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Joe Rogan Experience #1638 - Dr. Shanna Swan

Shanna Swan is an environmental epidemiologist whose work examines the impact of chemical exposure on reproductive health and child development. Her book, "Count Down", is available now.

Joe RoganhostDr. Shanna SwanguestJamie Vernonhost
Jun 27, 20241h 37mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 0:19

    Podcast cold open and greeting

    1. JR

      (drum music plays) Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out.

    2. NA

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

    3. JR

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music plays) Hello.

    4. SS

      Hello.

    5. JR

      Welcome to the show. Thanks for doing this.

    6. SS

      Thanks for having me.

  2. 0:19 – 0:48

    Countdown’s core claim: modern life is undermining human reproduction

    1. JR

      Y- y- I'm very concerned with what you're saying. Um, your book, Countdown, says that the modern world is threatening sperm counts, altering male and female reproductive development, and imperiling the future of the human race.

    2. SS

      That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

    3. JR

      I believe you.

    4. SS

      (laughs)

    5. JR

      But I'm scared.

    6. SS

      I think we should all be kinda scared.

    7. JR

      Now, what is it specifically about the modern world that scares you?

  3. 0:48 – 2:28

    Endocrine disruptors and the “1% per year” decline in reproductive health

    1. SS

      Oh, gosh, a whole bunch. But (laughs) what I write about in this book is the problem with the decline of our reproductive health and the chemicals in the environment that we're surrounded with every day, all the time, that are playing a big part in it. Not the only part, but a big part in it.

    2. JR

      And so they're playing a part in affecting our hormonal production? Is that what's going on?

    3. SS

      Yes. That's actually what, a good part of what they do. They affect ... They interfere with our hormonal systems in various ways. So they could increase production of a hormone like, uh, pro-estrogen. They could decrease, say, an anti-androgen, decrease testosterone. They could mess with our thyroid hormone and so on and so forth. So they change levels, but they also change how they're transported, and they interfere with making them available to other parts of the body basically. Um, and you got it right. I mean, that doesn't sound so scary to people, but the consequences sound really scary, which is that we're, you know ... By every measure, our sperm count, our miscarriage rates, our fertility rates, our testosterone levels, they're all going south, if you will, at the rate of about 1% per year.

    4. JR

      And specifically which chemicals are responsible for this alteration?

    5. SS

      A whole bunch of them. Um, and as a group they're called endocrine disruptors 'cause they disrupt the endocrine system, right?

    6. JR

      Mm-hmm.

  4. 2:28 – 3:38

    Phthalates: the testosterone-lowering chemicals found “in everybody”

    1. SS

      And, um, so I spent a lot of time studying one particular class of those which have the ability to lower testosterone. And the reason I did that is because I'm interested in reproductive health, and testosterone is so critical, as you know, for men and women's reproductive health. So that class is called phthalates. It's a terrible mouthful (laughs) to say.

    2. JR

      Phthalates.

    3. SS

      Phthalates, right. Um, and they sound weird, but they're very, very common. And if you gave a urine sample today and send it off to the Centers for Disease Control, you would see that you have a lo- you know, no- not only phthalates, but other chemicals and plastics and other chemicals in your body right now. You could do that. It would ... It costs a little bit. Quite a bit. Quite a bit.

    4. JR

      And are we getting these from food? Are we getting these from water? Wh- wh- what are we getting these-

    5. SS

      All of the above.

    6. JR

      Oh.

    7. SS

      All of the above. But the phthalates, um, are probably mostly coming from our food, and that's kind of surprising. Um, do you want me to tell you how?

    8. JR

      Yes, please.

  5. 3:38 – 7:32

    How phthalates get into food: NICU tubing, processing equipment, and packaging

    1. SS

      Yeah. Okay. So, um, let's think of a little experiment. So go into a hospital into the neonatal intensive care nursery. I'll come back to the food.

    2. JR

      Okay.

    3. SS

      Um, and there's a baby lying there, and that baby has a lot of lines coming into her body. Okay? And that's, that's delivering food, nutrients, oxygen, whatever the baby needs. Okay? And th- the tubes are soft, squishy plastic. Okay. So as the food nutrients comes through the tubes, goes into the baby, the baby metabolizes them, goes into the urine 'cause they're water soluble, and then we get the urine. We measure, and we can see what's in it. And the nu- amount of phthalate that's in that urine is exactly proportional to the number of lines coming into the baby.

