By Jo Nova

Humans are a gregarious species. Consider the bizarre effect the last Trump victory appears to have had on liberal Canadians in Ontario. In the months after Trump won last time, there were slightly fewer boys babies born there than expected. The deficit of boys peaked in March 2017, but the effect, as weird as it was (in the country next door) was only seen in Liberal-leaning areas.

CBC News

The win led to a brief decline in the number of boys born in Ontario, according to a study led by Dr. Ravi Retnakaran, an endocrinologist at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. It was published Monday in BMJ Open, a British medical journal.

The study showed that unexpected election results had a similar effect on birth sex ratio that researchers commonly see in disasters such as terrorist attacks, said Retnakaran. This was seen in liberal-leaning ridings, where Trump’s win may have been seen as a societal stressor, he said.

Obviously there’s no way to prove cause and effect, but a similar pattern occurred after terrorist attacks like 9/11, the Sandy Hook massacre, and the 2011 Norway shootings:

The data showed that the lowest ratio of boys to girls born in the 12 months after the election happened in March 2017. That’s exactly within the three to five month window that the sex ratio would change after an adverse societal event, said Retnakaran.

When researchers further analyzed the data, they found there were only fewer boys born in Liberal-leaning areas.

The cost of tribal political hysteria

The researchers think that this is a selective event happening in mid-pregnancy, which is why it affects the ratio of babies born in March after a November election. In theory, at conception, the ratio of boys to girls is 50:50, but if a pregnant woman suffers a “societal stressor” during weeks 20 to 25 they are more likely to lose the boy babies rather than the girls. I guess we could call these political miscarriages.

Obviously nearly all babies are fine, but winding up the population in politicized tribal battles has a price.

Imagine if the news media were calm, neutral players?

Incredible that an election is being discussed in a scientific paper in the same role as a terrorist attack.

REFERENCE:

Ravi Retnakaran and Chang Ye, 2 March 2020,“Outcome of the 2016 United States presidential election and the subsequent sex ratio at birth in Canada: an ecological study” by  BMJ Open. DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2019-031208