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Reliable Male Contraceptive In the Works
Posted by
kdawson
on Wed May 06, 2009 07:07 AM
from the aichmophobia-belonephobia dept.
from the aichmophobia-belonephobia dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The BBC reports that recent tests in China indicate a monthly injection of testosterone, which works by temporarily blocking sperm production, could be as effective at preventing pregnancies as the female pill or condoms. In trials in China only one man in 100 fathered a child while on the injections, and six months after stopping the injections the mens' sperm counts returned to normal. The lead researcher said that if further tests proved successful, the treatment could become widely available in five years' time. Previous attempts to develop an effective and convenient male contraceptive have encountered problems over reliability and side effects, such as mood swings and a lowered sex drive. However, despite the injection having no serious side effects, almost a third of the 1,045 men in the two-and-a-half year study did not complete the trials; no reason was given for this."
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Possibly because it worked? (Score:5, Funny)
however their recent child support filings may lend a clue.
Re:Possibly because it worked? (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, if I remember correctly, excess testosterone gets converted into estrogen doesn't it?
I suspect those that stopped... Didn't like man boobs.
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Re:Possibly because it worked? (Score:5, Funny)
The real news here is the medical breakthrough hidden by the researchers: the 1/3 of the men that quit the treatment did so because they got pregnant.
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Re:Possibly because it worked? (Score:5, Informative)
1) testosterone shots are painful ...The enzyme called aromatase works naturally to convert testosterone into estrogen. ... Fat cells contribute a great amount of aromatase, and many nutrient deficiencies can also produce higher levels.
2) testosterone converts to estrogen (http://www.naturodoc.com/library/hormones/masculine.htm)
3) having more testosterone lowers your natural production (so going off of it can be a bitch)
4) having excess testosterone can make you more aggressive, angrier (rage), less happy but...
5) having insufficient testosterone can make you more emotional, angrier(fear), sleep poorly, less happy, anxious (free floating anxiety), loss of lust, loss of happiness, lost of performance when you do have lust.
I've been on HRT for a few years now. Having a level of about 600 makes me feel like I am 10 years younger plus the andropause symptoms went away within a week of starting supplementation. There are currently two expensive rub on versions (Testim - oil based and Androgel - alchohol based), a ton of compounded rub on versions, and shots.
Shots produce a much stronger cycle (too high for a few days, then normal for a couple weeks, then too low for a few days before your next shot).
I've read the shots are painful after you get them (the testosterone hurts inside you). It's not agony and tons of guys do get the shots (much less expensive than the rub-on approach) but the getting shots sucks, and then if it hurts after you get the shot that would suck more.
I apparently had low testosterone most of my life even before i was in my 40's since I furred out big time once I went on it.
I play a lot of boardgames and losing them pisses me off more than it used to so that is a downside. I didn't used to care.
A LOT of males have low testosterone starting at 43-- some earlier. It's an easy test to get. HRT is usually a one-way trip. You go on it and are on it until you show signs of prostate cancer (which estrogen is like gasoline on a fire for).
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Re:Possibly because it worked? (Score:5, Insightful)
A LOT of males have low testosterone starting at 43-- some earlier. It's an easy test to get.
So yet another natural progression of the aging process has become an illness to be cured?!? What a messed up world we live in. :(
News flash for all you ladies and gents out there... you were never meant to look/feel/act in your forties (and beyond) as you did in your teens and twenties. You'll be slower, weaker, more passive (less aggressive), less beautiful/handsome (by pop media standards, of course), hairier, more wrinkled, less mentally sharp, slower to heal, harder of sight and hearing, and you won't have sex like rabbits. These are generalizations, of course.
It's one thing to help you along as you age (glasses, hearing aids, canes, etc.), but this ever-growing trend in trying to dodge time's arrow every step of the way (cosmetic surgery, perpetual drug regiments, etc.) is sad commentary on a society that supposedly believes in an afterlife. Enjoy your life, in all its stages, then move along -- this world was never meant to be your home forever.
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Naturalistic fallacy (Score:5, Insightful)
you were never meant to look/feel/act in your forties (and beyond) as you did in your teens and twenties.
We were never "meant" to receive organ transplants either. The entire field of medicine is basically devoted to opposing to the natural course of life. Hell, most of human history is devoted to that goal.
