll get disease or you'll get dysfunction.

00:56:33.940 And one of those ways that you can get dysfunction is a reproductive.

00:56:38.500 And that's what we're talking about today.

00:56:40.180 And when you made the reference at that time, when things go wrong at that time, the ballerina

00:56:44.280 can fall.

00:56:45.160 Do you mean when you're trying to conceive a baby, when you're pregnant with a baby, what

00:56:49.120 is the relevant time?

00:56:50.200 So for men, the relevant time is the 70 days before they conceive that pregnancy.

00:56:58.360 So let me say why that is.

00:57:00.380 Men make sperm all the time.

00:57:02.720 Okay.

00:57:02.980 They have these, what are called germ cells that are like sperm generators.

00:57:07.460 And then throughout his adult life, he will make sperm continually.

00:57:12.260 And it takes about 70 days to make a sperm.

00:57:16.000 So the sperm that produced your son, the good sperm that produced your healthy son, was in

00:57:23.380 development about 70 days before he was conceived.

00:57:28.100 So things that could go wrong in that run up, such as maybe the man smoking, man drinking

00:57:35.160 a lot, man being heavily stressed, and so on and so forth, can make changes to that sperm.

00:57:41.500 Right?

00:57:41.900 Wow.

00:57:42.460 So that's the most influential period for the man.

00:57:48.020 For the woman, once that conception has occurred, she's starting the program, if you will.

00:57:55.360 The band has started playing, the script is running.

00:57:58.520 And every aspect of development is programmed to occur at a different point in gestation.

00:58:06.240 And so for much of what I study, the critical time is in the first trimester, and we don't know

00:58:14.020 exactly, but it's probably weeks 10 to 12 of gestation before you're even aware maybe that

00:58:20.660 you're pregnant.

00:58:21.820 All this stuff is being laid down.

00:58:24.340 That's like my mom.

00:58:25.320 I always give her a hard time.

00:58:26.260 It's like the brain is much later and so on.

00:58:28.720 But for that, it's really scary, isn't it?

00:58:32.040 Oh, well, I was telling my audience not long ago, but my mom, I was born in 1970, right?

00:58:37.500 The science wasn't really that well known, but common sense told a lot of people not to

00:58:41.880 do what my mom did.

00:58:42.500 And so there's a picture of my mom smoking a cigarette, I mean, truly like out of a magazine

00:58:47.020 and with a martini with a pregnant belly.

00:58:50.020 And I'm in there.

00:58:51.200 I'm like, ma.

00:58:52.000 She goes, well, I never did that the first trimester.

00:58:56.000 So you knew it, no?

00:58:58.640 She was onto something.

00:59:00.360 She was onto something because the more rapidly the cells are developing, the more cells that

00:59:06.220 are developing, more sensitive they are to these environments.

00:59:08.560 And we know how quickly, you know, these cells develop in very early pregnancy.

00:59:13.540 So she was onto something with, you know, worrying most about the first trimester.

00:59:17.420 I wish more people did.

00:59:18.940 But problem is that you don't know you're pregnant often, right?

00:59:24.620 So you might not know until 10 weeks.

00:59:28.080 And then it gets a little hard to, you know, cut out everything that you shouldn't be doing.

00:59:33.020 So, but in any case, all during pregnancy, you should be really careful.

00:59:38.560 And then there are times later in life when cells are developing again, puberty and so

00:59:45.500 on, that are also quite sensitive.

00:59:47.900 But the prenatal period is definitely the most sensitive.

00:59:50.620 Okay.

00:59:51.160 All right.

00:59:51.560 And now you mentioned testosterone.

00:59:53.260 This is another piece of the story.

00:59:54.880 It's not just lower sperm counts.

00:59:56.960 It's also low, low T.

00:59:59.220 We've come to know that term.

01:00:00.440 You've got lower testosterone as a man.

01:00:02.360 Now, first, can I just ask you, what does that look like in a man?

01:00:06.440 If a man, let's say he's born with lower testosterone and he, whatever, for whatever reason, he's

01:00:12.820 got low testosterone while he's young.

01:00:14.880 It's not just like one of these older guys who has it.

01:00:18.460 Will he, forgive me, these may be really stupid questions, but will he appear more effeminate?

01:00:23.500 Will he, you know, will that manifest in like a way we could see it?

01:00:26.460 Um, so they're not stupid questions and they're good questions, actually.

01:00:32.520 Um, so testosterone, by the way, women have it also, but less.

01:00:40.760 Okay.

01:00:41.360 And in both men and women, testosterone is absolutely essential for healthy reproductive function,

01:00:48.540 but it's also linked to muscle mass.

01:00:52.460 It's also linked to brain function.

01:00:55.760 It's also linked to libido, sexual desire, sexual satisfaction.

01:01:02.680 And, um, so it's not something that people want to go down once they're adults.

01:01:11.740 And by the way, it isn't level across life.

01:01:15.900 You know, it's, it's changes over time as everything does.

01:01:18.880 So there's a peak of testosterone in, in utero, which we talked about in early pregnancy.