    4. JR

      Hm.

    5. SS

      So that th- if you understand that, you understand how food could be contaminated with phthalates 'cause milking machines have this. And, you know, all kinds of processing machines have this soft plastic. So this stuff is coming into the food somewhere between the time it's picked ... And by the way, phthalates could be in pesticides as well. I'll tell you why in a minute. Um, and then they're introduced not only through those tubes, but also through the packaging. They're wrapped in s- in soft plastic sometimes, and then in our homes we might c- cook in w- microwave in plastic, for example. All of that just ... It's not ... Doesn't stick to the plastic. It's not chemically bound. Hops into the food, gets into us, gets into a pregnant woman's womb, affects the offspring, and I hope to be able to tell you how that, how it does that. But it, it's ... That's what I've been studying for about 20 years.

    6. JR

      So these plastic covers that, you know, like if you buy food and it's wrapped, you know, like if you buy, like, peppers or something like that and they're wrapped in plastic, that plastic is leaching onto your food a certain amount of these phthalates no matter what.

    7. SS

      It, uh, different plastics are different, and I can't speak to all plastics. And some people take a lot of care to wrap their food in safe plastics. A lot-

    8. JR

      What, what are safe plastics?

    9. SS

      Yeah. So, um, it's a changing landscape.... as new things are introduced, but there's an old saying, which I s- think is pretty much still true, which is "Four, five, one and two, all the rest are bad for you." What does that mean? It means that if you had a plastic cup here, we could look at the bottom of it and you'd see a recycling code.

    10. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    11. SS

      You've seen those, right?

    12. JR

      Yes.

    13. SS

      In the triangle-

    14. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    15. SS

      ... there's a number, and that number is-

    16. JR

      Oh.

    17. SS

      ... one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. So if you wanna know is it-

    18. NA

      It's not on there.

    19. SS

      ... is it, um-

    20. JR

      Jamie doesn't have one on his?

    21. NA

      Ma- uh, maybe it's in the plastic somewhere else, sorry.

    22. SS

      You have to look at the bottom.

    23. NA

      Oh, there it is, yeah.

    24. SS

      Yep.

    25. JR

      What's it say?

    26. NA

      Plastic bottle. It just has the symbol, it doesn't have a number on it.

    27. SS

      Ah. Well some do and some don't.

    28. NA

      Yeah.

    29. SS

      But, um-

    30. JR

      Four, five, one and two, all the rest-

  6. 7:32 – 12:49

    Early evidence from animal studies: disrupted masculinization and anogenital distance (AGD)

    1. JR

      When did all this come to light? When did people start understanding the, the negative consequences of plastics in your food?

    2. SS

      Um, well, they came to understand it first in animals, um, 'cause that's the way science works. You know, first you do animal studies and then you try to replicate them in humans, right? And so, um, in around 2000, they did some experiments where they fed a rat food contaminated with phthalates, and then they looked to see how the offspring developed, right? And what they saw was that the males were born different than the females and different from unexposed males. Do you want-

    3. JR

      Hmm.

    4. SS

      ... me to tell you how-

    5. JR

      Yes, please.

    6. SS

      ... how different? Yeah?

    7. JR

      Yes, please.

    8. SS

      So this will really interest you, I think. What, um, what happened is... So let's go back.

    9. JR

      Okay.

    10. SS

      So before the phthalates, before (laughs) the, you know, early in pregnancy, the genitals are just a single ridge, same in males and females, undifferentiated. Okay? And then, at a certain time, in an- mice and rats it's 15 to 18 days of gestation, the testicles start making testosterone. And then that gives the signal to produce the male typical genitals. So, if they don't have the testosterone, there will be ovaries, and if there is testosterone, there'll be testicles, and so on and so forth, right? And that migration requires testosterone at exactly the right time and the right amount. It's very delicately programmed, okay? So, if that happens, if everything goes well, then the penis will develop, it'll have a certain size, and then there's something w- which is very key to, to my research, which is something you might know by the name of the taint.

    11. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    12. SS

      That taint, or we call it anogenital distance-

    13. JR

      Yeah, it's not a real, it's not really a technical term, is it?

