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Male Birth Control Shot Found Effective (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the BBC:
A hormone injection has been shown to be a safe and effective method of contraception -- for men. U.S. researchers say the jab was almost 96% effective in tests on around 270 men who were using it, with four pregnancies among their partners. However, a relatively high number developed side effects, including acne and mood disorders... Because men constantly produce sperm, high levels of hormones are needed to reduce levels from the normal sperm count of over 15 million per milliliter to under one million/ml.
One professor pointed out that despite the side effects, "75% of the men who took part in the trial would be willing to use this method of contraception again."
One professor pointed out that despite the side effects, "75% of the men who took part in the trial would be willing to use this method of contraception again."
Use it on fags, to stop spreading that mutation.
and taking into account the risks (unwanted pregnancy) i'd say 96% effectiveness is really, really horrible.
Unless i'm mistaken in my interpretation of statistics, this is a complete failure. In this case, i'd like to know the chance that intercourse will lead to pregnangy, using this method (and only this method)
Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
That means I'd have 14 babies a year! Not effective at a!!
This is probably some of the least relevant news I've seen here, and that's really saying something.
I'm just waiting for someone to wave the "techies are virgin beardos" flag.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
"96% effective in tests on around 270 men who were using it, with four pregnancies among their partners."
0.96 * 270 ~= 259 which leaves 11 non-successful cases, so why the 4 pregnancies?
I'm almost 40 now and we have one kid, and I don't want more. I'm thinking about vasectomy, any experiences here?
The sexual liberation movement has finally succeeded, after half a century of effort.
Ezekiel 23:20
On one hand, that's going to end global warming, but on the other hand it does that by ending the human race. Oh well. Nothing we can do about it now.
The Worlds press is carrying this story but almost all have missed that the trial has been stopped due to unnacceptable side-effects
Of the 300+ patients,
- 1 committed suicide
- 1 attempted suicide
- many being treated for clinical depression
- 8 were left infertile a year after stopping the drug.
75% may be willing to continue, but not at that cost
So haven't we learned from the pill that fucking with a body's hormone levels has a certain tendency to lead to bad things and that it gets worse at higher levels?
Is the intention here to hit equality by making men as miserable as women?
As with most other birth control methods, the effectiveness is measured "per year using only that method." While this might be relevant to the traditional female pill - which is either going to work or not in any given month no matter how many sperm are swimming around inside her as long as that number is above zero - it's not relevant at all to male contraceptives, which should be measured differently. Otherwise, you have a totally uncontrolled variable in the form of frequency of sex as well as the secondary uncontrolled variable of how fertile the woman is at that particular point in her cycle. The traditional measurement isn't even all that good for some female contraceptives.
Male infertility is usually defined as being below some arbitrary cutoff of sperm count. However, sperm count rarely drops all the way to zero, unless with a vasectomy, and sometimes even then! However, even "infertile" men still produce many sperm and so, in principle, could cause a pregnancy. So the real useful statistics here would be what the average sperm count is and the usual statistical friends (standard deviation, etc.) as well as how that compares to typical men as well as those considered clinically infertile.
There's certainly no reporting bias here - among 270 men in the trials, 11 simply didn't reach the chosen threshold of 1/15th normal sperm count in six months, 8 didn't recover within a year after stopping the treatment, 20 dropped out because of side effects while many more reported them (to the degree they stopped taking on new participants - back in 2011), 4 achieved pregnancies within a year while under the chosen threshold. All durations reported are in "up to" form, and the fertility of their partners was not indicated (around 10% have issues while trying, per womenshealth.gov). Only 66-69 of them (by somebody's rounding) stated they would refuse to ever attempt the method again, "so perhaps the side-effects weren't all that bad after all" according to Alan Pacey (whose connection to the study was left unclear). It's unclear if this was before or after they learned of how well other subjects did. The article also carefully describes the women only as "partners", despite heterosexuality being quite relevant to the study. The journalist went with "safe and effective", quoting "extremely effective" also from Allan Pacey, while not addressing the "need for ... reversible" part. I'm mildly curious where the "safe" came from.
