Two New Male Birth Control Chemicals In Advanced Stages 369
BarbaraHudson writes Researchers at the University of Kansas and Harvard are working to give men more choices for avoiding unwanted pregnancies. From the article: "H2-gamendazole keeps sperm from maturing. The unfinished sperm fragments are then reabsorbed into the testis, never ending up in the semen. 'If there's no sperm, the egg's not going to get fertilized,' says Joseph Tash, a reproductive biologist at the University of Kansas Medical Center. Almost two years ago, the FDA reviewed the compound, and now the agency wants Tash to investigate if the compound remains in the semen and whether that would harm a woman if it ends up in the vagina. Jay Bradner, working with other anti-cancer researchers at Harvard, discovered that the JQ1 molecule blocked a bromodomain in cancer cells, causing them to forget how to be cancer. One side effect is that JQ1 also obstructed a testicle-specific bromodomain called BRDT, making the sex cells that would otherwise produce sperm non-functional — mice treated with JQ1 can hump with abandon yet generate zero mouselings. Researchers are looking for a version of the molecule that works on the testicle protein only, to avoid any weird side effects."
Time for men's liberation (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be awesome if this could be part of a men's liberation movement, like how women were liberated in the 60s when the pill became available. Not just contraception, a change in the way men look at themselves.
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Time for men's liberation
Not yet! They accidentally found a cure for cancer, so they have to get rid of the cure for cancer before they'll sell this to you.
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Right.
What if you're one of those people who has gone around the track long enough to understand that sex divorced from reproduction is meaningless, who always wanted to have that family that everyone seems to want to be "liberated" from taking responsibility for?
Because, honestly, that's how I feel, and I've quite literally given up on women, and sex.
Reproductive sex isn't boring, like something out of a Puritan movie. It's just as nasty and wild and passionate and kinky as it always was. But, it's overl
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I agree with you; I do want to take semi-issue with one bit, however:
Now that I realize I'd have an easier time finding a unicorn in this culture than a woman who will truly commit to creating a family, I find it hard to find reasons not to sit and grow moss.
Ah, but you forget: There is the late thirty-something childless single woman, the ones who woke up one morning to realize that the ovular inventory is beginning to run a bit low. She then realizes that the men aren't hitting on her as much - most guys her age are married, gay, or losers at this point, and the younger guys are too busy chasing the younger babes around, where there's a closer-matched set of interests. The biological clock w
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Things are changing, but for now, women bear the brunt of child rearing expectations. That means we are more likely to be expected to make career and life sacrifices in order to have a family. Managers will expect women with children to take off more time for things like doctor's appointments and will (perhaps unwittingly) take that into consideration when doling out promotions etc. Many women are more
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Some of us have absolutely no desire to reproduce. I got the snip over 10 years ago (im 36 now). Couldn't be happier. GF wants no children either..
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What if you're one of those people who has gone around the track long enough to understand that sex divorced from reproduction is meaningless
Ultimately everything is meaningless. Sex is meaningless, having a family is meaningless. Continuing to breath and thereby extending one's life is meaningless. Eating nice food is meaningless.
But to many people living life and enjoying it feels worth doing. In that sense having non reproductive has as much or as little meaning as anything else.
who always wanted to hav
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Re:Time for men's liberation (Score:5, Insightful)
As moving targets and potential victims of the "women and children" state that will punish a Man to the ends of the Earth for having the audacity to father a child.
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I know quite a few Indian and Asian men who are paying through the nose to keep their exes in the styles to which they have become accustomed.
Obviously in the USA, as your wording is distinctly American, distinguishing India (which is Asian) from Asian. Also, have you heard them as vocal in the plight of the punished and downtrodden males? Usually such wording is not given by a minority, as they know how offensive it is to themselves and others. The most self-entitled group in the US is the white males, especially those born in the top 50%.
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I fear it will take more than a pill to stop jocks from being, well, jocks...
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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What this will do is fuel the argument women's reproductive rights. Currently, there's a raging debate about the inequity of controlling women by refusing to pay for birth control pills AND allowing abortions while paying for men's vasectomies AND providing them with Viagra and other sexual stimulants.
The advent of male contraceptives is field-leveler that will overturn many court decisions and nullify many one-sided laws.
Bring it on.
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Re:Time for men's liberation (Score:5, Insightful)
Sex is all about trust.
No it ain't, it's about shagging.
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Sex between equals involves trust, yes, but saying that it's "all about trust" is like saying that going to the movies is all about eating popcorn.
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Sex is all about trust.
If that was true, the human species would have died out millennia ago.
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Well, as long as it's solely "her body, her right, her choice", it should also be solely "her responsibility." At least by default. If she gets him to sign a contract for support (ie marriage), and it is indeed his kid, that's different.