    14. SS

      But anogenital distance is.

    15. JR

      Yes, but taint, that's hilarious listening to a PhD say taint. (laughs)

    16. SS

      Right. Well, I'm saying that 'cause I'm talking to a lot of people who might not know. (coughs) Right?

    17. JR

      (laughs) The area known as the t- okay.

    18. SS

      Yes. Um, known on the street as the taint, right?

    19. JR

      Yes, the streets. (laughs)

    20. SS

      And, um, or the gooch or the grundle, or the-

    21. JR

      The gooch? I've never-

    22. NA

      It is also, also known as the gooch.

    23. JR

      You know about the gooch?

    24. NA

      Yeah. I just, I just saw some- someone the other day didn't know what a taint was, and they were like, "Oh, you mean the gooch."

    25. SS

      Yeah.

    26. JR

      I never, I've never heard of the gooch.

    27. NA

      Nah.

    28. SS

      Yeah.

    29. JR

      I thought the gooch was like a baseball player.

    30. NA

      Ah, well, it could be that also, but...

  7. 12:49 – 20:44

    Human studies: measuring AGD in boys and linking it to adult sperm count

    1. SS

      So when I heard this story, I was flying on a plane to Japan to go to a conference. I was with a friend who was a chemist for the Centers for Disease Control, and he said, "Shauna, you should study phthalates." And I'm going, "Why?" I'd never heard of them. "What, what, why phthalates?" And he said, "Well, we have been measuring them at the CDC, and they're in everybody, they're in pregnant women, and this group of scientists in the National Toxicology Program has shown that they alter the development of the male newborn." And they called that the Phthalate Syndrome. That's what it's called. That collection of changes that come about after the mother has phthalates is called the Phthalate Syndrome. So I thought, "Well, does that happen in humans?" Same question you asked, right? So how do you, how would you, how would you answer that question? Then I'll tell you what I did.

    2. JR

      How would I... well, phew, you would hope that you're not running experiments like you're running them on animals.

    3. SS

      Right.

    4. JR

      Um, are you measuring the blood of the people that are having children that have issues, like th- with, with, uh, development, developmental issues in the way the children look when they're born? Is that what you're doing?

    5. SS

      It's really close. So, phthalates have the f- property that they s- dissolve in water, water-soluble, and so they go into the urine. So for this class of chemicals, if you want to know how much is in your body and my body, we gotta measure the urine. Other chemicals, um, like flame retardants, we would look in the blood. So it depends what, what the chemical is. But, but you're... right idea, look inside the body. Okay. Then, rather than looking at kids with problems, what I did was I just took a whole population of pregnant women and I got their urine, measured their phthalates, got their kids, measured their kids. So then I had the problem of what to measure in the kids because nobody had made this translation from an animal genital (laughs) you know, e- developmental system to a human. And so that was kind of a challenge, you know, figuring out how to do that, but we did that, and we developed this system for... this exam for measuring all these things that you measure in a rat, we measured it in our children. And then we showed, and this was big news when it came out, that the mothers' phthalates did alter the genitals of the boys.

    6. JR

      Hmm.

    7. SS

      So that was the first evidence. That was 2005. And then we published some more in 2008, and then we... fortunately, I got money to do it all again. NIH doesn't like to pay for replication. It's very expensive. These things are five million dollars a study, by the way.

    8. JR

      Well, it seems like it's very important though.

    9. SS

      Yeah. So they gave it to me. They l- gave m- money to do it again. So the second time, I did it better because I really knew what I was looking for, and I got urine actually in three points in pregnancy, and I measured the kids exactly when they're born, so everything was much more precise, and I found it again.

    10. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    11. SS

      So now there's no question, I don't think anyone questions that at least this class of chemicals, which we know lower testosterone, alter the development of these boys. And then I asked, "Well, what does that have to do with sperm count?" Because actually for a long time... we haven't talked yet about sperm count, but I've been studying tracing, you know, what's happening with sperm count, um... s- I'll tell you the history of that in a minute. But, so then I thought, "Well, is this related to sperm count?" Well, these are babies. They don't have a sperm count. But in rats, it looked like the AGD was permanent. So if you were... had a short... just like if you have a small hand, you know, your stature's certain, it's set at, at birth, right? So the AGD, if you're born small, and my friend, Earl Gray, who is a toxicologist, said AGD is forever. We don't know that for sure about humans, by the way, but, um... because we haven't had the 20 years yet. But, um, if you believe that, then the sensible thing to do was to take a group of adult men who could give you a sperm count and measure their AGD, right? And then you could see whether those with a shorter AGD had a lower sperm count, and then you would have one pretty solid piece of evidence that chemicals in the environment lower sperm count. Are you with me?

