New insights from up north indicate the limits of socialism, re-affirm (binary) biology over social engineering, and showcase the deficiencies of 'Science™'
In May, the government set up a commission to find the cause of the low birth rates.
The background was what the Minister for Children and Family Affairs, Kjersti Toppe (Sp), characterised as a riddle:
Why do Norwegian women and men have fewer children than they would like—when we have the most generous support programmes in the world? [because Socialism doesn’t work, and it doesn’t in particular with respect to increasing birth rates; for what it’s worth, Jordan Peterson pointed this all out long ago, but the Scandinavians got offended instead of thinking through his arguments]
So far, the hypotheses have centred on structural and societal factors (see below) [talk about off, if not wrong, premises].
In their new book Permen om spermen [lit. The Seeds of Semen], authors Anette Heggemsnes and Camilla Keim turn their attention to a factor that has been less discussed:
The Sperm Quality of Norwegian Men
‘We are deeply concerned about the decline in sperm quality’, says Heggemsnes, who works at the Frøya Clinic, adding that ‘it’s not good enough to have sex so often.’
Last year, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (IPH) sounded the alarm when a Danish study said that one in five young men had deficient semen levels [see below for a few findings of the study].
‘We see a good number of men who don’t have any sperm cells at-all’, said Per Magnus, Director of the IPH, commenting on the study.
If the sperm quality wasn’t bad enough, there are also signs that something is wrong with the sex drive, adds Heggemsnes:
More and more younger men are saying that they can’t be bothered to have sex very often.
She puts the blame on pesticides and hormone inhibitors in environmental toxins, which affect testosterone levels.
In an essay in Morgenbladet, the ‘sex revolution’ among teenagers and young adults (‘Generation Z’) is explained as a cultural counter-reaction to the sexual revolution of the 1960s:
Desire disappeared when contract language and demystification took over.
In 2017, Niels Jørgensen co-authored an international study that found that sperm counts among men in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand fell by 59% between 1973 and 2011.
Like the authors of The Seeds of Semen, Jørgensen believes that biological problems have been under-communicated in the conversation about falling fertility rates:
Demographers say that it is socially based. Economists say it is economically based. The reality is that all factors come into play [now scroll up and re-read the premise voiced by the socialist family minister].
Just think of the large number of people who need fertility treatment. For them, it is quite obvious that biology is the obstacle.
Men Should be Better at Taking Care of their Health
For its part, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health has claimed that the decline in the birth rate is mainly due to ‘social reasons, not biological ones’ [like with the Covid modRNA policies, one cannot find, no less discuss, that which one isn’t looking at].
The same is said by Jon Wegner Hausken, head of the Hausken Clinic.
Men should be better at taking care of their health, but fewer births are due to the fact that we have moved the family-building process into our 30s.
Trine B. Haugen is a professor of biomedicine and head of the research group Reproductive Health in Men. She emphasises that the research is inconclusive, symbolised by a new Danish study which states that sperm quality has not deteriorated over the past 20 years.
In 2002, she published a study showing that Norwegian (and Danish) men have poorer sperm quality than our Nordic neighbours in Sweden, Finland, and the Baltic states.
Since there are no follow-up studies that follow Norwegian men’s sperm quality over time, she does not want to make any assumptions about the current situation, other than being ‘a little worried’.
She adds: ‘but there should be more attention paid to male reproduction’.
What Does ‘The Science™’ Say?
As mentioned above, since the Nature study alluded earlier is behind a paywall, here are some of its key insights. Entitled ‘Environmental factors in declining human fertility’, Nature Reviews Endocrinology volume 18, pages 139–157 (2022), we note that it was published in mid-December 2021 and it is a ‘review article’.
This means that none of the modRNA debacle-in-the-making has made it into ‘the Science™’ yet. (References omitted, emphases mine; if you’d like to have a copy of the full paper, email me.)
