Professor Sykes discusses the effect of environmental pollutants on the y chromosome

Professor Sykes:
The "y chromosome" damage I think has probably been going on all the time really. But there's a lot of evidence now that many environmental pollutants are increasing male infertility. For example, contraceptive pills, high oestrogen pills, now they're often taken, get into the water supply and that's thought to be one possibility for the reducing fertility of men.

And there are other poisons that, some chemicals that are not oestrogens but they work as oestrogens, work as female hormones also building up in the environment. And there's a certain irony here that, although it's not time to go into it, that these environment pollutants were put there ultimately as - this is a bit philosophical perhaps for this time of day - they're ultimately put there as a way of usually industrial pollutants, as a way of basically getting more wealth.

Which basically comes down to it, usually, the way as by accumulating wealth, pollution being one of the unfortunate by-products of this. By accumulating wealth is what men try to do in order to as I said to answer the last question, try to do as a way of persuading women to accept that their eggs will be fertilised by their sperm. So there's a certain irony in it that actually it's male infertility, the creation of healthy sperm has been hit by the consequences of this very process.