The worst part? Compared to regularly used hormonal treatments for women, this probably is "safe".
The Worlds press is carrying this story but almost all have missed that the trial has been stopped due to unnacceptable side-effects Of the 300+ patients, - 1 committed suicide - 1 attempted suicide - many being treated for clinical depression - 8 were left infertile a year after stopping the drug.
75% may be willing to continue, but not at that cost
Uh, before you continue to bash this, compare and contrast the results found here with pretty much any other drug that has been approved and on the market today.
It's downright scary what regulatory agencies find acceptable for the "greater good".
And that's in a controlled setting. Imagine what would happen in the real world where thousands of men kill themselves every single month.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
What kind of clown wrote that article anyway? This crazy hormone shot is just as unsafe as birth-control pills, and both should be avoided. Use other means of contraception.
We're nerds, we have natural birth control. The majority are introverted, fat, ugly, or deemed unfit for a long term relationship for one reason or another. That's birth control enough. It would be a minor miracle to have sex let alone be put in a situation where birth control was a topic of discussion with a significant other. This article belongs in Vogue or G.Q. not Slashdot.
However, a relatively high number developed side effects
It makes your dick fall off
... the Barbara Streisand's picture jokes are getting old.
"researchers say the jab was almost 96% effective in tests"
Well, shit, that's four pregnancies for every hundred copulations; I wouldn't call a four-percent failure rate "effective". I'd call it a sure thing. It's like Russian Roulette with orgasms.
I mean, if an airplane had a "successful" landing rate of 96%, would you fly on it?
To put it another way, would you eat at a restaurant where four out of every hundred people got sick from the food? I wouldn't.
A 4% failure rate is nothing to brag about. It's better than condoms (12%) but you're still going to be making babies left and right.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Hormons suck for male birth control.
Support some real options here:
http://www.newmalecontraceptio...
1 suicide within the trial? That is a success. 100% contraception success.
This one will sure not be able to procreate anymore.
So guy and girl are on their third date, they're on the cusp of sex and the girl says she's not on the pill and the guy says "It's OK, I'm on the shot".
Does she believe him? I'm guessing no, she doesn't, and this is what kills a "male pill" from a usage perspective. It's the women who get pregnant and ultimately bear the risk of pregnancy so what will make them believe a guy is telling the truth?
Some might say a vasectomy is the same thing, but most men don't get one until they're older and have had kids, so the verisimilitude of a 40-something guy saying he's had a vasectomy is much higher, especially if his partner is a woman of a similar background who may have been married.
2cc of 90% ethanol in each testicle, guaranteed effective. A few side effects...
Imagine what would happen in the real world where thousands of men kill themselves every single month.
What, and then they resurrect themselves for next month?
s/every single/per/
Vasectomies don't sound that bad but my nether regions cringe just thinking about it. I'd rather have a shot. In the arm!
At the time she went on birth control, my wife had undiagnosed celiac disease on top of the MTHFR C677T defect. Her methyation cycle has never been the same since. She’s an extreme case, but messing with your hormones is risky for anyone.
Some side effects may include a slight limp,, softening of the spinal column, voice change, and overbearing sense of control exhibited by your partner. WARNING! DO NOT CONFUSE MALE BIRTH CONTROL KIT WITH DO IT YOURSELF HOME GENDER IDENTIFICATION KIT as they are both located on the same isle of your local planned parenthood.
...has a 96% success rate.
So I can see how being utterly manic depressant and having pimples would be a good birth control.
In females, hormonal birth control mostly works by tricking the body into thinking it's already pregnant. For humans, it's a significant evolutionary advantage not to become double or triple pregnant, so the body does most of the work for you. It's fairly "natural" because you're basically just reproducing a situation that the female body is designed for.
For males, though, there's no evolutionary reason to ever stop producing sperm. So any cocktail of hormones that shuts off fertility in males has not been through those same millions of years of QA. So I would want to see at least a couple more decades of testing on this before injecting it into my body.