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If she gets him to sign a contract for support (ie marriage), and it is indeed his kid, that's different.
It isn't that different. If my wife is pregnant, it is her choice, and her choice alone, to abort or not. We have two kids. I wanted a third. She said no, and that was that. Even in a marriage, a woman has more reproductive rights than the man. That is reasonable, since is IS her body. But it also, ultimately, her responsibility. Why should she trust me, especially when she knows I would be very happy if she was knocked up.
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This doesn't address the situation I was talking about. If you're happy with her choice, more power to you. That doesn't mean all men are (or should be forced into it on her whims). If it's ok for women to show up at a club, hook up drunk, and then decide what to do about the consequences, then men should have the same right to do so. Neither party should take advantage of the other.
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If you're happy with her choice, more power to you.
I'm not happy with her choice, and I have no power.
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Yes, well, her denying you a child is not the same as forcibly taking your money to fund her 'choice.'
Sure, but she could do that too. If she wanted the kid, and I didn't, she could just tell me that it was "safe" when it wasn't. Once she was pregnant, I would have no choice. Marriage doesn't change who has the power over reproduction. The sad part is that she makes more money than me too. Well, anyway, I have to go, because she just told me to go wash the dishes ...
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You've got a lot of good points about the limitations of a male pill - especially about the danger associated with unprovable accusations. Where I think this may really help is that men can be responsible for taking risks again. I don't mean with the risk of pregnancy or any of the other unwanted consequences of sex - but the risk associated with birth control.
There's plenty of down sides to the pill - emotional effects, cancer risks, permanently altered sex drive, etc... But with a male version, the man
Re:Time for men's liberation (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be awesome if this could be part of a men's liberation movement, like how women were liberated in the 60s when the pill became available.
Was it the pill that led to women's liberation? Or was it penicillin? The pill allows women to have sex without getting pregnant. Penicillin allowed people to have sex without getting diseases. AIDS has somewhat rolled that back.
Before HIV, there was still always Herpes, Hepatitis, HPV.... e.g. anything viral. People were just more ignorant of STDs 50 years ago, but that doesn't meant they still weren't getting them. You're still going to want a condom on the first date no matter how many new types of contraception get invented.
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Men have had good access to birth control for a long time. Condoms are not new. They weren't even new in the sixties. Vasectomies were new in the sixties but aren't now. It's not clear that there's anything to liberate. Men are about as liberated as we're going to get.
Condoms? A 2% chance of failure isn't a chance I'd like to live with (not to mention the annoyance of using them)
Male birth control pills would have a similar problem. For a woman, 99.9% effective means that she's only fertile, on average, once every 80 years or so. THOSE odds, I'll take.
99.9% effective for a male means there's still almost 300,000 viable sperm every time.
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Think of the children. (Score:5, Funny)
This is a murder of potentially trillions of human beings and as such an obvious affront to god!
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This needs to be modded insightful. I can only imagine how the Catholic Church will respond to a male birth control solution.
Re:Think of the children. (Score:4, Funny)
"Every sperm is sacred .... "
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You forgot the link [youtube.com].
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You missed the reference. I give you a hint. It starts with Monty and ends with a snake.
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Monty Cottonmouth? Can't seem to find that on Google...
(/me ducks and runs like hell...)
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In 1968, Pope Paul VI issued his landmark encyclical letter Humanae Vitae (Latin, "Human Life"), which reemphasized the Church’s constant teaching that it is always intrinsically wrong to use contraception to prevent new human beings from coming into existence. Contraception is "any action which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act [sexual intercourse], or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" (Humanae Vitae 14). This includes sterilization, condoms and other barrier methods, spermicides, coitus interruptus (withdrawal method), the Pill, and all other such methods.
You can read more here if you are interested. [catholic.com]
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This is a murder of potentially trillions of human beings and as such an obvious affront to god!
Har har.
Yet, you will be replaced by people who don't use it.
Curing cancer (Score:4, Insightful)
TFA: [...] discovered that the JQ1 molecule blocked a bromodomain in cancer cells, causing them to forget how to be cancer. [...] Researchers are looking for a version of the molecule that works on the testicle protein only, to avoid any weird side effects
Since when slowing down cancer is a "weird side effect"? :D
Re:Curing cancer (Score:4, Insightful)
The pharma industry doesn't like to make medicines that solve more than one problem at a time. It's difficult to monetize that efficiently.
Your trolling, but you're wrong. If all you need to do is another Phase III study for a different indication, you're golden. There are a number of drugs [drugs.com] on the market that have different trade names for different uses but are the same molecule. It's not quite the Holy Grail for big Pharma, but it is at least a big lottery win.
