Nigerian men who are unable to make babies could be paying the price for drinking from plastic bottles, beer cans and beverage containers. A new report links exposure to a chemical known as BPA to growing incidents of male sterility in the country and other parts of the world. The chemical is widely used in hard plastic bottles.

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The U.S. government recently announced new funding for research into BPA’s effects. BPA is used in a wide variety of consumer products, including some hard plastic bottles and metal food or beverage cans. Several makers of baby bottles recently said they had stopped using the chemical. Some 90 percent of the U.S. population carries detectable levels in the urine and scientists are concerned that BPA exposure might harm the reproductive and nervous systems, and possibly promote prostate and breast cancers. Last year, a preliminary study linked BPA to possible risks for heart disease and diabetes.

The Food and Drug Administration concluded last year that trace amounts of BPA that leak out of bottles and food containers were not dangerous. But the FDA is now reviewing that stance after criticism from its scientific advisers. Researchers said compared to the other workers, men with high BPA exposure were about four times as likely to report trouble achieving erections, about seven times as likely to say they had difficulty ejaculating, and about four times as likely to report low sex drive or low satisfaction with their sex lives.

The effects are dramatic and “pretty clearly related to the exposure,” said Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. The finding fits in with animal studies and should be followed up by research in the general population, she said. Her Institute said last month it would spend more money on BPA-related research, bringing the total to $30 million over two years.

Steven Hentges, a BPA expert, and official with the American Chemistry Council, an industry group, said the work was “probably not very relevant for consumers. For one thing, the reported 50-fold difference in exposure seems to be an underestimate because of how it was calculated,” he said.

In addition, he said, the workers inhaled BPA or got it on their skin. Consumers get it through diet instead, which lets the body detoxify it, Hentges said.