Eventually, we're going to figure out how to forestall aging and death indefinitely. I don't expect that will happen soon enough for me, but if it does, I'll be the first in line. You'll be free to die happy, secure in the knowledge that you lived only as you were meant to (in front of a computer screen).
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Re:Possibly because it worked? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Possibly because it worked? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Possibly because it worked? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd bet on 'not wanting to be repeatedly poked with a giant needle'
I remember seeing videos of some trials, it was really scary.
(was very afraid of needles, now so, so, still, not 'omg I'm getting a shot this is so cool!!')
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Re:Possibly because it worked? (Score:5, Funny)
More likely:
a) They were married and the wife started nagging for a baby.
or
b) They weren't married and getting jabbed with a huge needle once a month "just in case I get lucky" gets old real fast.
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Re:Possibly because it worked? (Score:5, Funny)
I would not want poked with a giant needle on a plane.
I would not want poked with a giant needle on a train.
I would not want poked
Oh yes I would not.
Wanting to be poked would be quite insane!
Parent
Re:Possibly because it worked? (Score:5, Insightful)
Irrelevant - any good journalist knows that 33% is statistically insignificant...
It really frustrates me whenever the media do a science story, especially one regarding medicine. In their desperation to focus on the human angle and "won't anybody think of the children" - and of course, increase number of readers - they completely ignore any basic scientific analysis.
A classic example was the MMR-gives-you-autism scare - they make a sensational headline from a report without investigating the background of Wakefield (the author who made the public statement that started it - he received money from lawyers trying to build a case), without giving any consideration to the statistical significance of his findings (the paper looked at 12 patients), and completely ignoring the fact that the paper said it couldn't link MMR to autism. Even though it has now been proven that there is no link, the doubt lives on in the public mind.
Perhaps this is due to scientific journalists having no real understanding of science. Perhaps they do, but have a better understanding of how their job depends on selling a story. Either way, they must take more responsibility for their power over the public.
Returning to the MMR story, Wakefield has been widely discredited and hauled in front of the GMC and could be struck off. Meanwhile, what has happened to the journalists who built the story into the frenzy that led to measles and mumps outbreaks in the UK? Nothing - they're still writing stories like this.
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Re:Possibly because it worked? (Score:5, Insightful)
When a registered medical doctor stands up in public and says "MMR is dangerous: 2/3 children who get autism get it due to MMR (based on my sample group of 12 people)", and that story is then carried on the front page of irresponsible newspapers, his peers *should* be standing up and attacking his credibility.
Any scientist worth their salt knows that correlation is not causation, and assumptions cannot be made on a sample group of 12. For any scientist to stand up and claim something so important and dangerous based on the facts before him defies belief - either he was incredibly incompetent, or incredibly motivated to come to the conclusion he had drawn. It turned out to be financial motivation that made him suppress the facts, but either way it had turned out, it was incumbent on his peers to discredit him as quickly as possible. Without contradictory investigations, it had nowhere to go other than a personal attack on the man and his methods. And I say fair enough.
Unfortunately it was too juicy a story for the facts to get in the way, so paranoia and sensational headlines meant the story dragged on for years, largely ignoring the many subsequent investigations that disproved Wakefield. This has led to a lot of fud amongst the general public, and has clearly had an effect on immunisation rates.
That is somewhat different to people saying "We've made a scientific breakthrough", others saying "Oh, really, thought that was impossible, let's have a look", then "Ah, yes, see, you're wrong". It's not as if the public would have gone out and gambled their lives on whether or not cold fusion was possible.
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This is an interesting development, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
... I doubt that women will accept it.
Even if it has no side effects and if men are able to accept the stigma of being temporarily infertile, I expect that women won't trust this treatment.
Just think about it: who bears most of the risk in case of pregnancy? Women. It might be unjust, but in most societies, men can walk away and abandon women they've gotten pregnant easily without serious social stigma or financial repercussions. Women either have to get an abortion (stigmatized, traumatic, and in many places illegal/expensive/dangerous) or raise a child alone (stigmatized/expensive/time-consuming).
With the pill or condoms, women are either controlling the birth control themselves, or can verify its use on-the-spot. With male contraceptive injections/pills,
I foresee a big problem with women not trusting that men are really taking this. Heck, in the pilot study 1/3 of the men just stopped taking it for no apparent reason!!
