Plastics and male infertility

There has been a lot of chatter about effects of BPA in the news, an additive in plastics bottles and their effects on reproduction. The NIH decided to look into plastics additives effects on female and male fertility, and they found something interesting. Men who were exposed to pthalates, additives used to softer plastics such as vinyl took longer for their partners to conceive than those who did not; 20% longer. Surprisingly, BPA exposure in either partner and phthalate exposure in women did not affect fertility.  While this does not prove that these chemicals cause infertility in men, it is another piece in the unsolved puzzle about how that environment may be affecting our reproductive health.