    12. JR

      Yes, ma'am.

    13. SS

      Okay. So I did that study too. So I got students in Rochester, New York, to volunteer for 75 bucks to participate, and they gave us a semen sample, and they gave us opportunity to measure them, also a questionnaire.

    14. JR

      How does one measure kids' taints? Do they just bend over and you bust out a ruler?

    15. SS

      I happened to bring it, br- bring you something to show you.

    16. JR

      That's... I noticed, yeah, this measuring device. (laughs)

    17. SS

      (laughs) I thought-

    18. JR

      Jamie's volunteered to let you measure his taint, by the way.

    19. SS

      (laughs)

    20. NA

      That's why I have a sweatpants on.

    21. SS

      So, um, this is not for a baby. This is for, this is for our Rochester Young Men Study. Um, and it's, looks kind of fierce, um, but we had the points taken down in the-

    22. JR

      Yeah, I used one of those to measure, uh, pool cue tips.

    23. SS

      There you go. All right, so you know all about it.

    24. JR

      Yeah.

    25. SS

      Let's turn it on.

    26. JR

      You want 13 millimeters, that's what I like, but only for-

    27. SS

      (laughs)

    28. JR

      ... only for pool cue tips.

    29. SS

      So, look, um, I also brought you a little diagram, so you can see where we measure.

    30. JR

      Okay.

  8. 20:44 – 36:41

    When did it start—and how bad is it? Plastics’ rise and the sperm-count collapse trend

    1. JR

      When did this stuff start getting into our food supply? Does that, has that been estimated?

    2. SS

      So, the growth of these chemicals, um, tracks with the growth of the petrochemical industry, because they're made from petrochemical byproducts. Okay? So, if you look at a curve of the grow... it starts around the 50, 1950. Okay? So, back in 1950, you have people loving science, jumping on the science bandwagon. There's this better living through chemistry that everyone's talking about, and it's everybody is just wanting everything made of plastic. You know, it's the new, it's the new craze. It's the new, you know, and, and it just took off. It went faster than a straight line, you know, exponentially up. And so somewhere in there, it started having an effect, but where, we're not sure, but I did look at the decline in sperm count over time, so we could look at that as an indication that... This is not the only thing that's affecting sperm count, by the way, this, these phthalates, but that's one where I feel I can say this with confidence, because I measured those babies and I, you know, I did it.

    3. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    4. SS

      I did the science and I did it again and I (laughs) you know, and other people have done it. And, and so it's, it's, I believe it's solid. And, um, that's just one example of the many chemicals that can affect our hormone system.

    5. JR

      Well, it's very frightening, because that, I don't, I mean, that's not a reversible thing.

    6. SS

      That's correct.

    7. JR

      Right?

    8. SS

      That is absolutely correct.

    9. JR

      So the development, the stunted development of these children is permanent.

    10. SS

      That's correct.

    11. JR

      And it's probably incredibly widespread, when you think about the use of these plastics and the amount-

    12. SS

      That's right.

    13. JR

      ... (sighs) I mean, the amount of plastics that get used. People have plastic cups and plastic plates and plastic this and plastic that and Tupperware and... Is that for me?

    14. SS

      Yep.

    15. JR

      Mm-hmm. Calipers-

    16. SS

      Yeah.

    17. JR

      ... so I can measure pool cues and taints.

    18. SS

      (laughs)

    19. JR

      (laughs) Um, so this is, uh, is this well-known? I mean, this, it's, I've, I haven't heard this before, and I'm wondering, um, is this because I'm ignorant of this? Or is this because this is, uh, I mean, you were saying this was all discovered in the early 2000s, and your last study was 2005. Is that what you said?

    20. SS

      No. The last, I mean, the first study was 2005.