01:01:26.460 Then there's a peak right after birth.

01:01:29.680 Um, and then kind of flattens out and stays, you know, low and until puberty.

01:01:37.620 And then it starts to come up again.

01:01:39.100 And then it stays in men up their whole life going down slowly.

01:01:44.300 All right.

01:01:44.880 So it's there all the time.

01:01:47.220 And by the way, there's a cycle over the day.

01:01:49.800 Also, it's highest in the morning and lowest in the evening.

01:01:52.620 And we know things that influence it, but it's very essential throughout your life.

01:01:59.380 And it's essential for women too.

01:02:01.740 I'll just tell you a little anecdote.

01:02:03.680 Um, I studied pregnant women, right?

01:02:07.140 Our studies are, you know, bring a pregnant woman in early in pregnancy and measure a lot

01:02:12.620 of things in her body.

01:02:13.460 And one of the things we measure is chemicals that make plastic soft.

01:02:18.980 Those are called phthalates.

01:02:21.400 And we'll probably talk about those, um, because they're very important to the story.

01:02:25.580 But it turned out that when a woman had higher levels of those chemicals in her body, she reported

01:02:34.380 having less sensual satisfaction and frequency.

01:02:38.560 Hmm.

01:02:39.780 Hmm.

01:02:40.400 So, well, that makes sense if it affects testosterone.

01:02:43.480 That's right.

01:02:44.700 That's right.

01:02:45.540 And in the men, it's the same thing.

01:02:47.120 And also other chemicals that may, you know, do various things to plastics and products,

01:02:53.160 uh, can affect the man's testosterone.

01:02:56.340 So, um, we're making these all the time, but we're also, um, sensitive to chemicals in the environment

01:03:07.120 that can affect these all the time.

01:03:09.400 Hmm.

01:03:10.840 Um, not for nothing, but the phthalates that you mentioned, I read in your research,

01:03:15.340 they're problematic on so many levels, uh, you know, causing potentially low sperm count,

01:03:20.500 decreasing female fertility, causing low testosterone.

01:03:24.140 Then there's this, um, when I started looking at phthalates around 2000, phthalate syndrome had been

01:03:29.760 shown experimentally, experimentally in rodents, but not in humans.

01:03:33.600 It's mother rats given phthalates had male babies with a smaller penis and scrotum in addition to

01:03:41.240 their sperm counts being lower and so on.

01:03:43.680 So I, that's another thing.

01:03:45.920 I mean, like, you know, that is something that men worry about.

01:03:49.400 And I didn't realize that, you know, a lot of phthalates around you, and we'll talk about what

01:03:54.580 those are, can lead to all sorts of problems, including aesthetic ones.

01:03:59.760 Yeah.

01:04:00.380 I wouldn't actually call them just aesthetic.

01:04:02.360 I think there's functional, you know, effects and the, this phthalate syndrome, um, which

01:04:10.240 is really important.

01:04:11.940 And by the way, the only chemical that has a syndrome named after it is phthalates.

01:04:19.500 You don't talk about the pesticide syndrome or the, you know, dioxin syndrome.

01:04:24.960 We talk about the phthalate syndrome.

01:04:26.380 It's a very big problem and, and, um, it affects the development and we can, and starting an early

01:04:35.160 pregnancy of the male, and then it will result in lower sperm count.

01:04:40.740 So let's get into that.

01:04:43.700 Let's get into it.

01:04:44.340 Cause we're talking about, we're talking about phthalates right now, because this, now we're

01:04:48.180 into the, what's causing this.

01:04:49.880 This is what, what the hell's causing all this low testosterone and low sperm count and decreased

01:04:54.120 female fertility and the birth rate cut in half.

01:04:56.400 What is it?

01:04:57.180 And this is where your area of expertise comes in and you've been studying, you know, this

01:05:01.100 is what, well, actually, let me start with this.

01:05:02.420 Just explain briefly, what does an epidemiologist do?

01:05:07.140 Great.

01:05:08.300 Um, well, you know, we're all familiar with COVID and that's a kind of epidemiology I don't

01:05:13.960 do.

01:05:14.220 So epidemiology is kind of split into infectious.

01:05:18.240 That's COVID and other infectious diseases.

01:05:20.880 And there's chronic disease epidemiology and that's includes cancer and includes reproduction.

01:05:27.580 And it's what I do.

01:05:28.820 So I'm a reproductive epidemiologist and what I do is actually examine reproductive function

01:05:38.040 in relation to things that can affect it.

01:05:41.900 So, and how I do that is to measure things in people, right?

01:05:48.260 Um, so the, the model that I've used for a long time now, um, is to, um, is to, um,

01:05:58.040 go into clinics where pregnant women are being seen, prenatal clinics, and ask them if they'd

01:06:04.860 like to participate in a study.

01:06:06.860 And if they agree and consent, then we recruit them.

01:06:11.020 And then that's, they are in the study, right?

01:06:14.580 And we've done that in states all over the United States and people do that all over the

01:06:19.340 world.

01:06:19.840 It's a very standard model.