This type of preventative would be awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: This type of preventative would be awesome (Score:3)
Universal Zero Tolerance of Side Effects (Score:4, Funny)
"anti-cancer researchers at Harvard, discovered that the JQ1 molecule blocked a bromodomain in cancer cells, causing them to forget how to be cancer."
"Researchers are looking for a version of the molecule that works on the testicle protein only, to avoid any weird side effects."
Umm... can I please have the side-effects, if the side effects are, you know, NOT GETTING CANCER?
Re:Universal Zero Tolerance of Side Effects (Score:5, Funny)
You try it first (Score:2)
Why don't all you guys out there try it first. In the meantime time I may just go for the vasectomy.
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Vasectomies have potentially serious side effects, both in the short term, and in the long term (hormone issues), plus as others have pointed out they're more or less permanent (reversals are expensive and nowhere near 100% successful) .
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Sad For My Gender (Score:5, Insightful)
The number of responses here along the lines of "women always trick men into marriage by getting pregnant" or "birth control is a woman's responsibility" make me sad for my gender. I can't be the only man on Slashdot who 1) respects women (my wife and I both manage our portions of birth control together - I would never suggest that's HER job and not for me to be bothered with), 2) sees fatherhood as a positive outcome - not something that is only entered into via trickery, and 3) would like to see new birth control methods available on the market (whether or not this one would work for my wife and I aside, the more options the better). Can I?
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This is probably the most useless response here, but I had to say it - I completely agree with you.
Re:Sad For My Gender (Score:5, Insightful)
People comment based on experiences or the stories of others.
Women have, historically, had the socially-supported option of getting pregnant instead of being old and single or instead of entering the workforce. In fact, entering the workforce is still a relatively new concept for women and still not universal throughout the world. Men still have the socially-enforced expectation of tying one's finances to the mother of his children regardless of the involvement of those men in the lives of the children or the mother. This is a genuine hobbling of the uninvolved man's life post impregnation and thus fear of a coerced pregnancy is a significant fear amongst men. As a result, SOME men are suspicious of women when it comes to birth control.
Thus, you shouldn't be surprised by pessimistic online comments reading as "Women trick men into marriage by getting pregnant".
But it does not define the entirety of the population. It MAY describe a part of an aging population of experiences (the younger generation doesn't seem too keen on popping babies out), but by no means defines an entire community.
You can see such patterns of experiences -> comments by taking a look at your own. Your experience with your wife (cooperative birth control expectations, a happy outlook on parenthood, etc.) will bias you towards believing that women have not/do not use pregnancy as a investment-- but it would also suggest that you're fairly far-removed from the lives your male peers if you cannot understand their fears.
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There's also the fact that paternity tests have been made illegal in certain feminist-dominated jurisdictions.
There's only one jurisdiction that has banned it and considering it is a country where the men are known for fucking it's just as likely its the men who banned it rather then having to take responsibility for their actions.
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I am not sad for my gender, i am just sad for women who never meet a man who would respect her.
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Typically my ex GFs and I used a condom until we trusted each other enough to go for another contraceptive, which typically was The Pill. If she would have objected to this, for whatever reason, I would have been happy to keep using condoms. No sweat. Respect. Responsability, no problem. On the other hand, "forgetting" to take
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1. respect is earned, usually by demonstration of responsibility and good judgment. The fact the law allows women to have babies and then use the state to go after 'your gender' for bailouts is unbelievably hypocritical and disrespectful, especially when done under the banner of 'equality.'
2. fatherhood CAN be a positive outcome, but not when it's foisted on unwilling men by politicians with agendas and women who know they can squeeze a paycheck out of him. This is NOT an occasional event. It's what built
I don't think it's the Woman's responsibility (Score:2)
As for fatherhood: 40 years of declining wages have made fatherhood a tough sell. I grew up around and still know a pretty rough crowd. If you don't make much money and probably never will fatherhood doesn't end well. It's why birth rates in Japan keep falling. Nobody's paying us enough to raise a family...
calm yourself, White Knight (Score:3)
"Always"? Which comments would those be? In any case, some men are tricked into being fathers, or think they are fathers. The chances of that happening are small, but the consequences (the next 20 years of your life) are large.
How about respecting people?
Women have a plethora of BC options
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Men don't get to pick whether women have an abortion the same way women don't pick if a man gets a castration.
Very much the same -- that's why the number of abortions and the number of castrations are virtually equal, every single year!
Hey, baby, don't worry. (Score:2)
Boon to rapists? (Score:5, Interesting)
If the sperm is destroyed, is there anything left that contains DNA in the semen?
If not that this could be a big boon to rapists who no longer have to worry about leaving their DNA behind.