    21. JR

      2005.

    22. SS

      That was the first one. The, um, animal studies were earlier, but, uh, that was the first human one, and they've been going on ever since. The problem is that we don't talk about the consequences of this. We as a society. We don't talk about sperm counts are going down, testosterone is going down. You know, we're having more and more children by assisted reproduction. I don't know about you, but I mean, do you know anybody who has had trouble having a child?

    23. JR

      Yes.

    24. SS

      E- every, everybody says yes.

    25. JR

      But i- it's quite a few people, but it's gen- in general, w- I, I notice it's usually older people that have had a long caree- that have had a career and then when they get into their late 30s or their 40s, then they decide to have children, it's very difficult.

    26. SS

      Yes. Aging is a definitely a problem. But it's not the only problem, and there are many young... If you talk to your nice nurse that I, I forgot her name.

    27. JR

      Mercy.

    28. SS

      Mercy. She told me about two of her young friends who've had trouble having... It's not just the-

    29. JR

      Mm.

    30. SS

      It's the, it's the older ones, you know, that are more prevalent, so you hear more of them, but young people too are having problems. And it's-... it's everywhere and it's increasing. So, um, I think now we're gonna start paying attention because we're feeling the impact, you know?

  9. 36:41 – 38:54

    Three generations exposed—and the possibility of recovery if environments are cleaned up

    1. SS

      And here, so another thing to think about. So a mother is exposed to some phthalates, other chemicals, the phenols, that line tin cans and the flame retardants and the pesticides. They all, they're all bad. They all (laughs) can do this one, diff- in different ways. But let's just talk about this, uh, phthalates. So the mother's exposed to the phthalates, and she's carrying, let's just say, a, a son in the womb. And then he has within him what's called the germ cells of his sperm. Right? So that, that im- that he's, she's exposed, the child is exposed, and the next generation is exposed. So from one person being exposed, you're exposing three generations.

    2. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    3. SS

      So you're right to say think about the later, you know, the kids coming and the kids coming after that. C- But here's the good news. Should be some good news, right?

    4. JR

      Yeah.

    5. SS

      The good news is that in a very elegant study (clears throat) in the University of Washington, Pat Hunt showed that if you have a guy mouse (laughs) who was exposed and had impaired fertility and sperm count, and then you cleaned up everything about his environment, and that ... and for his child's environment, and his child's child's environment, in three generations, we can recover reproductive health.

    6. JR

      But what happens in three generations if we don't clean everything up? Then the trend continues downward.

    7. SS

      Right.

    8. JR

      And how do we clean things up? That's the real question. If you, if this, all this stuff comes from petrochemicals and, and plastics, that's a significant part of our world.

    9. SS

      That's right.

    10. JR

      And also a part of the world that has a very strong lobby-

    11. SS

      Right.

    12. JR

      ... that does not want a decrease in sales.

    13. SS

      Absolutely right.

    14. JR

      And there prob- uh, has, has, has anybody fought this?

    15. SS

      (laughs)

    16. JR

      Has anybody debated you on this? Or does anyone deny the, the data?

    17. SS

      No.

    18. JR

      Not yet. Wait till after this podcast.

  10. 38:54 – 46:00

    Regulation and accountability: Europe’s REACH vs. U.S. “test after harm” model

    1. SS

      Well ... (laughs) Right? I mean, I'm sure there'll be a lot of pushback from your listeners, but, but, um, there's ... Okay, first of all, we can do better. One place ... L- Let me just say, we used to do terribly with drugs.

    2. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    3. SS

      The regulation of drugs was terrible. That's why we had thalidomide babies, you know-

    4. JR

      Yes.

    5. SS

      ... and, and, and other terrible breakthroughs. And, and then the FDA got it together and learned how to regulate drugs. And we're, we're pretty safe now, and we know, for example, how to test vaccines and so on and so forth. So we can work toward a viable regulatory system if we want to. So I, I believe that. In Europe, they're many steps ahead of us, because they have instituted something called REACH. Now, under REACH, if a guy, manufacturer, wants to put a chemical into commerce, into a plastic bottle, into a personal care product, where they are also, by the way, um, he has to show that it's not harmful before he does that. There, so there has to pass a series of tests. In this country, we don't have that regulation. In this country, it's put it in and we'll see if it's harmful. No prior regulation required.