Abstract
A severe decline in child births has occurred over the past half century, which will lead to considerable population declines, particularly in industrialized regions. A crucial question is whether this decline can be explained by economic and behavioural factors alone, as suggested by demographic reports, or to what degree biological factors are also involved. Here, we discuss data suggesting that human reproductive health is deteriorating in industrialized regions. Widespread infertility and the need for assisted reproduction due to poor semen quality and/or oocyte failure are now major health issues. Other indicators of declining reproductive health include a worldwide increasing incidence in testicular cancer among young men and alterations in twinning frequency. There is also evidence of a parallel decline in rates of legal abortions, revealing a deterioration in total conception rates. Subtle alterations in fertility rates were already visible around 1900, and most industrialized regions now have rates below levels required to sustain their populations. We hypothesize that these reproductive health problems are partially linked to increasing human exposures to chemicals originating directly or indirectly from fossil fuels. If the current infertility epidemic is indeed linked to such exposures, decisive regulatory action underpinned by unconventional, interdisciplinary research collaborations will be needed to reverse the trends…
We hypothesize that declines in fertility rates might be linked to exposures to chemicals originating from fossil fuels causing human reproductive problems and cancer; early gestation might be a sensitive period.
I recall a dinner conversation a few days ago while attending a conference in Italy. An older British (I think) colleague snapped: ‘We know how to fix this: material wealth leads to fewer children; if people were less rich, we’d have more kids.’
The Nature paper supports this assertion:
A crucial and unanswered question is, however, whether fecundity (the biological ability to conceive) is indeed constant (as generally indicated in demographic publications) or whether modern lifestyles have resulted in changes in human reproductive physiology resulting in societies with a greater number of infertile, or even sterile, couples than previously…
A well-documented, although unexplained, pronounced decline in fertility rates began in Europe, including Denmark, around the year 1900 (Fig. 2). However, as depicted in Fig. 2, both world wars (World War I and World War II) interrupted the decline. In Denmark, whereas the impact of World War I was short, the increase in fertility rates that started during World War II levelled off and then persisted until modern contraception was introduced in Denmark in the 1960s. A similar pattern was seen in Sweden. It is noteworthy that in other parts of the world (Supplementary Fig. 1), where the onset of industrialization and economic upturn started much later than in many European countries/regions (for example, in many South American countries/regions), the observed fertility decline appeared within the past five decades.
In the countries/regions with early industrialization (that is, starting in the 1800s), a decline in fertility rates occurred through the 1900s, although interruptions occurred during world crises, including periods of war and economic depression.
Thus, we may answer the question, ‘War, what is it good for?’—by invoking the seeming paradox that as occupation, hardship, and the like take over, people tend to have more children.
Perhaps that’s the reason the globalist elites are planning for WW3? But I digress.
It is noteworthy that the declining birth rate is not due to an increased number of induced abortions, as in most industrialized regions with declining birth rates the curves for abortions have also been declining. Our own studies show that the decline in the ‘natural conception rate’ (births plus induced abortions, minus births after medically assisted reproduction (MAR)) among women in Denmark is even more pronounced than the decline in fertility rate…
One of the major factors determining fertility rates across the industrialized world during the past 50 years has undoubtedly been the ability of women to have more control over their reproductive choices. With the advent of the oral contraceptive pill in the 1960s, millions of women have been able to reclaim autonomy over the timing of conception [I’m glad we’re at least talking about industrial chemicals playing a role, but what about synthetic hormones, such as these?]. Indeed, there was the intention, through donations and national commitments, that there should be 120 million new users of the oral contraceptive pill by 2020 (Family Planning 2020), which underpins the importance of the oral contraceptive pill for modern family planning.
The consequent risk from postponing family initiation is that the family size might ultimately be smaller than in previous generations due to the age-related decrease in fecundity [apologies, women, but age matters]. This change might be due to an intentional decision, but for others it might mean that they will never be able to reach their hoped for family size due to the limitations of the female reproductive window. However, it seems that many, but not all, women have insight into this fact [that must be the understatement of the year]…
When couples postpone starting a family, the average paternal age will also increase, and semen quality, particularly motility of sperm, diminishes [something most men seem blissfully ignorant about]…
Since the 1990s, there has been an increased research focus on the possible link between changing exposures to multiple endocrine-disrupting chemicals and human reproductive health. Such studies are demanding, as numerous chemicals might be involved. In addition, animal data indicate that the female and the male partner might react differently to the same exposures [silly question, but do synthetic hormones from, e.g., the oral contraceptive pill, ‘shed’? Alas, as mentioned above, it’s not mentioned here].