Better ideas - RISUG aka "VasalGel" (Score:2)
While it is nice to see continued research along these avenues, I feel that methodology that require us to alter internal, chemical bodily functions via some sort are going to have pretty considerable side effects. Even after more than a half-century of research, we've still not been able to create female chemical/hormonal birth control that doesn't have significant side effects and trade offs. While many women put up with the side effects, which can range from lack of libido, depression, weight gain, ac
Re:Not a fucking chance. (Score:5, Insightful)
Birth control is a womens issue.
You won't get a judge to agree with you if you accidentally father a child.
I won't be putting any unknown chemicals into my body for HER sake.
And yet you want her to put chemicals into her body for YOUR fun and enjoyment. Nice troll :-(
Re:Not a fucking chance. (Score:5, Insightful)
Birth control is a womens issue.
You won't get a judge to agree with you if you accidentally father a child.
I like how this issue is always 1-sided. It's a woman's choice if she wants to have an abortion, but the guy doesn't have a choice to not support the child if the woman wants to have it but he doesn't.
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You should have something to say when you have to deal with 18 years of financial responsibility wile having no/little interaction with an actual child.
Re:Not a fucking chance. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not a fucking chance. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well guess what? Maybe you should have taken a little bit of responsibility by using a condom?
That does not address the original issue. Would you find it acceptable for someone to say "Maybe you should have taken a little responsibility and not spread your legs" to a woman? If not, why is it o.k. to say that to the guy?
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As opposed to the responsibility of realizing you nor daddy have the funds to raise children right now and making the appropriate choice? Feminists hate equality when it's time to take responsibility. Then they want the men to step in and clean up after them.
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In the states, if mom chooses to have the baby, dad is held financially accountable, even if not married. He can be put in prison until he pays, with interest. Basically, it's debtors prison.
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So what happened to equality and personal responsibility for women? Shouldn't she be held accountable for having a kid knowing that she doesn't have the income, yet knowing she can bilk him out of his? What happened to 'social justice' as feminists call it? It only applies to women?
Man up and deal with it? How is that different from telling women to 'woman up and get back in the kitchen'?
It's amazing how people like you cannot see your hypocrisy.
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Relying on what the other party says isn't nearly as effective when talking about disease transmission, and kind of silly when it comes to preventing pregnancies.
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Just as he should have something to say about having to FUND her indulgent decision for the next 20 years.
Re: Not a fucking chance. (Score:2)
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Why? It takes two to tango.
Because the only satisfactorily effective means of birth control are all in the hands of women, from the pill through the morning after pill to abortion. Additionally, as women would have us believe, pregnancy doesn't affect men nearly as much as it affects women. It seems only natural that women should take responsibility for that then. It's a shame that the responsibility seems to end when someone has to pay for the result.
Male contraceptives will cause a lot of women to be childless, women who would now
Re:Not a fucking chance. (Score:5, Insightful)
Women are also in control of the global condom supply, apparently.
How does something so completely wrong get modded so highly?
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It certainly seems to leave both parties less uneasy about the potential long term impacts of taking pills.
Re: All well and good, but... (Score:2)
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In the period of the review, there were 5,651 prosecutions for rape and 111,891 for domestic violence. During the same period there were 35 prosecutions for making false allegations of rape, six for making false allegation of domestic violence and three for making false allegations of both rape and domestic violence.
So you know, there's some conclusive research you can look at.
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No. It is called D&D but some say it is only a placebo.
D&D players can have children... (Score:2)
D&D players can have children..., they just have a higher likelihood of being half-elven.
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That's retarded. People have unprotected sex because it's better. Way better. Even, I would say *especially* people in long-term, monogamous, trusting relationships, who still happen to not want kids at the moment.
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If was still young and in relationships that require condoms, you can bet your ass I'd _ALSO_ be using this (not instead. ALSO.)
Condoms break, girls lie about taking pills. Futures are ruinned. Hormones make sure teenagers can't think straight when it happens. Rightists make sure its as hard as possible to fix problems after they happen (even if you're in an area where stuff like Plan B is readily available, there's often still a stigma behind it, and then hesitation makes the time window slip by, and then
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"The onyl solution to pregnancy and STDs is common sense, unfortunately this "solution" will only act as a smoke screen for many."
My girlfriend menstruates 24x7x365 when on birth control. Others affect her blood pressure severely or cause enormous weight gain and acne.
We've been monogamous for years and rely on condoms.
Your opinion that people in our situation don't matter is misguided and immoral.
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W...ah...wo.....I don't even....
I don't know where to start, but I already typed this much, so I'll just hit the submit button below one of the most epic fail post of all time.
Even if its a joke, it takes skills to write something like that. I clap at your trolling abilities, oh great master.
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