中国人对污染的最新担忧:有害于人类繁衍

The fifty shades of gray hovering above China's cities could be sapping the country's men of their virility.

盘旋在中国城市上空的“五十度灰”有可能伤及该国男性的“男子气概”。

That's the message from one Chinese newspaper website citing findings from a sperm bank in Shanghai that monitored samples over a decade and found two-thirds were 'affected' to various degrees by environmental factors.

这是一家中文报纸的网站传达出来的信息。该网站引用上海精子库的说法称，经过10年来监测精液数据发现，三分之二的男性精液受到不同程度影响。

Potentially a source of couples' bedroom disputes, the report is one of two this week feeding a frenzy of speculation on the Chinese Internet about how the country's notorious pollution impacts reproductive health. Sperm can grow to be 'ugly' and 'not able to swim,' the head of the sperm bank, Li Zheng, told the Shanghai Morning Post (in Chinese), a newspaper owned by the military-run Liberation Daily.

这一发现有可能引发中国夫妻的卧室争端。本周有两篇报道在中文互联网上让人们纷纷猜测中国恶名远扬的污染问题在何种程度上影响了生殖能力。上海精子库的负责人李铮对《新闻晨报》说，精子是会游动的，环境差了，精子就长“难看”了，甚至游不动了。《新闻晨报》属军方运营的解放日报报业集团所有。

The discussion first erupted on Tuesday after a little known publication called the China Business Review ran a headline bound to get attention in a country more obsessed than most with children: 'Smog Can Impact Humans' Reproductive Ability and Immune System.' Below, the newspaper showed a rendering of how dust particles harm different organs in the human body.

相关讨论最初爆发于周二，此前鲜有人知的《华商报》刊登了一篇报道，标题引起了非常注重孩子的中国人的注意。报道标题是《雾霾会影响生殖能力改变人体免疫结构》，并且配了一幅示意图，表明污染物颗粒对人体的各个器官有哪些不良影响。

Both articles cite a new 'green paper' on climate change issued by the China Meteorological Administration and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. As one might expect, the report is mostly concerned with minimizing the carbon footprint of China's urbanizing population, though it does making a passing mention, on page 248, of the negative effects on human health of air pollution. Particulate matter can 'influence reproductive abilities,' it says.

上述两份报道都引用了中国社会科学院、中国气象局联合发布的《气候变化绿皮书》。不出所料的是，绿皮书最关注的是尽可能降低中国城市人口的碳足迹，虽然该报告的确在第248页一笔而过地提到了空气污染对人类健康的影响。报告说，颗粒物可能影响生殖能力。

While neither the green paper nor the initial China Business Review story offered any data to support their claims, that hardly seemed to matter to the country's microbloggers, who have long expected the worse from the air they breathe.

不过，不管是绿皮书还是《华商报》最初发表的报道都没有为相关说法提供任何数据支持。不过对中国的微博用户来说，这基本算不上什么问题，他们长期以来都在担心，他们呼吸的空气会造成更严重的影响。

A study in July found that air pollution from coal combustion likely cut life expectancy in parts of China by more than five years during the 1990s. This week, China's official news agency Xinhua reported a doctor saying that an eight-year old girl from the eastern province of Jiangsu had contracted lung cancer from prolonged exposure to harmful particles having lived near a dusty street.

今年7月的一项研究发现，在上世纪90年代，燃煤产生的空气污染可能导致中国部分地区的人口平均寿命缩短五年以上。本周，中国官方媒体《新华社》报道称，江苏一名八岁女童罹患肺癌，医生说空气污染是致病的主要原因，因为女孩家住一条繁忙的公路旁，长期接触有害颗粒物。

The Wall Street Journal called Beijing's United Family Healthcare for its take on what doctors should be telling their patients, but the hospital declined comment. 'Our (obstetrician and gynecologist) chief refused the interview, because there is no data or document to explain the pollution's impact to pregnant women,' wrote spokesperson Yafei Zhu.

《华尔街日报》致电北京的和睦家医疗集团(United Family Healthcare)，询问医生应该对病人说些什么，但该医院不予置评。该医院的发言人朱亚飞（音）写道，我们的妇产科主治医生拒绝了采访，因为没有数据也没有文献解释污染对孕期女性的影响。

Previous studies have shown exposure to high levels of pollution can reduce the success rate of in vitro fertilization and drawn a link between toxic air and reduced fertility in men. In September, local media reported that scientists at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Nanjing Medical University and Zhejiang University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences would conduct a national research study in 2014 to examine how toxins in the environment, including pollution, impact women trying to give birth.

此前已有研究表明，暴露在高水平的污染当中能降低体外受精的成功率，并发现有毒空气与男性生育力降低之间存在关联。今年9月，中国媒体报道上海交通大学、南京医科大学、浙江大学和中科院的科学家将于2014年进行一次全国性调查，研究环境中的毒素（包括污染物）对女性生殖功能的影响。

Mr. Li from the Shanghai sperm bank says it has been facing a lack of qualified sperm donors and quality sperm in the last decade, and that only one-third of its sperm meets World Health Organization standards, according to Wednesday's report in the Shanghai Morning post. A spokesperson at Ruijin Hospital, which houses the sperm bank, said Mr. Li was not available for comment.

《新闻晨报》周三的报道说，上海精子库的负责人李铮说，过去10年间，精子库一直面临两个难题，一是合格的捐精者不足，二是精子质量不佳，捐献者中仅三分之一的人精液质量较好，能达到世界卫生组织(World Health Organization)标准。仁济医院的一名发言人说，无法联系到李铮置评。上海精子库就设立在仁济医院。

Readers of the China Business Review article were far from reticent. The post elicited 441 comments, including one that sardonically proffered a silver lining: 'Yes! No need to use condoms anymore.'

《华商报》的读者对这篇文章的反应颇为强烈。报道收到了441条评论，其中一条评论以讽刺的口吻写道：太好了，再也不用戴套了。