I’ll skip over most of the paper due to the length of this posting, and I’ll delimit myself to the conclusions (again, if you’d like the full paper, email me):
Conclusions
A crucial problem is that knowledge about the causes underlying the global downturn in births is not available [remember: this is before ‘the Science™’ began to consider the impact of modRNA injections]. The trend was already visible in Denmark around 1900, when fossil fuel-based industrialization had just started, and occurred without the use of modern contraception, which was introduced half a century later [but for ‘whatever’ reason, ‘modern contraceptives’ remain outside the scope of the above review article]. It remains to be elucidated whether the decreasing fertility rates are linked to changes in our biological systems due to environmental exposures or to behavioural socioeconomic changes caused by modern lifestyles, or due to a combination of both.
In support of a biological hypothesis, the trends in testicular cancer that can be seen as the ‘canary in the coal mine’ for other spermatogenic disorders, are clearly increasing. In addition, infertility due to poor semen quality is widespread and the need for MAR, and use of ICSI for male infertility, has become a costly issue and a booming health industry in many parts of the world.
Also in favour of a biological hypothesis is the fact that reproductive toxicants are ubiquitously present in our diet, drinking water and the air we breathe. It is well established that these chemicals have become part of our tissues and fluids. But do they contribute to the current epidemic of infertility? We know that they can be a threat to wildlife. Unfortunately, too little has been done to uncover their role in humans [again, the big omission here appears, I’d argue, the lack of consideration of synthetic hormones; yet, it’s fair to assume that if the above factors apply to other mammals, such as lab rats or monkeys, it’s highly likely they apply to humans, too].
For many societies in Asia and Europe, the population situation is now rather dire. Countries/regions with a rate of 1.5 children per woman (such as Japan and Germany) have already seen a 50% reduction in the number of babies born, and will (excluding migration) face a further 50% reduction over the next 60 years if current trends in fertility rates persist (Fig. 9). South Korea, with a fertility rate in 2020 of 0.84 will (excluding migration) experience a 75% reduction in the number of babies born within the next two generations, if current birth rates persist.
We urge governments, health authorities, including WHO, and universities to seriously address the prospects for human reproduction. If further analysis should show that the reproductive trends can be explained by socioeconomic and psychological factors alone, we might not need to worry so much, as economic and social factors often change. However, the trends seem to have developed slowly over more than a century during economic upturns and downturns. If the fertility problems are, at least partly, due to anthropogenic activities that are causing increased environmental exposure to harmful chemicals, in addition to effects on climate, decisive regulatory actions underpinned by unconventional, interdisciplinary research collaborations will be needed to reverse the trends (Box 1).
Bottom Lines
I’ve said it multiple times already—and just earlier this week when discussing sunscreen—the big problem appears to be not asking the right questions. The above-related quote from the Norwegian Family Minister is problematic, for she only wishes to enquire about one thing (welfare state measures).
What are we eating, breathing, drinking, ingesting, applying (e.g., via so-called ‘skin care’ products, or sunscreen), or otherwise taking in? The notable absence of synthetic hormones (‘the pill’) from consideration is mind-boggling: we’ve known about endocrine disruption for some time (remember Michael Crichton’s DinoPark, which forms the basis for Steven Spielberg’s ‘Jurassic Park’?), for instance, see this study about amphibians or check out the results of this simple (DuckDuckGo) search.
Why aren’t we even asking about ‘shedding’? Human Pheromones are ‘a thing’, and I’m sure there’s plenty of others. We do know about the modRNA ‘shedding’, why not enquire about synthetic hormones?
Just a brief glance at, e.g., what the Cleveland Clinic writes about ‘bioidentical hormones’, should give anyone pause:
Some prescription forms of bioidentical hormones are premade by drug companies. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved certain types of bioidentical hormones. Other forms of bioidentical hormones are custom-made by a pharmacist based on a healthcare provider’s prescription. These are compounded (or mixed) bioidentical hormones.
