This article reminded me of the recent article
S
skjl47
posted regarding the organ donor with rabies. This one's horrific really, makes you wonder if the initial screening of the guys sperm could have been a little more thorough.
Some children have already died and only a minority who inherit the mutation will escape cancer in their lifetimes.
www.bbc.co.uk
Hello; This is truly more devastating than the organ donor with rabies. Fortunately, or unfortunately for me my windmill to tilt at was human overpopulation. My take back in the late 1960's & early 1970's was the population was going to increase exponentially. Such did happen after all it turns out my cause has been soundly lost. I remain childless. I cite this more to be clearly understood about things such as artificial insemination.
There was an experiment some decades ago using rodents. It has been repeated a number of times. Essentially a small population is confined in a large but static space. There is way more food supplies and such made available to the small population, so there is an excess. Plenty of nesting area and materials but again a static amount. I want to say it is the Calhoon experiment but have no confidence in that title.
The outcome, as expected, is the population explodes consuming the available resources. There comes a time when the static amount of food supplied is not adequate to the larger population. Nesting and territory become in high demand as the increased population overruns the static space available. Some behaviors change with such a population expansion with finite space & resources. One i seem to recall is males dropping out of the mating game with suspected reasons guess at. More same sex stuff if you will. More miscarriages if I recall or still births. competition for food & other resources. Infertility increases and such.
I do not recall if the following is a conclusion made by the researchers or my own SWAG (Scientific Wild A** Guess). Anyway, I chalked it up to population pressures being reflected in the general population. Lots of analogies to human overpopulation could possibly be drawn even if not supported substantially. Homosexuality increases in the male rodents because there are way too many of them, so lots cannot compete successfully. Maybe because of malnourishment. Maybe because nesting site are already occupied by the more dominant of the population.
Infertility may have increased because of various stresses including possibly not only lack of food for some but also a lower quality or more toxic food supply. Made toxic by the extra accumulation waste by products and such. Point being, if I recall correctly, such did happen. I read but have not confirmed that human males have lower sperm cell counts in general.
Anyway, from the point of view there are and have been too many humans on the limited planet, that these fertility endeavors do not make sense to me. But being a witness to my fellow humans I have noted an important thing. The majority of folks want their children and grandchildren to be biologically related. Even in a time of stress.
We are in a time when the average Joe & Jane need both parents to have a job to get by. That a child's birth costing a few hundred a not so long while back now can run into the several tens of thousands. Heard that from a mom on Washington Journal last week. She said her first child's birth expenses was in the hundreds. Her most recent child's birth expenses in the $30,000's.
I go on too long. Enough from me
