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Medicine

Male Birth Control Stopped Sperm In Mice, Study Found (wsj.com) 84

Posted by BeauHD from the no-more-swimming dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Wall Street Journal: A drug aimed at treating eyes immobilized sperm and prevented pregnancy in mice, encouraging researchers that it might work as a contraceptive for men. Injected into male mice, the drug was 100% effective in preventing pregnancy for 2 1/2 hours and about 91% effective for up to 3 1/2 hours, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. The male mice were fertile after a day, the study found. The new approach is appealing for how quickly the contraceptive acts. The researchers said they would test the drug in other animals and aim for human trials in the coming years.

The drug presented in Tuesday's study acts by deactivating an enzyme in mice and men that make sperm swim. "It's like your on-switch on your TV," said Jochen Buck, a pharmacologist at Weill Cornell Medicine, an author of the study. When the researchers added the drug to human and mice sperm in a dish, the cells stopped moving temporarily. Lower doses of the drug resulted in progressively more mobile sperm cells, Dr. Buck said. The drug took about 15 minutes to take effect. Male mice injected with the drug didn't alter their mating behavior. Allowed to mate in the 2.5 hours after injection, none of 52 pairs of mice produced offspring. A third of mice partners in a control group of 50 had pregnancies. Mice given the drug were later able to father healthy pups, the study said.
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Male Birth Control Stopped Sperm In Mice, Study Found More

Male Birth Control Stopped Sperm In Mice, Study Found

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  • It's rigged (Score:5, Interesting)

    by peterww ( 6558522 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2023 @08:10AM (#63294949)

    They want us to pay monthly for a pill. But there's already a proven alternative to vasectomy that is cheap, effective, and reversible. But we aren't allowed to have it.

    Vasalgel (https://www.parsemus.org/humanhealth/vasalgel-male-contraceptive/) has been around for two decades. It was developed in India, where it's been used on thousands of men with no issue.

    But nobody has paid for the ridiculously expensive FDA process, because there's no money in a $10 one-time reversible birth control. So we aren't allowed to use it in the USA. But you can go to India and get it.

    • Re: It's rigged (Score:4, Informative)

      by blahbooboo ( 839709 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2023 @09:16AM (#63295133)
      Interesting. this article contradicts part of what you say⦠itâ(TM)s not been around decades as was still under trials 4 years ago. https://www.vasectomy.com/arti... [vasectomy.com]

      • This article from 2011 explains the origins. The IP was bought and turned into Vasalgel. https://www.wired.com/2011/04/... [wired.com]

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Moryath ( 553296 )

          The IP was bought and turned into Vasalgel

          It was developed in India, where it's been used on thousands of men with no issue. - You're either being outright false or deliberately misleading. The product never completed clinical trials in India. [vox.com] They couldn't get enough men to participate in the human trials sequence. [archive.org]

          Parsemus Foundation (the USA holder of the Vasalgel patents) switched to a new company for development last year. [parsemus.org]

          I personally suspect that, much like how it's difficult to get men to admi

          • Why do think it's difficult to get men to admit they got a vasectomy? Everyone I knew that got one bragged about it. It's not like they got their dick cut off.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by rgmoore ( 133276 )

              Everyone I knew that got one bragged about it.

              No. You know some people around you got vasectomies because they bragged about it. But if the only way you know about it is because they bragged, you'll never know about anyone who got one but was so embarrassed they don't want to talk about it.

          • I would suspect quite the opposite, clearly you would want the men you gave the contraceptive to be guaranteed to have sex with fertile (aka probably young) females. We are doing for science darling. Also if those females did get pregnant you would have to pay for the resulting children, or abortions which is still unacceptable to a lot of people.

            But don't let me stop you justifying your belief that society is "machismo- and misogyny-infested" further by assuming its "machismo- and misogyny-infested" and d

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by jonadab ( 583620 )
            I think it's more that men tend to be squeamish about having any kind of surgery on their genitalia, especially anything inside the scrotum. You can say "temporary" and "reversible" all day long, but as soon as they find out somebody is going to make an incision "down there", the hackles go up, especially among people who don't entirely trust the medical system, which is a fairly common thing in America. "But what if they make a mistake and cut something they're not supposed to?" [Hands move to cover gro

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by rgmoore ( 133276 )

              I never got the story on why birth control pills weren't doing the job

              Hormonal contraceptives can have unpleasant side effects, and they are sometimes bad enough for women to stop taking them. This is one of the big reasons there's a constant search for new methods of birth control; there are problems with every existing method that mean people sometimes can't or don't want to use them. The more available methods there are, the more likely people are to be able to find a method that is acceptable to them.