Experience has taught me to be very skeptical of the pharmaceutical industry, so I also can't help but wonder if researchers are saying it's safe only because they, for example, consider a 15% occurrence of male breast enlargement and/or lactation an acceptable side effect.
...compared to constantly messing with hormones:
https://www.parsemusfoundation.org/projects/vasalgel/
Avoid getting yourself vaccinated. Avoid getting your kids vaccinated. There is no safe level of mercury or fluoride or any of the other crap in this vaccines, like Polio in California right now.
Sex is an act with a defined purpose, well its actually two fold, its first to procreate and second to strengthen and forge the bond between the patriarch and matriarch of the family.
For people who realize that experience and purpose is subjective, sex can actually be, you know, fun.
Also discovered in the study that 4 women were cheating on their partners.
So the shot prevents sperm production, causes acne and mood disorders... so it makes you female?
that's way better than where i thought it would be.
Phase 2
Traditionally, the problem with male pills has not been that they lack effectiveness, but that they have side effects that are considered unacceptable. One of the more common side-effects is that the damn things are too effective, as in - for some cases - they cause long-term of possibly permanent sterility
> The first part was that people want to have sex
At times I may want to punch someone in the nose. I can choose not to. I choose not to be controlled by every impulse, because I don't care for the consequences and because it is wrong to punch people in the nose. I wanted to fuck my girlfriend, I chose to wait and make love to my wife instead.
My daughter was around 18 months old when she learned that it was "viable" for her to do something other than exactly what she felt like doing at that moment.
I'd rather not have anyone screwing around with my endocrine system; thanks but no thanks. I'll find some other way.
Most of you are worthless.
From the article: ..so for one in 67 people it fails. Thats WAY too high to be described as "effective".
"around 270 men who were using it, with four pregnancies among their partners...."
"Eight men had not recovered their normal sperm counts a year after the study ended.....
The researchers stopped taking on new participants in 2011 after concerns were raised about side effects such as depression and other mood disorders, as well as muscle pain and acne.
Such side effects caused 20 men to drop out of the study and were reported by many others,"
That doesn't sound like "safe" to me.
It also misses the bigger picture. How many women are going to trust that the guy they just met at the bar is telling the truth when he says he got the male birth control shot? Exactly. Nearly all women are going to insist on some other form of birth control that they can be sure of, making this a secondary form of birth control at best (at worst it'll be a way for guys who never got the shot to trick gullible females into having unprotected sex).
Even if this were 100% safe, the only real-world use this would see is among males wishing to avoid a paternity suit (or at least diminish the odds of one being successful). There might be some married couples where the female can accompany the male to the doctor's office to make sure he actually got the shot. But those cases would be better served with a vasectomy.
Homeopathy, where more than 15 million/mL becomes less than 1 million/mL (oblig. XKCD).
The choice isn't "be gay or not" it's "choose who you have sex with."
People get pretty upset when they can't choose their sex partners and for good reason.
I wish they would mention this in the MSM article. Source: https://www.endocrine.org/news...
The hormones that were injected are Norethisterone enanthate and Testosterone undecanoate.
It's been well known in bodybuilding circles that anabolic steroids make you infertile. I'm curious if they were checking the blood work of these guys.
For the men who were still sterile afterwards, i'm wondering if they referred them to an endocrinologist. A round of injection the folicle stimulating hormone may resolve their low sperm counts.
Make no mistake about it gentlemen, this male "birth control" is very much a cocktail of anabolic steroids. It sounds like a few of the guys very much had "negative" roid experiences.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/30/health/male-birth-control/index.html
"The study, co-sponsored by the United Nations and published Thursday in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, tested the safety and effectiveness of a contraceptive shot in 320 healthy men in monogamous relationships with female partners. Conducted at health centers around the world, enrollment began on a rolling basis in September 2008."
"The researchers discovered that the shot effectively held the sperm count at 1 million per milliliter or less within 24 weeks for 274 of the participants. The contraceptive method was effective in nearly 96% of continuing users."