    6. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    7. SS

      You see?

    8. JR

      Yeah.

    9. SS

      So it's really, really different. The bottom line is like we have only like 11 chemicals that are not allowed in our personal care products. In Europe, they have 1100.

    10. JR

      They also don't allow, they don't allow commercials for drugs.

    11. SS

      Yeah.

    12. JR

      Um, there's, we have a lot of screwed up stuff over here.

    13. SS

      Right. So, so, you know, what we have to think about is how do we get angry enough and concerned enough to change the regulations-

    14. JR

      Yeah.

    15. SS

      ... so that we're protected?

    16. JR

      Now, what, what can be done? Is there ... have ... Has that been looked at? And one, well, two questions. First, what is happening to women?

    17. SS

      Mm-hmm.

    18. JR

      And what is happening to female babies? We're talking about lowered sperm count. What's the effect on, on female children?

    19. SS

      So this delicate testosterone balance that I talked about can go the other way for females, but that's not through something like phthalates. It's through other chemicals possibly. Um, we just published a paper that ... And this is early. I'm not gonna ... You know, this ... Not the same weight of evidence at all as I have for the phthalates, but we just published two papers in which we showed that when mothers were exposed to higher levels of a certain pesticide, which is, um, in Roundup, which is ... Have you heard of Roundup?

    20. JR

      Glyphosate.

    21. SS

      Glyphosate.

    22. JR

      Yeah.

    23. SS

      So that, that, uh, that anogenital distance in the girls was long, was more masculine.

    24. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    25. SS

      And that was shown in rats as well. So I ... That may go away. This was the first study. It was a small study. I don't know that that's gonna stick, but that's the kind of thing that could be going on, that there are chemicals out there that alter, increase testosterone. They're called pro-androgens. And, and they can mess up females in sort of in the opposite direction.

    26. JR

      But it doesn't have that same effect on males, correct? Like gly- uh, glyphosate?

    27. SS

      No, glyphosate doesn't. N- No. I don't think so.... not, not in our, you know, or in our kids. So, um, the animal data is a little not clear but, but in our kids we didn't see anything in the males. But, um, the point is that there's lots of stuff out there.

    28. JR

      That's messing with the-

    29. SS

      It's messing with our hormone systems.

    30. JR

      Yeah.

  11. 46:00 – 55:56

    Whack-a-mole chemistry and practical exposure reduction at home

    1. JR

      Yeah. What can the general public do to eliminate as much of these harmful chemicals as possible?

    2. SS

      Huh, it's a big job. Um, for one thing, I'd say buy Countdown and look at the several chapters where we go into detail on things to avoid. Um, but, um, uh, I could say, you could think about (laughs) ... Thank you (laughs) ... thi- uh, think about, um, um, walking through your kitchen and looking for plastics and trying to swap out ceramic and glass or metal, not from the microwave, of course, but, um, and, um, in your bathroom to look at your personal care products. They won't say phthalates by and large, um-

    3. JR

      Because you're not consuming them?

    4. SS

      I don't know why they're not required. No, I don't... It doesn't say phthalates on our spaghetti sauce that has phthalates in them either. Um, we can come back to that. Um, but, uh, I don't actually know what the regulation is. I know for sure they don't have to be labeled in fragrance products, because those are, um, trade secrets.

    5. JR

      S- if you bu- buy a jar of spaghetti sauce that's in a glass jar, you're still getting phthalates?

    6. SS

      Probably, yes. You'd have to-

    7. JR

      From the tomatoes, the packaging of the tomatoes?

    8. SS

      Probably from the processing.

    9. JR

      Oh.

    10. SS

      So when you go from a tomato to a sauce, you have to process it. And so that processing introduces phthalates. If you go, think about a cow, this is different, but it's the same principle. So the cow is being milked. Maybe this cow is on a wonderful farm with, you know, the picture of the farmer and the grass and it's an organic farm and, and, and everybody's happy. And then he milks the cow, or she milks the cow, through a milking machine that has tubes.

    11. JR

      Mm.

    12. SS

      What are those tubes made of?

    13. JR

      Plastic.

    14. SS

      Plastic.