    • You know damn well it wouldn’t cost $10 in this country. Like dental work and insulin it would be cheaper flying round trip to India for the procedure than paying out of pocket here. If I need a dental implant it’s cheaper to have it done on a week long vacation in Spain.

    • They want us to pay monthly for a pill. But there's already a proven alternative to vasectomy that is cheap, effective, and reversible. But we aren't allowed to have it.

      Vasalgel (https://www.parsemus.org/humanhealth/vasalgel-male-contraceptive/) has been around for two decades. It was developed in India, where it's been used on thousands of men with no issue.

      But nobody has paid for the ridiculously expensive FDA process, because there's no money in a $10 one-time reversible birth control. So we aren't allowed to use it in the USA. But you can go to India and get it.

      It's all moot. No woman is going to take your word for it...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by La Gris ( 531858 )

        It's all moot. No woman is going to take your word for it...

        This male contraception also responds to a reality of our modern societies, where having sexual relations without the responsibilities and duties associated with conceiving and raising a child is legitimate.

        Men in this case can then protect themselves from becoming fathers without having intended it.

        Women have been able to do this for a long time and it is certainly more important because we dedicate our whole body to it for months and years.

        I find it fair, that men have access to the choice not to conceive

        • Women have been able to do this for a long time and it is certainly more important because we dedicate our whole body to it for months and years

          While true, women dedicate more, the vast majority of the work done raising a child properly is not pregnancy its the rest of your life that I fell I am morally obliged and till 18 that you are legally obliged to look after your child. Sure there are deadbeats that will do a runner, but for the rest the men that have some ethics having a child is a huge investment as well.

          I for one would welcome a contraceptive that means I don't have to trust the woman either. Then again I am not into having sex with women

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by rgmoore ( 133276 )

            Then again I am not into having sex with women I don't know and trust intimately either so its less of an issue.

            The problem, of course, is that you can never trust someone 100%, and a pregnancy is a hell of a way to discover the limit of your trust.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Iamthecheese ( 1264298 )
        It's protection against women who want to become pregnant without the consent of their sexual partners.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by avandesande ( 143899 )
      I also heard that posting on Slashdot is a proven contraceptive.

  • So what's the plan here? Put it in bigmacs and solve obesity in the long term?

  • Dual market (Score:4, Funny)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2023 @08:11AM (#63294961)

    "A drug aimed at treating eyes" .. Well that's ingenious .. they can sell it to people who need birth control and also to people going blind from masturbation.

  • Call it Plan A (Score:3)

    by BeepBoopBeep ( 7930446 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2023 @08:20AM (#63294981)
    Get it? Plan A fails, move to Plan B

    • This is actually a perfect marketing strategy. Don't sell it to men, sell it to women. sell it over the counter in multi-packs and in singles from vending machines in women's washrooms. If a woman decides she wants to take a dude home and raw dog it then she can just have him pop the pill in front of her long enough before they head to her place. As an added bonus a woman handing the pill to a guy and telling him to take it would be an actual, physical, literal, informed consent to unprotected sex later in

      • That's not how consent works. That would be like saying because she goes home with you, you automatically get to fuck her. She still gets to change her mind.

        • If she says something along the lines of ...

          'I'm thinking that we might wanna fuck later, and I like it when a guy cums in me; take this PlanA pill now and if we end up back at my place later then we don't need to use a condom'...

          That will be the form of consent that I bet is going to occur 90% of the times that a woman makes the decision that she wants a cream pie to finish her night out.

          Women have agency, the right to control what happens with their bodies, and I'm pretty damn sure that every woman I know

  • Here come the STDs (Score:3, Insightful)

    by RightwingNutjob ( 1302813 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2023 @08:21AM (#63294983)

    While every contraceptive strategy has its upsides and downsides, the glaring one for this one is that it may very well have the effect of enabling more casual sex without condoms.

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by Black Parrot ( 19622 )

      Mrs. Bobbit had a simple solution for both.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I dunno - that seems a trifle puritanical for my taste.

      People will always want to have sex with each other. People don't want babies appearing unless they specifically planned them. They also don't want STIs.

      If someone's careful enough to take a contraceptive, you can surely expect they're careful enough to avoid STIs. Sure, some won't and will pass along STIs, but they were probably going to do that anyway.

      • "I dunno - that seems a trifle puritanical for my taste."

        Did you see who you were replying to, the guys name is rightwingnutjob. Of course it's going to be puritanical holier than thou bullshit.

    • Oh no people are having sex without procreation!

      • Most sex happens without procreation, cupcake. Most sex also doesn't spread disease. The question is whether the people who *do* spread disease will spread more of it by forgoing condoms in favor of male contraception.

        I realize it's difficult for a liberal to understand that every person isn't interchangeable, but different people have different circumstances and not all statements apply universally to everyone, or even to everyone who shares some superficial resemblance to a stereotype.

