Is RFK right about US sperm counts?

More or Less

BBC

Business, Mathematics, Science, News Commentary, News

4.6 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 6 December 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

Around the world, many countries are concerned about tackling the decline in birth rates and total fertility rates. The US is no exception. To tackle this issue the US government announced that it would provide subsidies for Americans seeking IVF treatment. The announcement was accompanied by one suspect sounding stat from US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "Today the average teenager in this country has 50% of the sperm count, 50% of the testosterone as a 65-year-old man," he said. We speak to Professor Allan Pacey, Professor of Andrology at the University of Manchester, and Adith Arun, a researcher at Yale University to find out whether this statement is accurate. Producer/Presenter: Lizzy McNeill Series Producer: Tom Colls Editor: Richard Vadon Sound Mix: James Beard

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:05.7	Hello and thank you for downloading the more or less podcast, with a program that
0:10.0	looks at the numbers that turn up in the news, life, and the Oval Office.
0:14.3	And I'm Lizzie McNeil.
0:16.5	Around the world, many countries are concerned about tackling the steady decline in birth
0:21.5	rates and total fertility rates.
0:24.2	The US is no exception.
0:26.5	To tackle this issue, the US government announced that it would provide subsidies for
0:30.5	American seeking out IVF treatment.
0:33.3	The announcement was accompanied by one very suspect-sounding stat from U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy,
0:40.0	Jr.
0:40.9	Today, the average teenager in this country has 50% of the sperm count.
0:47.5	50% of the testosterone is a 65-year-old man.
0:51.5	Hmm.
0:52.7	Can this statement possibly be right?
0:56.6	A man will produce about a thousand sperm with every heartbeat.
1:00.8	My name is Professor Alan Pacey.
1:03.1	I'm Professor of Andrology at the University of Manchester.
1:07.5	As a man gets older, we generally see that the quality of his semen deteriorates.
1:12.6	Generally speaking, the number of sperm that are produced per unit time remains the same as it was when he was a younger man.
1:22.3	So it's more of a quality deterioration with age, not a quantity deterioration.
1:27.6	So theoretically, if there were a global shift and men born in recent years started
	...

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