Environmental scientist Shanna Swan in a new book ‘Count Down,’ has warned that human penises are shrinking due to pollution. 

The book details challenges human reproduction will face as a result of pollution. 

Dr Swan, a professor in environmental medicine and public health at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, based her work on a series of peer-reviewed research studies.

According to her, chemicals called phthalates (a chemical used when manufacturing plastics) are causing human babies to be born with malformed genitals.

In the book, she examined “how our modern world is threatening sperm counts, altering male and female reproductive development, and imperilling the future of the human race.”

The research followed a phthalate syndrome study observed in rats which revealed that when fetuses were exposed to the chemical, they were likely to be born with shrunken genitals. 

The study showed that male human babies exposed to the phthalates in the womb were born with shorter genitals.  

The chemical, which affects the hormone-producing endocrine system, is used industrially to make plastics more flexible. But Dr Swan said it was transmitted into toys and foods and subsequently harmed human development.

In the book, Dr Swan claimed that men might be mostly infertile by 2045, following one study published in 2017 that showed a more than 50 per cent drop in sperm levels among men in Western countries over the past four decades. 

The study was carried out by examining 185 studies involving close to 45,000 healthy men.