    • While every contraceptive strategy has its upsides and downsides, the glaring one for this one is that it may very well have the effect of enabling more casual sex without condoms.

      Kind of like how the HPV vaccine encourages promiscuity, amirite?

      • No. Kinda like "you don't have to wear a condom..." may encourage some people to stop listening at the "..." and not wear a condom.

        • Maybe they don't wear a condom because it is like getting a shot of novocaine in your penis.

          • Maybe they don't wear a condom because it is like getting a shot of novocaine in your penis.

            This. While most of us have used them as needed, it's the old taking a shower in a raincoat meme. And while it shouldn't be as much of an issue for women, I know of none who like it, much less prefer it.

            • This. While most of us have used them as needed, it's the old taking a shower in a raincoat meme. And while it shouldn't be as much of an issue for women, I know of none who like it, much less prefer it.

              Yep, kinda like eating a steak with one on your tongue....it's like "why bother"?

              Just no sensation....

    • While every contraceptive strategy has its upsides and downsides, the glaring one for this one is that it may very well have the effect of enabling more casual sex without condoms.

      Oh, sure. Women will definitely believe guys who claim they're taking the pill. Not.

    • I mean it's only a matter of time before God strikes us all down right?

      Look condoms break, girls sometimes lie about being on birth control and even when they're not female birth control sometimes has nasty side effects and even in a committed relationship you might want to turn off the baby factory for a while.

      This is a good thing overall for people. The only interesting part is going to be what it's going to do to our already declining birth rate. I would expect it to cut it at least another 25% a

  • "Who's going to buy a diet pill that makes you go blind?"
    "We'll let marketing worry about that!"

    There's a use for everything, if only you can find it.

  • It's called anabolic steroids. Or testosterone replacement therapy.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by thomn8r ( 635504 )
      This is /. - birth control is the very last thing this demographic needs to worry about.

  • Chelsea Handler has pretty much the same effect.

    It's been proven in lab tests.

  • "A man puts it in his shoe and it makes him limp."

    -Johnny Carson

  • Seriously, woman always complained about men not doing their part for birth control and why it's their responsibility. If we have something with minimum side effects that let's us easily control it like the pill for woman, lot less pregnancies, lot less trapped men. Probably more STDs as well unfortunately.

  • Everyone's talking about this being made into a pill, but right now, it's injected. That would presumably be a key reason it's so fast-acting.

    It might not even be possible to put into a pill you swallow if the digestive system damages the drug in some way, or it won't absorb quickly enough.

  • Contraception for men is a losing proposition. It only makes sense in a monogamous committed relationship. Anywhere else, the man is not the one whose life will be changed by pregnancy, and therefore has little incentive to get the "cure," and plenty of incentive to lie about it.

    Sorry, but contraception has fundamentally got to be a woman's responsibility.

    • Contraception for men is a losing proposition. It only makes sense in a monogamous committed relationship. Anywhere else, the man is not the one whose life will be changed by pregnancy, and therefore has little incentive to get the "cure," and plenty of incentive to lie about it.

      Sorry, but contraception has fundamentally got to be a woman's responsibility.

      That just isn't true. Sometimes women will say they're on the pill but really aren't, or they don't follow the instructions closely enough and reduce its effectiveness. Or sometimes they just do crazy shit like poke holes in condoms. Sometimes accidents happen and once it happens, you as a man have no say what happens to a fetus. Now you have a secondary line of defense to prevent conception so that you can be sure you won't be in that situation.

    • Contraception for women is for women's benefit. Contraception for men is for men's benefit.

    • Re:insanity (Score:5, Insightful)

      by organgtool ( 966989 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2023 @02:27PM (#63296185)

      Anywhere else, the man is not the one whose life will be changed by pregnancy

      You would likely think otherwise if you were ordered to pay 18 years of child support for a child you had no intention of conceiving.

      Sorry, but contraception has fundamentally got to be a woman's responsibility.

      Conception has consequences for all parties involved and therefore all parties are responsible for doing whatever they can to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

    • Really? Your argument is that:

      a) Men should not take co-responsibility or solo responsibility for contraception

      Because:

      b) Fatherhood does not affect men or their life.

      Really?

  • I foresee the following problems in using this drug:
    1. catching the household mice in order to inject them.
    2. future generations of mice will demand reparations and hire hungry shark lawyers.
    3. also possibly the Sperm Union will sue because this is racist.

  • I had a vasectomy last year in May. Took maybe 15 minutes. Just had a local anaesthetic. The most complicated part was shaving my scrotum! I visited my local massive Chemist (pharmacy) and was googling "Best way to shave balls" whilst in their male grooming aisle

    I'm 51, and I have fathered a number of children. I'm done reproducing, and now I also can't have any accidents.

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