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quit rate... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:quit rate... (Score:5, Funny)
2.5 years of *injections* and 1/3 did not complete the term of the trials. Not surprising. Make it in pill form and you may have a higher completion rate...
But on the bright side we've created a form of contraception that heroin addicts can get behind ;)
Parent
Huh? (Score:4, Funny)
And this story was posted to /. why?
Trials are done in China... (Score:4, Funny)
Less Chinese being born, less tech jobs can be outsourced to China.
It's not the medical relevance - it's economy.
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Re:Huh? (Score:4, Funny)
The best contraceptive I've found is an "Excellent" karma rating on
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Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
"The best contraceptive I've found is an "Excellent" karma rating on /."
Oh really? Let's try an experiment:
Linux is less stable than Windows, and always has been.
C++ is more elegant than C.
Even power users are faster in a GUI than command line.
Mac users enjoy being marginalized.
HTML should never have gotten more popular than gopher.
So do you think that the karma burn will increase my chances of re-producing?
Parent
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
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1% ! (Score:5, Informative)
1% got pregnant, that seems pretty high for contraceptive. It would have to be used with other means
I stand corrected, the pill is 92-99.7% effective, about 5% of couples will get pregnant. So it seems this way is pretty darn effective.
Re:1% ! (Score:4, Informative)
A 1% pregnancy rate over two and a half years actually sounds very effective. I don't know the rates for other protection methods, or even unprotected, but I know they're not as good as 99% (in practice) over 2.5 years.
But 1/3 of the sample dropping out is not very promising. Side effects? Cherry picking? Guess we'll find out later.
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Re:1% ! (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe they just wanted to have childs...
2.5 years is a long time and they probably changed their mind
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Re:1% ! (Score:5, Insightful)
The once a month injection is a deal-killer for me though.
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Deal breaker!?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Man oh man - if you think that a teenie needle injection once a mnth is a hassle wait until you have CHILDREN! From waking up every 2 hours 24 hours a day to decimating the order of your household, children make a stupid shot seem just... stupid.
Tell you what: don't worry about the needle. Just have good, natural sex, the way nature intended. Wait a few years, and then tell me if a shot is really a big deal!
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Re:1% ! (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:1% ! (Score:5, Insightful)
A vasectomy is more effective.
what is it with wacked out guys that refuse to get one because "I'm less of a man If I do that"...
Are most guys that uneducated or dumb? If you do not want any children, get the fricking snip and get it over with. your life is better snipped!
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Re:1% ! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Citation (Score:5, Informative)
Birth control is far more complicated statistically than people think.
Personally, sign me up for this: RISUG [wikipedia.org]
All the benefits of a male birth control pill/shot, without the hormonal side effects, at a fraction of the price. And they're pretty sure it doesn't even cause cancer!
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Re:Citation (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Citation (Score:5, Insightful)
I've always thought that condom success rate depends on intelligence and your actual practices.
I and a lot of friends used condoms and experienced 0% failure rate (no pregnancies).
OTH, with birth-control pills, we had a failure-- but it wasn't the pills.
The lady in question admitted a year or two later that she was lying and had stopped taking the pill because she had decided she wanted to get pregnant. She also later decided she only wanted the money and not the males interference with raising the child.
As a guy, you know when you are using as condom, but you never really know when you are a using a pill.
So these shots would be good because you would *know* you were covered from your side.
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Morning after? (Score:5, Funny)
But where is the male morning after pill?
Re:Morning after? (Score:5, Funny)
But where is the male morning after pill?
Fire and forget.
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Re:Morning after? (Score:5, Funny)
But where is the male morning after pill?
It's called the over-the-counter female morning after pill and breakfast in bed ;) "Here honey, I love you so much that I made you breakfast!"
Yeah, I'm going straight to hell.....
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Bad science (Score:4, Interesting)
Also who wants only a 1/100 chance of NOT getting your SO pregnant? For most Americans that would be on the order of once year (assuming the women is only fertile for a few days a month).
Re:Bad science (Score:4, Informative)
http://health.msn.com/health-topics/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100068304 [msn.com]
If I recall correctly, the failure rate is given assuming a year of average amount of sexual contact per week (Off the top of my head, I've heard 'average' being assumed as '3x/week')
Parent
Re:Bad science (Score:5, Informative)
Also who wants only a 1/100 chance of NOT getting your SO pregnant? For most Americans that would be on the order of once year (assuming the women is only fertile for a few days a month).