    15. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    16. SS

      And so, they go into the milk.

    17. JR

      Phthalates.

    18. SS

      So, um, I actually am hoping to do a systematic study, which I'm calling f- farm to fork, where we take a bunch of products, see what's in them at the farm, see what's in them at the table, and see where it's introduced along the way.

    19. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    20. SS

      Because nobody's done that. We don't really know where they come in, so we don't really know how to keep them out.

    21. JR

      Yeah. And that would be if you're trying to eat organic. That would, even in that sense, if you're having milk and it's coming through tubes, if you're having anything that's wrapped in plastic, even if it's, uh, grass fed, organic, there's still, you're, you're wrapping it in a plastic.

    22. SS

      Yeah. But I would say the number one thing is do not microwave in plastic. And I-

    23. JR

      Does, does that accelerate it or is that just like a, a way that it gets into the food much quicker?

    24. SS

      Yes.

    25. JR

      Or much higher doses?

    26. SS

      Yes, because it's so warm.

    27. JR

      Mm.

    28. SS

      Yeah, and it's, you know, it, it's, um... And, and those little packets that it's sealed in-

    29. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    30. SS

      ... are not good.

  12. 55:56 – 1:00:16

    Women, miscarriage, and other chemical pathways beyond phthalates

    1. SS

      You know, we... This is not everybody's favorite topic, as I mentioned. And, and it's... By the way, it's painful for women especially, let me just... We haven't talked about that, but-

    2. JR

      Yeah.

    3. SS

      ... um, you know that f- for centuries, women have been blamed for the fact that a couple can't get pregnant. The guy assumes he's good to go until he needs the, you know, to prove himself, and then if he can't, it's gotta be on her. Most men don't have a clue about their sperm count. I don't know about you, but, um, I can tell you, I think that every man should know his sperm count.

    4. JR

      Hmm.

    5. SS

      Um, not only because he might wanna have a child, but because m- we... Might tell him something about his overall health, by the way. But, so here's this woman that's being blamed. She's also being... And by the way, infertility, we now know, is about 50-50 in terms of blame. I don't think blame is the right word.

    6. JR

      Yeah, it's a weird word, right?

    7. SS

      Weird word, right? But, you know, you can find a female cause about a third of the time, a male cause about a third of the time, and a third of the time, it could be both or you don't know. So that's kind of 50-50. And, and then you go f- if they managed to conceive, then a high percent of pregnancies are... Mis-carraged. You... The miscarriage rate is probably over 50%.

    8. JR

      And that is also attributable to phthalates, you think?

    9. SS

      No, I don't. I think it's, um, it's going up. It's going up. It's the same rate as sperm count is going down, by the way.

    10. JR

      What do you think is causing that then?

    11. SS

      I think it's a lot of chemicals that are causing that.

    12. JR

      Different chemicals?

    13. SS

      Different chemicals. And, um, I studied some of them. I studied chemicals in water at one point, I studied, um, solvents in water and showed they were related to miscarriages. Chemic- manmade chemicals are not great for our reproductive health.

    14. JR

      What chemicals are associated with miscarriages?

    15. SS

      Um, the... Well, the... I can't say that off the top of my head, all of them, but the ones that I've studied when I studied that, those were the, um, chlorination byproducts, so when you chlorinate water, the high levels of certain chlorination byproducts, and also solvents that are used to clean chips and other, you know, certain high-

    16. JR

      So chlorination, meaning tap water?

    17. SS

      Mm-hmm.

    18. JR

      Or also meaning swimming in pools that are chlorinated and getting it through your skin?

    19. SS

      Tap... My study was on homes, tap water in homes.

    20. JR

      But-

    21. SS

      But probably there's some risk from, from pool chlorination, too.

    22. JR

      Has anybody studied the fr- m- miscarriage rate of l- like active swimmers?

    23. SS

      Not that I know of.

    24. JR

      It seems like that would be a big one, right?

    25. SS

      Yeah. Yeah.

    26. JR

      Because you're, you're... Most certainly, if you're training in a swimming pool or swimming in a, on a daily basis, you're, you're getting-

    27. SS

      Getting a lot.

    28. JR

      ... dosed-

    29. SS

      Right.

    30. JR

      ... with chlorine every day.

  13. 1:00:16 – 1:06:41

    Rural vs. urban sperm quality: pesticides and agricultural exposure pathways

    1. JR

      There's a decrease in lifespan that's associated with large population centers, whether it's, uh, you know, you know, Los Angeles or New York or living... But living in urban areas, there's a decrease in lifespan. Uh, they think it's, uh, somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 years and they don't know if it's because of brake dust or pollutants or particulates in the atmosphere. They don't know what it is. Um, but-... has there been a study on, well, I'm sure there probably hasn't, on sperm counts in rural areas as opposed to sperm counts in, in high population areas?

    2. SS

      I actually did that study.

    3. JR

      Oh, okay.

    4. SS

      Okay.

    5. JR

      Well, I shouldn't have been sure. (laughs)

    6. SS

      But, but (laughs) but the answer is not what you'd expect.

    7. JR

      Oh, really?

    8. SS

      Yeah. So in this study, um, we got four groups of people, and that turned out to be men and women, and I can tell you why. Um, and they were, um, one of the centers was Columbia, Missouri, where I was living, and that's rural. It's agricultural. They grow a lot of corn and soy there. And one of them was Minneapolis, urban.

    9. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    10. SS

      And then there were some, I'm just gonna talk about those two. And in those two centers, we saw that men in Missouri had half as many moving sperm as men in Minneapolis.

    11. JR

      Did they associate that with farm chemicals?

    12. SS

      Yes. That's the next study I did. (laughs)

    13. JR

      Oh.

    14. SS

      So then, I took men with good semen quality and bad semen quality and measured how much of the pesticides were in their bodies, and there were significantly more pesticides in the sample of men who had poor semen quality as compared to good semen quality.

    15. JR

      Now, is this because of, is it airborne? Is it like, where you're talking about enormous cornfields and glyphosate and all these other different chemicals are, they, they work their way into the air itself 'cause they spray?

    16. SS

      Or water.

    17. JR

      Water.

    18. SS

      Runoff from the fields-

    19. JR

      Right.

    20. SS

      ... into the water, into the groundwater.

    21. JR

      And then it pollutes the water supply.

    22. SS

      Right. Or air. I, I couldn't, I didn't study w- how they were getting this. But they weren't workers, they weren't agricultural workers, and they weren't living on farms.

    23. JR

      Right.

    24. SS

      They weren't farmers or-

    25. JR

      Just regular folks.

    26. SS

      They're just regular folks living in that area.

    27. JR

      Wow.

    28. SS

      Including me. Um, so that was pretty dramatic. Um-

    29. JR

      That is very dramatic.

    30. SS

      Yeah.

  14. 1:06:41 – 1:29:13

    The “Jizz Quiz,” fertility misconceptions, and closing calls for awareness and action

    1. SS

      So, would you like to take a quiz?

    2. JR

      Sure.

    3. SS

      Okay.

    4. JR

      I love quizzes.

    5. SS

      Oh, good. So we have something called the Jizz Quiz.

    6. JR

      (laughs) Okay.

    7. SS

      But you, you have to go... You have your phone?

    8. JR

      Uh, yes.

    9. SS

      Okay. So, and your f- listeners can take it too.

    10. JR

      Okay.

    11. SS

      Yeah.

    12. JR

      What do I have to do?

    13. SS

      So you go onto Dr. Shauna Swan.

    14. JR

      All right. This is your website?

    15. SS

      This is my Instagram log in.

    16. JR

      Oh, okay. I'll go to your In- Instagram.

    17. SS

      Yeah.

    18. JR

      Dr. Shauna Swan.

    19. SS

      Yeah.

    20. JR

      Hold on, please.

    21. SS

      And you should see... Under the highlights on the left, you should see the Jizz Quiz.

    22. JR

      Oh, wow.

    23. SS

      Oh, it tells me I have no internet connection. Hmm.

    24. JR

      There's no internet in here?

    25. SS

      Well, you might have it. I might not be logged in. So, maybe you can do it.

    26. JR

      All right, gotcha.

    27. SS

      Do you see a page that looks like this?

    28. JR

      Uh, yeah, I have the night mode on.

    29. SS

      Yeah. Yeah.

    30. JR

      But I gotcha.

Episode duration: 1:37:52

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