Across the globe, male sperm count is on the decline—a decades-long drop that has been alternately blamed on pesticides , heavy metals, obesity, and potentially microplastics . More worrying, the decline seems to be speeding up—by the calculations of one male fertility founder, sperm counts have fallen by 50% to 60% over the last four decades. “’Spermpocalypse’ is one way of putting it, ‘spermageddon’ is another—‘sperm count zero’ is my preferred term choice,” Khaled Kteily, CEO of male fertility startup Legacy, said at Fortune ’s Brainstorm Health conference in Dana Point, Calif.
, on Monday. Call it what you want—it’s concerning. “If you follow the trend, not only is it accelerating, but it is very clearly moving toward sperm count zero,” Kteily said.
And it’s possible that in a matter of decades, we could live in a world where people are unable to conceive naturally, he added. Still, the $30 billion global fertility industry overwhelmingly caters to women, according to Grand View Research—just a small sliver is targeted toward men. That’s also reflected in the social understanding of infertility, which is commonly believed to be a women’s issue.
“We actually call the male partner the ‘silent partner,’” said Dr. Brian Levine, founding partner and practice director at CCRM Fertility of New York. In a common scenario, he said, a woman having trouble conceiving would undergo a battery of tests, get a clear bill of health on all of.