The compounded forms have not been tested and approved by the FDA. Though it is often advertised that products that are made from plants are ‘natural’ choices, they are altered in a lab so are no longer natural when done with processing.
Speaking of it, just have a look at the Apri Birth Control Pill, which is advertised widely for teenagers. It contains a long laundry list of possible adverse effects (and none of the previously-discussed content discusses cross-reactivity of taking multiple drugs at the same time, to say nothing about the possible interactions with the modRNA injections), and even links to ‘more details’.
Apri® (desogestrel and ethinyl estradiol tablets USP) blister cards provide an oral contraceptive regimen of 21 rose-colored, round tablets each containing 0.15 mg desogestrel (13-ethyl-11-methylene-18,19-dinor-17 alpha-pregn-4-en-20-yn-17-ol) and 0.03 mg ethinyl estradiol, USP (19-nor-17 alpha-pregna-1,3,5 (10)-trien-20-yne-3,17-diol). Inactive ingredients include colloidal silicon dioxide, FD&C Blue No. 2 Aluminum Lake, FD&C Red No. 40 Aluminum Lake, hydroxypropyl methylcellulose, lactose monohydrate, polyethylene glycol, polysorbate 80, povidone, pregelatinized corn starch, stearic acid, titanium dioxide, and vitamin E.
As regards ‘desogestrel’, one of the key active ingredients in this product (but also in many others), this is what Wikipedia, of all places, says about it:
While commonly used as a female contraceptive, desogestrel suppresses spermogenesis and has been shown to have potential as a male contraceptive.
So, can we talk about endocrine disruptions and shedding now?
Apologies for the above detour.
I do appreciate ‘the Science™’ trying to figure out whether nature or nurture is relevant for the continued survival of our societies (doh).
What the data and above-related statements from Scandinavia clearly show, I’d argue, are the limits of welfare statism (socialism) and a wilful blindness with respect to simple biology.
Have ‘fun’ discussing the above findings with any of the post-LGB ‘community’ members, for their denial of biology and reality is—striking.
Moreover, neither ‘politicos’ and ‘journos’ nor ‘the Science™’ can provide answers for questions that remain unasked, such as: if welfare statism and the most generous support for women to choose (career over family) lead to fewer children, then this policy is: stupid.
The question of ‘shedding’ of synthetic hormones is particularly pertinent, yet neither contraceptives nor the interaction of one or more such compound with other drugs appears to be discussed. Neither is the interaction with, and impact of, the modRNA injections.
Finally, a word or two about men: yes, we’ve had it quite bad in recent years, with most of legacy media and many ‘politicos’ seemingly disfavouring men. The war on boys and their behaviour esp. in Nordic countries—‘don’t do this’, ‘sit still’, ‘can’t you be more like the girls’—isn’t helping, for sure. But at some point in anyone’s life, the continued adherence to such impositions becomes a choice. Don’t be a sissy, is all I’m saying.
I do understand, I think, that many young women in their 20s don’t find many ‘men’ (sic) attractive, let alone father-worthy material. This, too, is ‘controversial’, esp. as it relates to the ‘issue’ of changing expectations (just look for ‘why women prefer tall men’ on Youtube) and mores.
Yet, let’s not forget that the family is the foundation of civilisation, esp. the nuclear family unit in Western Civ.
With Western (sic) governments, legacy media, and most pundits waging a relentless war on both the nuclear family and everything that reeks of ‘tradition’, the truth, as I see it, is revealed: the destruction of—what is arguably the global—civilisation and the re-moulding of humankind into something else.
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Ah, yes. Wealth and women. Now take a look at what happened to birth rates in the former Eastern Block in the 1990s (economic hardship) and now in South Korea (high gender inequality). Correlation is not causation, and I very much doubt that wealth per se causes people to have fewer children. No, it's that some things that increase wealth (or have at least done so in recent history), such as urbanization, a loosening of family ties and the concomitant increase in individualism (yes, you show up to work even if your cousin is in serious distress) also cause falling birth rates. If you then pull the rug from under people's feet, birth rates go down even further (see Eastern Europe). Now, in the context of rich countries, those that are more gender equal have higher birth rates than those with relatively high gender inequality (compare Scandinavia with Southern Europe). Why? Because if you force women to choose between a family and a career, a substantial minority will choose the latter (see South Korea and Japan), and those who choose the former do not have enough children to compensate for the latter.