They play on words here by saying "continuing users" rather than taking it as a part of the whole study group. If you look at the 274 as part of the whole group of 320, the effectiveness drops to 85%. If they cant continue using the shot due to side effects, they are not a continuing user but that also means that the shot did not have the desired effects on them.
"However, due to side effects, particularly depression and other mood disorders, the researchers decided in March 2011 to stop the study earlier than planned, with the final participants completing in 2012.However, due to side effects, particularly depression and other mood disorders, the researchers decided in March 2011 to stop the study earlier than planned, with the final participants completing in 2012."
""It is possible that the fluctuations in the circulating progestin following bimonthly injections could have resulted in the reported or observed mood swings, such as occurs in women, whether on a hormonal contraceptive or not," Colvard speculated.
Overall, 20 men dropped out early due to side effects. A total of 1,491 adverse events were reported by participants, including injection site pain, muscle pain, increased libido and acne. The researchers say that nearly 39% of these symptoms -- including one death by suicide -- were unrelated to the shots."
"After the shots stopped, most of the men returned to fertility during a recovery period."
"Still, there were problems. After 52 weeks in recovery, eight participants had not returned to fertility. The researchers continued to follow these men individually, and five eventually regained normal sperm counts over a longer period of time. One volunteer did not fully recover within four years, though he did "partially recover, so whether he is actually fertile is not known," Colvard said."
"Despite the side effects of the male birth control shot, more than 75% of participants reported being willing to use this method of contraception at the conclusion of the study. Cohen believes at least part of the reason for this is that they were getting testosterone."
""Testosterone makes men feel pretty good," Cohen said. "Testosterone is not a stimulant per se, but it is a steroid, and like a lot of steroids, it can give you a boost of energy. It can give you a boost of muscle mass. It can help with weight loss. It can help with mentation," or mental activity.
Lloyd believes that if 75% of the men said they'd be interested in getting the shot if it were available, there's real interest in the product. "That's unbelievable. That's fabulous. I'm very very impressed with that number," she said."
They are marketing this to men as a "feel good" shot that will help you "boost muscle mass, help with weight loss and aide in mentation". They are pitching this to men as a panacea for all their ailments and are surprised when 75% of them are like "hell yea DR Bob, gimme a shot of that feel good juice"
"Cohen, who says he he sees patients who face infertility or other hormonal problems, worries about the safety of this method. "Let's just say, when I read it, I was highly alarmed," he said, explaining that putting men on testosterone who have normal testosterone levels is not safe and amounts to a violation of the "ethical clinical practice guidelines.""
""We're talking about young people, and
Also found to assist in growing a vagina.
However, a relatively high number developed side effects, including acne and mood disorder
Which sounds about the same as the female birth control pill. Of course the set of side effects seem to vary depending on _which_ pill, but in the case of my wife the "mood disorders" part seems to apply to all of them...
the 4% that got their partners pregnant, are they sure they were the ones who got their partners pregnant?
Those of us who read slashdot however have a method that is 100% effective (no sex!). ;-)
People have sex to enjoy themselves. Some in a relationship, some outside of it. You do not get the right to say what are acceptable reasons to have sex.
If it is a free lifestyle choice, such discriminatory actions (however subjectively odious) comes under freedom of speech, religion, etc..
Religious affiliation is a free lifestyle choice (albeit one typically heavily indoctrinated at youth), and the last time I checked, the courts took a very dim view of religious discrimination. Note that there is a wide gulf between being discriminated against and not being allowed to impose your religion on others.
Do not not the power of hype to nudges to social goods. It is probably out there on YouTube somewhere, but many years ago Arsenio Hall had a nighttime TV show and did a routine about wearing condoms. It was hilarious. It was effective. It made condoms really cool (one of his lines was "Rough Riders! I turned them inside out and where two of them!").
This was one of the most effective routines ever done, right up there with the Brooke Shields anti-smoking campaign ("then he lit up a cigarette! Ugh")
Vasectomies are generally permanent. After not being connected for a while, the testes tend to shut down sperm production, so vasectomy reversals are unreliable. They're not good for the "I don't want a kid right now" phase, only the "I never want another kid" phase.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes