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Reliable Male Contraceptive In the Works
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."
however their recent child support filings may lend a clue.
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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...
And this story was posted to /. why?
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.
I didn't found something funny to put here.
But where is the male morning after pill?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
When researchers don't address a loss of a 3rd of their sample they are not doing their job. Something is fishy from that end.
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).
Me too. Keep a picture of Janet Reno in your wallet.
That's as close to a 100% effective prophylactic as you can get.
Less Chinese being born, less tech jobs can be outsourced to China.
It's not the medical relevance - it's economy.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
"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.
It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.
So do I, but that's unfortunately no solution for the heterosexuals amongst us.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
"Don't sweat it, babe, I've had the injection. Honest."
"Oh, OK, then. On you go."
It's called Neem 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.
Next week, we'll talk about olive leaf extract...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
Planned Parenthood says so. Citation provided.
:-)
Birth control is far more complicated statistically than people think.
Personally, sign me up for this: RISUG
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!
Bobb9000 - raised by the wolves,
Oxford education as phrased by the wolves.
If you choose to look at failure rates on a per-encounter basis rather than a per-year basis, then yes, but failure rates for contraceptives are almost always put in terms of conceptions per year.
Bobb9000 - raised by the wolves,
Oxford education as phrased by the wolves.
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!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
My wife had a Mirena inserted four years ago. She had a few days of cramping. After that things have been fine. She also used to have terrible cramping, bleeding, and mood swings related to her period. All of that has greatly reduced as well. Also she has not gained weight like she did on an oral contraceptive (I've already mentioned the improvement of the mood swings on this IUD, the pill was the opposite). There are some risks, ask a doctor or read the warnings. The only downside during the act is that in some cases the man can feel a poke from the string, personally I would not call it painful and it is a good indication that we are going too deep and about to hurt her so it's actually a positive.
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.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
... 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!!
My bicyles
I think the issue is that not *all* men like to build machines, and not *all* women want to care for people. They may tend to distribute themselves that way statistically, but that doesn't mean there aren't many on each side who feel differently.
I agree that we shouldn't try so very hard to force people into things, but the fact is that we've had a long history where people either weren't allowed to try or were shunned for trying to do a job that didn't fit their "gender role". It makes some sense to try to counteract that cultural trend. It can, of course, and often has, been taken too far.
The birth control pill is known to have an effect on some women's moods and personality. I don't think that that even comes close to an justification for feminism being basically just women on drugs. Changes in life values are not a typical result. Messing with anyone's hormones can be a problem, but it's an issue of acceptable risk and harm. Being able to control fertility is crucial the the kind of society and environment I want to live in. I think many women feel the same.
Bobb9000 - raised by the wolves,
Oxford education as phrased by the wolves.
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.
Gasoline on a fire will actually put it out if you throw enough on that the liquid gasoline smothers the fire before it becomes gaseous and is ignited in air. But I suspect that you meant that oestrogen make prostate cancer grow rapidly - that is untrue and in fact oestrogen used to be used as a treatment for prostate cancer but it had undesirable side effects.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostate_cancer#Prevention has more info.
The wrong levels of testosterone (high or low) will indeed make one more emotionally volatile and have other bad effects. Injecting testosterone will lower natural production and can make the testes change noticeably. Testosterone injection is intra-muscular and I would expect that the reason most users complain is that 1) they puncture the skin too slowly (it stretches and hurts) rather than using a controlled jab, and 2) they inject too quickly. Liquid testosterone is about the consistency of liquid honey... forcing that into a bunch of muscle fibres at a high rate probably damages them, and 3) because it is thick you use a fairly large diameter needle. Testosterone is available in pill form but it is apparently harder on the liver to take it this way.
Testosterone deficiency can be caused by a lot of things, including sleep apnea which can screw up your endocrine system in general - if one snores a lot it may be worth getting checked out. OTOH exercise can increase natural levels.
I am not a doctor.
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
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).
There's no reason you can't use a condom even though she's on the pill.
If you don't want kids, it's your responsibility to make sure. If she doesn't want kids, it's her responsiblity. Two complimentary methods are better than one. 3 are even better. I've got a sibling that my mom claims made it past 2 forms of birth control, and at least one form was not suseptible to user error.
Maybe it's just me (being one of 7 children, and my parents claim that we all made it past at least one form of birth control), but I'm paranoid. And you know what? I didn't have my first until my wife & I were ready.