Solid post otherwise. I'm sure endocrine disruptors play a role, both by causing ordinary infertility (hence IVF and such), and by inducing behavioral changes (most of our behavior is due to things that we aren't even aware of, and hormones play a big role).
Having four kids before age thirty, or having two kids before age forty does make an impact. Plus ca 30 000 abortions per year (Sweden). Plus ftalates, PFAS, hormones and chemicals close enough to hormones to affect the body, plus taxation and housing/real estate market capitalism leading to exhorbitant pricing, plus sperm-and-egg quality, plus more.
All of it fixable, none of it fixable in a liberal capitalist system. I write it like that because Peterson*, as is increasingly the case, is wrong about socialism and fertility and poverty: he is projecting what he wants to be true instead of looking at reality, and is picking examples serving his hypothesis.
Capitalism does not want limits on pollution: the corporations opposes stopping using chemicals that are dangerous to us, such as PFAS (and those are near-impossible to get out of the water cycle, and just won't go away or break down) or DDT back in its day. Or artificial sweeteners. Or birth control pills. Or. . .
The problem of chemicals affecting humans does not care about ideology, since biology and chemistry doesn't.
*If it was true, then affluent and well-organised and highly collectivist pre-christian societies (babylonians, semites, egyptians, indians, et c) would have had low birth rates. They didn't. His perspective is (as is common to all americans and americanised anglo-sphere people) too short and narrow, reasoning as if history starts with the American Revolution.
Ah, yes. Wealth and women. Now take a look at what happened to birth rates in the former Eastern Block in the 1990s (economic hardship) and now in South Korea (high gender inequality). Correlation is not causation, and I very much doubt that wealth per se causes people to have fewer children. No, it's that some things that increase wealth (or have at least done so in recent history), such as urbanization, a loosening of family ties and the concomitant increase in individualism (yes, you show up to work even if your cousin is in serious distress) also cause falling birth rates. If you then pull the rug from under people's feet, birth rates go down even further (see Eastern Europe). Now, in the context of rich countries, those that are more gender equal have higher birth rates than those with relatively high gender inequality (compare Scandinavia with Southern Europe). Why? Because if you force women to choose between a family and a career, a substantial minority will choose the latter (see South Korea and Japan), and those who choose the former do not have enough children to compensate for the latter.
Solid post otherwise. I'm sure endocrine disruptors play a role, both by causing ordinary infertility (hence IVF and such), and by inducing behavioral changes (most of our behavior is due to things that we aren't even aware of, and hormones play a big role).
Having four kids before age thirty, or having two kids before age forty does make an impact. Plus ca 30 000 abortions per year (Sweden). Plus ftalates, PFAS, hormones and chemicals close enough to hormones to affect the body, plus taxation and housing/real estate market capitalism leading to exhorbitant pricing, plus sperm-and-egg quality, plus more.
All of it fixable, none of it fixable in a liberal capitalist system. I write it like that because Peterson*, as is increasingly the case, is wrong about socialism and fertility and poverty: he is projecting what he wants to be true instead of looking at reality, and is picking examples serving his hypothesis.
Capitalism does not want limits on pollution: the corporations opposes stopping using chemicals that are dangerous to us, such as PFAS (and those are near-impossible to get out of the water cycle, and just won't go away or break down) or DDT back in its day. Or artificial sweeteners. Or birth control pills. Or. . .
The problem of chemicals affecting humans does not care about ideology, since biology and chemistry doesn't.
*If it was true, then affluent and well-organised and highly collectivist pre-christian societies (babylonians, semites, egyptians, indians, et c) would have had low birth rates. They didn't. His perspective is (as is common to all americans and americanised anglo-sphere people) too short and narrow, reasoning as if history starts with the American Revolution.