01:06:21.980 They're called pregnancy cohort studies.

01:06:24.060 And, and so once the woman has agreed, um, we, she usually completes a questionnaire and

01:06:30.900 she tells us about her reproductive history and her diet and her activities and her smoking

01:06:36.420 and her alcohol and so on and so forth.

01:06:38.240 And then, um, if she's willing, we collect a urine sample from her and sometimes a blood

01:06:45.500 sample.

01:06:46.860 And then we hope to repeat that in each trimester or even more frequently because things change

01:06:55.280 all the time across the pregnancy.

01:06:57.040 So, um, and then once the child is born, we can examine that child.

01:07:04.380 And that's where we see the phthalate syndrome.

01:07:06.640 Okay.

01:07:07.400 Okay.

01:07:07.900 So, so, so, so let me just advance it.

01:07:10.400 So, cause we've discussed, you, you identified the problem and you identified it with men across

01:07:15.000 the world.

01:07:15.780 It's a, it's a legit thing and women too.

01:07:18.120 And now the question is, as an epidemiologist, why?

01:07:21.880 What's causing it?

01:07:22.720 And you actually have real conclusions on that.

01:07:25.900 Um, and I mean, correct me, but the, the short answer is plastics and modern chemicals.

01:07:33.280 I mean, is that, is that the short answer?

01:07:35.920 I would say that is a significant piece of the short answer.

01:07:40.700 We should also talk about lifestyle factors because for example, your smoking isn't good

01:07:45.540 for your sperm.

01:07:47.120 Alcohol, binge drinking isn't good for your sperm.

01:07:49.660 Stress isn't.

01:07:50.240 Um, bad diet isn't.

01:07:52.940 So these other factors, which we can put in the bucket of lifestyle factors are also really

01:07:57.540 important.

01:07:58.480 Um, but, um, where I've, you know, worked hardest and, you know, is in these chemicals.

01:08:05.780 So how do you know what your chemicals exposure is?

01:08:09.960 Yeah.

01:08:10.360 So, you know, you can ask somebody, how much do you smoke?

01:08:13.500 You can ask them, did you take drug a or drug B that's on the questionnaire, but actually

01:08:20.220 the best way to know what's somebody is exposed to is to measure something in their body that

01:08:25.900 reflects that.

01:08:26.780 Right.

01:08:26.920 And it turns out that many of these things are short-lived.

01:08:33.640 They're called non-persistent.

01:08:35.480 They don't stay in the body.

01:08:37.060 They are dumped into the urine.

01:08:39.460 And so that's good because it's easy to get a urine sample and store it safely.

01:08:44.620 And, um, then you can take that sample to the lab and ask the chemist, how many markers

01:08:52.560 of these chemicals do you see?

01:08:54.540 They're have the technical name of a tabloid.

01:08:57.060 So the urine in the urine, the phallic breaks down into these sub particles and the chemist

01:09:02.420 measures them.

01:09:03.120 And by looking at those, the chemist can tell us what the level is.

01:09:06.800 And then we know that the, what the mother was exposed to, um, so how long would they

01:09:13.240 stay in there?

01:09:13.920 If you see a lot in there, does it mean she, if you see a lot in there in the urine, does

01:09:18.160 it mean she must've had exposure to them within the past day or within the past 40 years?

01:09:24.160 Yeah, that's a really good question.

01:09:25.580 So, so there are sort of two big buckets of chemicals.

01:09:28.640 There's a persistent and the non-persistent and phallics are non-persistent.

01:09:32.700 They leave the body very quickly.

01:09:33.940 They, and so what you're seeing when you measure it is what she was exposed to in the

01:09:39.100 last 12 hours, probably.

01:09:43.020 Um, if it is something like, um, a pesticide that's persistent or, um, a flame retardant

01:09:52.800 or something that makes your pans nonstick, for example, these are called forever chemicals.

01:09:58.060 So they'll stay in the body and you can measure them, but you don't know what period they're

01:10:02.280 reflecting it.

01:10:02.820 That could have been exposure a long time ago, at least several years ago.

01:10:06.300 And then there are some that stay around even longer.

01:10:08.340 Those are banned now, the dioxins and the PCBs and so on.

01:10:12.180 So the, the, the property of the chemical, its ability to stay in the body or to stay in

01:10:17.560 the environment, um, you know, is a question, you know, and answers that question.

01:10:22.220 How long has it been since she was exposed?

01:10:24.780 Um, and by the way, you can do that in a man too.

01:10:28.140 So if you want to know your son who, you know, healthy son, um, his, you and his dad were

01:10:34.300 probably not exposed to high levels of bad things.

01:10:37.460 Um, you, but the man can, you know, you can get his urine too, and you can measure them

01:10:43.900 in his urine.

01:10:45.420 Well, how do you know?

01:10:46.560 I mean, this is one of my, one of my fears, but one of my fears is, you know, you grew up

01:10:50.580 in the seventies.