It's not 1% chance per time, it's 1% per couple per 2.5 years (the length of the study). So once every 250 years for you and your SO, assuming you have sex about as frequently as the people in the study.
Unless of course the "almost a third" quit the study because it killed them, or made it impossible to get it up, or something.
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Hah, they dropped out because (Score:5, Funny)
"almost a third of the 1,045 men in the two-and-a-half year study did not complete the trials; no reason was given for this"
Nobody told them WHERE the injection goes.
Re:Hah, they dropped out because (Score:5, Funny)
Oh my Lord. Brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it.
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There's one major problem with this..... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Don't sweat it, babe, I've had the injection. Honest."
"Oh, OK, then. On you go."
Re:There's one major problem with this..... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Reliable Male Contraceptive Already Exists (Score:5, Interesting)
It's called Neem [wikipedia.org] oil, and the Indian military ran a one-year trial without side effects or pregnancies. The reason you're not going to see any Neem-based contraceptives go through the FDA process is that so far attempts to control it have been largely unsuccessful [pbs.org].
Next week, we'll talk about olive leaf extract...
Re:Reliable Male Contraceptive Already Exists (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, you could just go read the Wiki, but here goes. I'm just a lowly American so I only know so much about the stuff, but Neem has been used for thousands of years for a broad variety of uses in the home and the garden. Different parts and extracts of the plant have different properties; seed meal and oil can both be used to repel insects, the wood grows quickly and is burned for fuel, et cetera.
In terms of use as a contraceptive, the oil can either be encapsulated and consumed by the man or introduced directly into the vagina before the penis. I have so far been unable to find any information as to dosages in the Indian military study (the language barrier's a bitch) but have direct and intensely personal experience with the latter method. There is one side effect; it tends to make pussy smell like a Tiger's Milk bar — and you don't want to know what it tastes like! We mixed it with food-grade coconut oil. Both came from the health food store. So far, neem has been successful in controlling aphids, spider mites, and rugrats. Also, the garden stuff stored over winter that had neem on it wasn't invaded by rodents; for example a big wad of spun polyethylene ("Agribon", most common trade name is Remay) was free of them while a trashbag of trashbags without any became a nest.
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Won't Someone Think of the ... Men (Score:5, Insightful)
Quoth the article:
Now assuming that "family planning campaigners" are predominantly female (a fair and perfectly reasonable assumption), contrast the above with the following opinion from fertility expert Mr. Laurence Shaw:
The difference in both perspective and opinion is somewhere between funny and tragic. If you're a woman, the former is most true (men are all-powerful and don't need any "empowerment"). If you're a man who's been involved in custody or child support proceedings, it's likely that you've been made painfully aware that the notion of men's rights is routinely ignored, dismissed as unecessary, or taken away in a gesture of deference to the "weaker" sex.
Re:Only 99% (Score:4, Funny)
Me too. Keep a picture of Janet Reno in your wallet.
That's as close to a 100% effective prophylactic as you can get.
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Re:Only 99% (Score:5, Funny)
So do I, but that's unfortunately no solution for the heterosexuals amongst us.
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Re:You're doing it wrong! (Score:5, Interesting)
I hate condoms. For a couple years I used them with my wife as the pill was creating undesirable side effects. Regardless of brand or style, you DO NOT get the same level of sensation as without. Tight, loose or somewhere in between.. the condom just didn't matter. Sure, it was still fun, but "unprotected" I could feel more sensation in my skin as it rubbed against hers. I am glad that since I had my two kids I went the vasectomy route. Sex life has improved, and it is a lot more fun.
On another note, it is also fun to be able to get half-way into it... take a breather and go back at it later. Repeat as much as I am able. With a condom, that just ain't practical.
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Of course they would. In droves. (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now, women have all reproductive rights and choices (abortion) while men only have responsibilities (18 years of child support).
Say you have 17 year old fraternal twins, a boy and a girl, and both of them conceive with their respective girlfriend/boyfriend. You can tell your girl that legally she has the right to
Whereas your conversation with your son will go more like this:
The Male Pill will finally give men the same control over conception that women have, if not the same rights & choices after conception happens.
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