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Why We Can't Have the Male Pill (bloomberg.com)
Reader joshtops shares a report: For years, headlines have promised an imminent breakthrough in male contraception. Time and again, these efforts have fallen short. Last October, for instance, researchers reported that a hormone cocktail they'd been testing curbed sperm production and prevented pregnancies. But they'd had to halt the study early because men were reporting troubling side effects, including mood changes and depression. "The joke in the field is that the male contraceptive has been five years away for the last 40 years," says John Amory, a research physician at the University of Washington School of Medicine who has been working on the challenge for two decades. A new form of male birth control would be a public-health triumph and could snag a significant piece of the contraceptive market -- which is expected to surpass $33 billion by 2023, according to research firm Global Market Insights Inc -- or possibly expand it further. In a 2002 German survey of 9,000 men in nine countries, including Brazil, France, Germany, Mexico, and the U.S., more than 55 percent of the respondents said they'd be willing to use a new form of male birth control. A later study by Johns Hopkins University estimated that the demand could yield 44 million customers in those nine countries alone. And yet major pharmaceutical companies have mostly abandoned the chase.
The Pill generally works for most women (and in some cases helps them stay 'regular'), a not-insubstantial number cannot go near the things without causing massive problems (irritability, fertility issues later down the road, etc). That said, it's fairly predictable, and you're not introducing anything more than just more hormones at the right times.
It's tougher with men, since we don't have predictable cycles to monkey with (sperm production is more or less constant until the guy is well past old age), unlike eggs (which are already present at birth), sperm is made on-demand, and various hormonal interdependencies with brain chemistry is likely way more complex.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Women have a natural state where they no longer ovulate (pregnant or breast feeding) and female birth control works by tricking their bodies into going into that natural state. The big problem with male birth control is that there is no natural state where men don't produce viable sperm. All hormonal based male birth controls force the male body into some sort of unnatural state, which always leads to unacceptable side effects. Now physical barrier based male birth control might work better but its not as profitable because those methods are typically long lasting and more permanent, so the drug companies don't get a regular kickback as you don't have to buy pills every month.
A pill doesn't solve all the problems with sex, just birth control.
A condom isn't perfect, but it's a heck of a lot better than a non-existant pill with the added benefit of preventing STDs.
I'm disappointed that the male contraceptive that basically glued the vas deferens closed but could be dissolved by another solvent hasn't taken off: https://wired.com/2011/04/ff_vasectomy/
I would think it's far more prudent (and effective) to kill one egg than a gazillion sperm.
Sounds about the same as the female pill regarding mood swings and depression, or altered personality. Anyone who has been with someone before and after they started taking birth control will know what I'm talking about.
"Vasectomies cost about $350 to $1000 — far less than surgery to sterilize a woman — and many insurance companies will cover the procedure."
How much profit do they think they'll make off these pills?
"The joke in the field is that the male contraceptive has been five years away for the last 40 years"
Did anyone else immediately think of nuclear fusion?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
If you already have a basic mechanism to stop fertility in place, it's a lot easier to trigger it on command. Specially when it is designed for external control. It is the fetus that signals the mother's body to switch to pregnancy mode. This makes it a lot easier to find and trigger the chemical pathways that will do the trick.
Males, on the other hand, do not have such mechanism, which makes this much harder to achieve without serious side-effects,
This article is pure hate fact. We all know the only reason there is no "male" birth control pill is because of the cis-gendered alt-right white nazi patriarchy. Men and women are the same and any differences only exist because of social constructs.
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Once you father a child the state OAG has you by the balls, and even if you sign a legally binding contract for child support at x dollars per month, they can come after you every three years for more for no more reason than time has passed. No requirement on the mother to prove she's capable or actually spending the money on the children neither. Staying married is only an option for some. It's cynical as heck but protection, you know, protects. You.
How do I edit my sig.
Because women don't lie about being on the pill? I got some bad news for you.
Yeah it's also cost/benefit.
If you get pregnant you're in a risky medical condition. The pill might put you at risk, but you're avoiding a different risk. For the male pill you're taking someone who is in a perfectly safe medical condition and putting them in a risky medical condition with no direct benefit to the individual.
It's a stickier ethics question than the slam dunk case for female contraceptive pills.
Absolutely agree and that is one reason I hope for a day with male BC so that I don't have to make a permanent decision like a vasectomy to take control of my own birth control.
or be in a position where the other party could be misleading them.
This is more difficult because it amounts to; "Trust no one". Being in a relationship, a healthy one at least, is built on some level of trust.
Hardly a "massive" social turbulence. The number of births where the expected father isn't the real father is somewhere in the neighborhood of 2% (Find your own sources). This wouldn't even be a blip on the radar.
No. It's been measured from 20% to 35%. There are multiple sources for this, I suggest you start with the CDC.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Female hormonal birth control can cause serious and even deadly side effects, however they are acceptable in women because Pregnancy carries far higher health risks for women, especially older ones. For males such side effects are very problematic because men don't face any additional health dangers if they do not use contraceptives
That's not how it works are all. In fact, it's somewhat worse: When the Pill got through testing, all of the side effects were considered perfectly acceptable in general. Not in a 'because pregnancy is more risky' sense, but in a flat-out 'because we do not actually give two fucks' sense...which should be a hint as to why the rules got tightened, too. (Nearly all the rounds of the FDA's rules getting tightened can be traced back to it being realized that they're fucking people over; the one exception is when it was everybody else being lax getting us a nice global panic while a paper-pusher at the FDA went "Nope!" and refused to allow Thalidomide to get approved in the US...well, for the uses wanted for it at the time. It's actually a very good cancer drug & approved for that particular use.)
We've since tightened up the rules, but since the Pill got approved before then it stays on the market even though you'd never get it through now.
It's not about asking women to trust men, it's about not asking men to trust women.
If each party can see to it on their own that they're not going to make a baby, then nobody has to take anybody's word that they're handling it on their end, and if they're both taking separate precautions the pregnancy prevention is even more effective anyway.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Hardly a "massive" social turbulence. The number of births where the expected father isn't the real father is somewhere in the neighborhood of 2% (Find your own sources). This wouldn't even be a blip on the radar.
No. It's been measured from 20% to 35%. There are multiple sources for this, I suggest you start with the CDC.
If memory serves, the higher numbers are specifically for those children for whom paternity testing is done--the 2% number is what I've seen given as predicted for what might be expected with a truly random sample, and usually gets brought up to remind people that the 20%-35% number is better understood as the percentage of men who are actually right in suspecting that the child isn't theirs.