01:10:51.660 My husband tells the, tells the story about how down at the beach where we go, his older

01:10:55.820 brother and sister used to chase the DEET truck that was blowing huge wafts of DEET all over

01:11:05.000 the town, the chemical we're told to avoid in off though.

01:11:08.880 We all use it if we get into the deep woods, cause it's the, it works so well, like, okay,

01:11:12.680 so you got that in the seventies and, and then you come upon the microwave in, in around

01:11:16.760 1980 and we all were putting lean cuisines in there and other things that are in plastic

01:11:23.040 and heating them up and then eating them, which I know from your research is a no, no, don't

01:11:29.300 heat plastic in the microwave and then eat out of it, right?

01:11:33.160 No, and don't, don't keep your food in plastic, you know, containers when it's like, and then

01:11:38.920 eat out of it and nonstick cookware.

01:11:40.980 My God, everybody's got that.

01:11:42.800 Cause it works so well.

01:11:43.860 And that stuff you say you can't get.

01:11:45.340 So I don't know if my husband and I would have, would test low on this.

01:11:48.860 I'm worried.

01:11:49.340 Well, it was not too much evidently for your son, right?

01:11:54.500 So, so you're going to feel good about that.

01:11:57.580 But we can't really avoid these things.

01:12:01.520 And by the way, not all plastics are created equal, I should say.

01:12:05.960 You know, if you want to sort of check it out, look at the triangle on the bottom of a

01:12:11.320 bottle or a container.

01:12:13.560 And there's a number, it's a recycling code.

01:12:16.300 So there's this little ditty four, seven, four, five, one, and two, all the rest are

01:12:21.760 bad for you.

01:12:22.500 And seven is not good.

01:12:23.620 And six is not good.

01:12:25.420 Four, five, one, and two is good.

01:12:26.840 Four, five, one, and two is okay.

01:12:28.200 Even one and two, you don't want, but you know, you can feel better about using one and

01:12:31.900 two.

01:12:33.600 So four, five, one, and two maybe are less pernicious than the other members.

01:12:38.320 Right.

01:12:38.600 Okay.

01:12:39.120 Okay.

01:12:40.080 Wow.

01:12:40.620 So, all right.

01:12:41.300 So let's talk about it.

01:12:42.740 Like what things, you mentioned the non-stick cookware, I know that you use, you can use

01:12:48.060 stainless steel or cast iron.

01:12:50.460 I know you like that.

01:12:51.260 I like cast iron too.

01:12:52.480 And it actually doesn't stick that much.

01:12:54.080 It's actually pretty good if you put, you know, some butter and oil in there.

01:12:57.640 So what are like the worst culprits?

01:12:59.540 Because when I read the list, I started to feel depressed.

01:13:01.700 It was like no shampoo and toothpaste and hairspray and makeup.

01:13:06.260 I'm like, well, my whole routine is gone.

01:13:11.980 It's overwhelming.

01:13:13.260 And what I like to say to people, you know, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

01:13:19.420 You know, you can't control it all.

01:13:20.960 You can't limit it at all.

01:13:22.420 I think what you can do is kind of once in a while, just maybe take an inventory and think,

01:13:27.700 do we know what's in this?

01:13:29.480 And often you don't because things don't have to be labeled.

01:13:33.380 There's a, there's a organization called the Environmental Working Group.

01:13:39.320 You can go there and you can put, you know, they have guides for different kinds of consumer

01:13:44.880 products, you know, so you can put in sunscreen and you can put in different kinds of cosmetics

01:13:49.460 and, and they'll, they will have tested all of these things, which is amazing because the

01:13:54.500 government doesn't do it.

01:13:55.800 So if you go there and put your product.

01:13:59.480 In there and you'll get a score and you can try to buy things that have a better score.

01:14:06.800 But in general, I would say, if you can eat food that's unprocessed, right?

01:14:16.600 We can talk about processing in a minute, but buy it at the supermarket.

01:14:21.520 If you are living near a supermarket with fresh food, by the way, not everybody is.

01:14:26.520 It's a, it's a, it's a economic thing.

01:14:28.980 Um, and, um, take, buy it on process, take it home, cook it and eat it.

01:14:34.220 That's the safest thing you can do.

01:14:36.420 Okay.

01:14:37.780 Um, once you have to store it, you're going to have to think about what your container is.

01:14:44.720 Obviously glass is preferable to plastic, but, um, not all, as I say, not all plastics are

01:14:51.660 created equal.

01:14:53.080 And, um, I would say, think about your average, think about what you're doing on the average,

01:14:58.860 try to do okay.

01:15:01.000 Most of the time and not be too hard on yourself, because I don't want to give the message that

01:15:06.040 everybody should be policing everything they do and everyone around them and what they

01:15:11.020 do, because that gets so obnoxious, right?

01:15:13.300 You can't do that, but you can try to reduce your exposure by being aware that everything,

01:15:18.940 including by the way, our air, our dust, our water contain plastics.

01:15:24.720 And now we know microplastics, the breakdown product of those plastics is everywhere.

01:15:30.300 So it's, it's kind of a hard job to avoid these.

01:15:33.480 And I think we have to make changes much higher up rather than on the consumer level.

01:15:37.280 We can't really shop our way out of this or, you know, do it on our own.

01:15:43.380 We need help.

01:15:44.760 But like the government needs to start regulating things to, to ban some of these destructive,

01:15:50.340 dangerous chemicals.

01:15:51.900 And right now they're not doing really anything.

01:15:55.880 They're not helping us at all.

01:15:57.860 And I'm not for big government, but this really is a ubiquitous problem that every human, never

01:16:04.060 mind American is dealing with.

01:16:05.680 And it's just the wild West.

01:16:08.720 Right.

01:16:10.000 And, and, and we could do better.

01:16:12.360 And I just want to give you one example.

01:16:14.700 The EU does better and they have much better regulations.

01:16:18.300 They actually require that a product be tested before it's put in the market, which sounds

01:16:23.860 kind of radical.

01:16:25.160 You know, we don't do that.

01:16:26.960 And now in the EU, something like 1100 products are banned from cosmetics.

01:16:34.820 Oh, in the U S 11, 11 versus 1100.

01:16:42.540 Now those numbers may have changed since the last time I read that, but the idea is that

01:16:46.800 we're doing very little and it is possible to do much more.

01:16:51.060 But, but is it teaspoons in the ocean, right?

01:16:54.300 Is it teaspoons in the ocean?

01:16:55.520 Like, I mean, would you guess that in 40 years, if you take the, if nothing else changes

01:16:59.620 and then you take the fertility rate of American men versus European men, it will have changed

01:17:05.400 because of those pro those solutions or no, because it's teaspoons in the ocean over there

01:17:11.100 in the ocean.

01:17:11.600 And they're still swimming in it too.

01:17:13.740 Right.

01:17:15.020 Both of those things, I would say.

01:17:17.160 I think the countries that are being more careful with their plastics and with their products

01:17:23.320 are, are probably doing better, but not well, because as you say, air is mixed globally.

01:17:33.600 Water is mixed globally.

01:17:34.860 Things are shipped globally.

01:17:37.720 We don't know where the products in our house comes from.

01:17:41.540 Usually what country have they come from?

01:17:43.500 What were the controls in that country?

01:17:45.340 So it's we don't see big geographic variations in sperm count.

01:17:53.160 Of course, we didn't have very fine data or, you know, enough data to say something about

01:17:57.620 individual countries.

01:17:58.480 So that's possible that there are some places in the world that are really good.

01:18:02.340 Um, we do know that there are some places in the world that are having more problems.

01:18:08.120 Um, one way to look at that is the, the fertility rate and in East Asia is extremely low, extremely

01:18:16.320 low.

01:18:17.560 So do you know what?

01:18:18.940 Why?

01:18:19.460 You say fertility rate is the, is a demographic term and refers to the number of children that

01:18:25.400 a woman or a couple can be expected to have in their lifetime.

01:18:28.240 Okay.

01:18:29.040 And as you started this, um, hour, you talked about, um, a fertility rate that had declined

01:18:35.380 by 50%, where we used to have five children per woman or a couple.

01:18:39.820 And now that's gone down.

01:18:40.920 That's absolutely correct.

01:18:42.460 And, and so you can look at that fertility rate by country.

01:18:46.920 And if a couple produce, reproduces themselves, they'll have two children, right?

01:18:52.440 Two people, two children, and maybe 2.1, because occasionally, sadly, a child gets lost.

01:18:57.600 So 2.1 children, we're below that now.

01:19:02.860 And in East Asia, many countries are around one.

01:19:08.460 And the lowest I've heard is South Korea, which is 0.89.

01:19:11.860 That means that a couple will only produce fewer than one child on the average in their

01:19:18.920 lifetime.

01:19:20.000 That's really low.

01:19:22.180 So there are geographic differences.

01:19:24.320 All right.

01:19:25.360 So wait, that's a good place to pause it.

01:19:26.880 Cause I want to know why, why is East Asia having that problem?

01:19:29.840 And I know you did a study looking at the sperm count of men in part of Missouri versus

01:19:35.940 part of Minnesota and found a vast difference.

01:19:39.720 And we'll talk about what it was and why right after this very quick break.

01:19:44.200 Dr. Swan stays with us.

01:19:48.560 So doc, what explains the low fertility rate in East Asia and what happened when you compared

01:19:53.460 men in rural Missouri with more urban men in Minnesota?

01:20:01.240 So Megan, the low fertility rate in East Asia is a mystery.

01:20:07.800 I have to say, I, I can speculate that they have more products.

01:20:13.480 They produce certainly many plastic products, but I, I have not studied that.

01:20:19.060 And I haven't seen anybody who's actually looked into that in a deep way.

01:20:24.620 So I have to say that's a mystery.

01:20:28.440 The question of Missouri versus Minnesota, however, is less of a mystery though.

01:20:34.440 There's many mysterious things going on there too.

01:20:37.180 Um, so we, in our studies, I told you how we did these studies of pregnant women and two

01:20:41.780 of the places we included were Columbia, Missouri, where I was living at the time, which is semi,

01:20:49.280 which is agricultural, right?

01:20:50.880 There's a lot of crops grown there.

01:20:53.120 Um, and we had another center, which was in Minneapolis, which is, um, an urban center.

01:20:59.600 And we had other centers too, but let me just focus on those two.

01:21:03.480 And what we found was that, um, the men in central Missouri, Columbia, where I was living,

01:21:12.840 had only half as many moving sperm as men in Minneapolis, half, which is huge, right?

01:21:23.240 What could do that?

01:21:24.560 So we started thinking about what could do that.

01:21:26.920 Um, and of course, an obvious difference is that there is agriculture on a lot of it in

01:21:34.960 Columbia, Missouri.

01:21:35.600 And so a lot of pesticides, a lot of spring and in Minneapolis, not so much, uh, different

01:21:41.040 kinds of pesticides and not growing a lot of, you know, soybeans in central Minneapolis.

01:21:48.560 So, so, um, we looked at that.

01:21:52.380 Unfortunately, we didn't have a lot of money to do that, but we looked at a sample, which

01:21:56.400 was big enough to show us that men in Missouri, first of all, that men in Missouri had more,

01:22:03.520 significantly more pesticide burden in their urine.

01:22:06.180 And again, you have to go to the urine and see what's dropped in there, you know, by these

01:22:10.820 short-lived pesticides and, um, much more in, significantly more in men in Missouri, but

01:22:18.560 even honing in on that and looking at men within Missouri, we looked at one sample of

01:22:23.480 men who had excellent sperm.

01:22:25.840 Everything was good.

01:22:27.600 Count, motility, morphology, everything was good.

01:22:30.240 And a sample of men there who, for whom everything was bad.

01:22:34.500 And there we found that four pesticides, atrazine is a one that people may have heard,

01:22:40.820 of, um, were significantly higher in the men with the bad semen quality.

01:22:46.600 So, um, although the sample wasn't very big, this went a long way to showing that pesticides

01:22:51.200 commonly used in our environment do lower sperm count.

01:22:55.340 And this is not prenatal, by the way.

01:22:56.600 These are adult men.

01:22:58.260 You talk about how this might manifest at the grocery store for those of us as saying,

01:23:03.080 if you can, and I know it's more expensive, try to buy organic, buy your fruits and vegetables

01:23:08.640 organic.

01:23:10.620 Um, you don't really want them coming covered in pesticides, but most of us have no idea

01:23:15.540 whether they are or they aren't.

01:23:17.000 So for those who can't afford it or don't know, or who are still worried in any event,

01:23:21.920 what should they do with their fruits and veggies?

01:23:23.720 Well, if you can, as I say, you buy organic, um, and, and buy, if possible, unprocessed.

01:23:32.860 And I'd like to talk about that in a minute, but, um, if you can't, um, you, you can wash

01:23:39.580 them.

01:23:40.160 Unfortunately, you know, there are chemicals that are added to pesticides that help them

01:23:45.280 go into the plant, including phthalates, by the way, phthalates do this, this increased

01:23:50.540 absorption, either of the, you know, hand cream on your hand or the pesticide into the plant.

01:23:56.640 So things are put in so that the pesticide will go up into the plant.

01:23:59.900 And that makes it something that you can't wash off.

01:24:03.020 So I would say for that reason, you, if whatever possible, you should buy organic, um, about

01:24:09.860 the processing too.

01:24:11.820 So, um, it turns out a very nice experiment in Eastern Europe where they milked a cow the

01:24:18.440 old fashioned way by hand, and then they milked a cow with a milking machine.

01:24:23.160 If you think about a milking machine, it's got lots of plastic tubes and those are soft

01:24:26.600 plastic, and guess what?

01:24:28.100 They contain phthalates.

01:24:29.760 They contain bad phthalates.

01:24:30.980 They contain phthalates that lower testosterone.

01:24:33.200 And so this study showed that you compared the phthalates in the milk, of the hand milked

01:24:39.740 milk, if you will, and the machine milk milk, the machine milking definitely added pesticides

01:24:46.680 to the body.

01:24:47.700 And that happens anytime you have food going through a plastic tube, right?

01:24:53.300 Because the plastic leaves the, it's not chemically bound to the plastic and the phthalate leaves

01:24:58.800 the plastic goes into the food.

01:25:01.200 And if the food is warm so much the better, because more of it gets absorbed and then it

01:25:05.880 goes into the spaghetti jar or wherever, and then it stays there until it goes into our body.

01:25:11.160 So, as I say, if you can buy organic food, clean it, process it yourself in the kitchen

01:25:19.980 right away before you eat it, eat it, and then you're good to go.

01:25:23.280 I know I have to buy a cow now too.

01:25:29.680 There's so much effort.

01:25:31.400 Okay, wait, can we talk about process versus unprocessed?

01:25:35.940 I mean, I'll say, I'll start by saying this.

01:25:37.220 I always use my Nana as an example.

01:25:38.980 I know she's probably an outlier, but she lived to 101.

01:25:42.040 She was overweight.

01:25:43.120 She was stressed out.

01:25:44.440 She ate nothing but processed, but processed foods.

01:25:47.880 But her first probably 40 years on this earth from 1915 forward, probably not, right?

01:25:53.120 And she wasn't much of a drinker or a smoker, but I'm just saying, like she always said,

01:25:57.620 my sister Lily smoked herself to death.

01:26:00.120 My sister Helen drank herself to death, and I'm going to eat myself to death.

01:26:03.460 In any event, she was on the New York, New Jersey border.

01:26:09.780 She always processed food, and she lived to 101.

01:26:11.960 But the general rule is stay away from processed.

01:26:14.860 And so why?

01:26:16.780 What is it about the phthalate concern and all that that we're talking about in the processed foods?

01:26:20.740 Well, these chemicals, bisphenolite, by the way, is very important, too, that lines, tin cans, those have to be processed.

01:26:31.300 These chemicals are needed for the product, the tin can or the plastic container, for it to have the properties

01:26:42.740 that we need for it to be hard, to be soft, and so they're necessary, unless they can be replaced by something.

01:26:51.460 Safer, that's a different question.

01:26:53.100 But they're there, but they're not, they're hard and fast, if you will.

01:26:59.960 They're not chemically bound.

01:27:01.520 They can come out into the food, and they do.

01:27:04.860 So, you know, floor coverings, just this is changing the subject a little bit, but if you know these floor coverings that are all shiny to begin with,

01:27:14.580 and then they get dollar and dollar and dollar, that's because the plasticizers, there are many kinds in PVC and other, you know,

01:27:23.080 they leave the flooring, and then you have this dull-looking floor, and that's gone into the air, and it's, we breathe it, and it's gone into our body.

01:27:30.940 So we get these things through breathing, through our skin, through eating and drinking, every which way.

01:27:37.800 So food and other things are giving us these products without our knowledge throughout our life.

01:27:46.540 I want to get this in before we run out of time.

01:27:49.300 Is there a website or, like, where can people go who are listening to this who, like, I want to know more,

01:27:54.100 I want to know what I can do, what I should eliminate?

01:27:56.400 Is there one website where they can go for this information?

01:27:58.580 I would say go to Countdown.

01:28:02.960 Go to my book, because we have an appendix, which just contains a lot of websites.

01:28:09.100 There's not any one that is different for different products, but we have a lot of information there.

01:28:16.200 The book is Countdown.

01:28:17.240 That's two words.

01:28:17.660 That's helpful.

01:28:18.320 If you put in one word, you won't get the book.

01:28:20.880 Oh, that is important.

01:28:22.220 Count down.

01:28:23.460 All right, let me switch to this because I have to get this in.

01:28:25.320 The gender confusion that we're seeing at at epic numbers that could be related to some

01:28:32.320 of this, you say.

01:28:34.260 I actually didn't say that right out because this is really controversial and I know we're

01:28:40.960 rushing.

01:28:41.560 And let me say this quickly.

01:28:43.380 We don't know whether gender confusion is increasing.

01:28:48.020 The reason we don't know that is because we don't have a historical record.

01:28:51.860 What we know is that reports of it are increasing.

01:28:56.780 Awareness of it is increasing.

01:28:58.720 But whether it is actually increasing is an open question.

01:29:02.160 Okay?

01:29:02.440 So I want to be really clear about that.

01:29:04.500 Secondly, I have not said in the book or elsewhere that chemicals in the environment are related

01:29:11.760 to this phenomena.

01:29:14.320 What they are related to is what's called disorders of sexual development.

01:29:22.020 So that's creatures that are born with, say, eggs and sperm in the same individual.

01:29:29.080 That does happen and that can be caused by certain chemicals.

01:29:32.840 And what also can be caused is homosexuality.

01:29:36.220 But that's not to say that that's the main cause of homosexuality or the driving force.

01:29:42.380 It's just that it can be caused in the laboratory by certain chemicals.

01:29:46.360 Okay?

01:29:46.940 But gender dysphoria is a different thing.

01:29:49.680 And it's about how you feel about your body and whether you think your assignment at birth

01:29:55.860 based on your genes was appropriate for the person that you are.

01:30:01.060 And whether that's affected by chemicals, we have no idea.

01:30:04.820 We don't know.

01:30:05.840 Hey, I want to be really clear about that because it's not the same thing.

01:30:09.380 I got it.

01:30:10.360 It's yet another thing that we need more research on.

01:30:13.020 You go through in the book about body weight, smoking, alcohol, stress, and so on.

01:30:18.440 This nugget of goodness, just for people worried, moderate alcohol intake defined as four to

01:30:24.920 seven units per week, like one glass of wine, whatever, here and there, associated with

01:30:30.460 higher semen volume and total sperm count, but high intakes, more than 25 units per week,

01:30:36.080 hazardous to sperm.

01:30:37.320 So there's just like a little silver lining there, Doc.

01:30:39.600 I was glad to see.

01:30:40.640 You can still have some.

01:30:42.080 Remove.

01:30:42.780 I'm just going to tick through a couple of your recommendations here.

01:30:46.100 Prepare meals at home as often as possible.

01:30:48.000 When you eat out, you don't know what's going in there.

01:30:50.260 They got rubber gloves.

01:30:51.500 They're whatever plastic gloves they're using.

01:30:54.260 Filter your drinking water.

01:30:55.520 Upgrade your cookware.

01:30:56.940 Get rid of the nonstick in favor of stainless steel or cast iron.

01:31:02.180 Clean up your cleaning products.

01:31:03.560 Carpet shampoo, all-purpose household cleaners, window and wood cleaning products, disinfectants,

01:31:07.580 and so on.

01:31:08.540 In the bathroom, look at the labels on personal care products.

01:31:12.900 Scan product ingredients lists.

01:31:16.100 Avoid products that contain certain harmful chemicals like triclosan.

01:31:20.860 You can find this in the book.

01:31:22.460 DBP, parabens, preservatives, and so on.

01:31:25.720 Sunscreens, look for these ingredients.

01:31:28.220 They're now paying some attention to that.

01:31:30.500 Ditch the vinyl shower curtain.

01:31:32.040 Banish air fresheners.

01:31:35.240 Remove wall-to-wall carpet.

01:31:37.500 Prevent dust buildup.

01:31:38.520 Leave your shoes at the door.

01:31:39.660 Clean out your closets.

01:31:41.080 Say no to plastic bags.

01:31:42.060 Can we talk about the carpet quickly?

01:31:43.600 I have this very naughty dog.

01:31:45.960 I just paid an exorbitant amount for plastic carpets.

01:31:49.560 For a couple of plastic.

01:31:50.520 They feel like wool.

01:31:52.440 And now I realize I've got to get rid of them.

01:31:54.360 But can you just tell me, is it an exercise in futility?

01:31:57.420 Because the wool carpets that are probably coming have been treated with all the fire

01:32:00.420 retardant stuff that makes them just as hazardous to me as the plastic ones I now need to get

01:32:05.240 rid of?

01:32:05.500 I can't speak about your particular products, but I think there are safer floor coverings that you can use.

01:32:14.780 So, you know, I don't know the details right now.

01:32:17.660 I couldn't, you know.

01:32:18.960 There's so many products to talk about.

01:32:20.380 But there's always a range of choices, and so you need to explore that.

01:32:24.760 I just wrote to a company asking them what kind of plastic they used in their product.

01:32:29.520 You can do that.

01:32:30.180 You can write it.

01:32:30.720 You can find out.

01:32:31.360 So, we shouldn't have to do that as consumers, but we do.

01:32:36.220 So, that's what I would do.

01:32:37.940 So, I read that you say, you told Axios, if you look at the curve on sperm count and projected

01:32:43.640 forward, which is always risky, it reaches zero in 2045, noting that the average man would have

01:32:51.660 no viable sperm.

01:32:53.320 How likely is that?

01:32:57.400 So, that actually is kind of metaphorical.

01:32:59.960 You can't actually have a zero mean sperm count because then you'd have negative, which is not

01:33:04.700 possible.

01:33:05.600 So, that's just to say that zero is, you know, as low as we can go.

01:33:10.120 And we seem to be going closer and closer to that.

01:33:13.760 But whether we'll actually reach it?

01:33:17.520 No, we won't actually reach it because, like I say, then you'd have to have negative sperm.

01:33:21.740 You understand?

01:33:22.080 Because sperm is, there's a curve and, actually, long tail, but you'd have to have, if zero was

01:33:28.140 at zero, if the mean was at zero, you'd have negative.

01:33:31.680 We can't do that.

01:33:32.600 But we can come lower and lower.

01:33:33.900 And that seems to be what's happening.

01:33:36.760 However, we can reproduce using assisted reproductive technologies.

01:33:41.680 And those are getting better and being used more frequently.

01:33:45.760 And I think that men probably should bank their sperm when they're young and when it's

01:33:51.880 healthier, more likely to be healthy.

01:33:54.600 And the question of egg freezing is more complicated.

01:33:57.180 It's so expensive.

01:33:57.800 But that's something that women who are concerned could consider.

01:34:01.720 Wow.

01:34:02.180 Okay.

01:34:02.680 Yeah, we need to fight that.

01:34:03.920 2045 is right around the corner.

01:34:06.580 And this is not something we want to deal with.

01:34:08.420 All right.

01:34:08.660 The book, again, is called Countdown.

01:34:11.020 How Our Modern World is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male and Female Reproductive

01:34:14.620 Development, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race.

01:34:18.880 It's a fascinating discussion.

01:34:20.880 Dr. Swan, thank you so much for your good work and your good explanations.

01:34:23.660 We appreciate it.

01:34:25.080 Thank you so much for having me on.

01:34:29.900 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show.

01:34:31.760 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - January 04, 2023

McCarthy's Speaker Fail, and Alarming Decline in Sperm Counts, with Eric Bolling and Dr. Shanna Swan ｜ Ep. 464

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