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Why We Can't Have the Male Pill (bloomberg.com)

Posted by msmash on from the calling-'em-out dept.

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.

15 of 347 comments (clear)

  1. Hormones are nasty things to screw with... by Penguinisto · · Score: 5, Informative

    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?
    1. Re:Hormones are nasty things to screw with... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      We don't really need a pill that blocks sperm, we just need a pill that alters your DNA enough to make you fail a paternity test.

    2. Re:Hormones are nasty things to screw with... by penandpaper · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Funny that, you don't have to be the biological father to pay child support. http://clementlaw.com/child-su...

      Even if the woman lies about birth control you are still liable. http://www.kidspot.com.au/birt...?

    3. Re:Hormones are nasty things to screw with... by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Even if the woman lies about birth control you are still liable.

      Yeah - it's called being responsible. Why trust what someone else tells you?

      So if not being fooled is the fool's responsibility, why do we have laws against fraud?

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    4. Re:Hormones are nasty things to screw with... by shaitand · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And ruin sex, which is then with a rubber sex toy rather than a person. Besides that isn't responsibility it is due diligence or self-defense.

      We have birth control, morning after pills, and abortion. The argument that we can't require women to take the absolutely minimal risk associated with the morning after pill or an abortion or even carry to term if the father doesn't consent to an abortion is a weak one when we require individuals to risk death just to determine if their blood alcohol level is too high. The current system of treating a pregnant woman as the patient rather than the fetus which is 50% part of the fathers body is unjustifiable. Keeping paternity testing as taboo rather than standard and automatic procedure during pregnancy to establish fatherhood as soon as possible is unjustifiable now that it can be done early and as simply as establishing gender with a 99.9% reliable bloodtest from the mother.

      Even if you aren't willing to require minimal and reasonable levels of accommodation from women to provide something approaching equitable rights for expecting fathers, given that pro-creation is the least common motive for intercourse the father should at least have the right to waive parental responsibility while an abortion is still possible and later if the mother was negligent and didn't inform him during that time. In the case of rape the attacker should lose all related rights obviously, a man who rapes a woman has no rights to a resulting fetus and the same if a woman rapes a man and gets pregnant, she loses her rights and must go along with whatever decisions.

      Saying it is a woman's body it impacts and so it is all her decision ignores that the fetus is NOT part of her body any more than a piece of stolen jewelry she swallows. It ignores that carrying and birthing or the risks of outpatient abortion are the least of the risks, suffering, and responsibility that comes with a child. Are we really going to say it is okay for a woman to use her innate physical womb to take total control of lifelong decisions that impact another person at least as much as themselves? How can we reconcile that with the way we treat men who are even slightly assertive because women might fear the physical advantages they theoretically could take advantage of?

      Women make up about 60% of the population in the United States. They hold so much power in our society they were able to push through a constitution amendment (prohibition) that men opposed even when they didn't have suffrage. They make up 60% of the potential voters and have an even disproportionately greater representation at the polls. Politically we pretend women are disadvantaged because they have the political and social power to push that standard when in reality they hold almost all of the actual power and our policies and laws are all designed to give them all the advantages while guaranteeing no advantage can ever be given to males.

    5. Re:Hormones are nasty things to screw with... by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It is the woman's body, which is why it's her decision. Whether the developing proto-child is her body or not, it has to ride around in her body, and it's therefore her decision. There is plenty of medical legal precedent.

      It seems reasonable to me that the man should bear reduced (or even zero, depending on the case) personal financial burden if he can somehow prove that he was lied to about birth control status for the purpose of conception. But that's about as far as that reasonably goes.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  2. Fundamental problems, both physical and monetarily by IMathGood · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  3. Or, you know, the working alternative - CONDOMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    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/

    1. Re:Or, you know, the working alternative - CONDOMS by thewolfkin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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_v...

      Birth control is not just for one night stands. Sometimes wedded couples decide they have enough kids at whatever number they have and would like birth control that doesn't make the wife throw up and allows them to have sex. A LOT of married men would gladly take birth control over expensive constant buying of condoms.

      --
      Just another second banana
    2. Re:Or, you know, the working alternative - CONDOMS by ranton · · Score: 4, Informative

      Birth control is not just for one night stands. Sometimes wedded couples decide they have enough kids at whatever number they have and would like birth control that doesn't make the wife throw up and allows them to have sex. A LOT of married men would gladly take birth control over expensive constant buying of condoms.

      And they all have that option already: a vasectomy.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    3. Re:Or, you know, the working alternative - CONDOMS by William+Baric · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm guessing that for a man who is circumcised, and who already lost most of his sensitivity, a condom doesn't make much difference, but for me the condom cuts far too much sexual pleasure. I prefer masturbation (and obviously a blow job) to having sex with a condom.

      Of course, the best solution would be for society to realize that it's women who get pregnant, not men, and that it's obviously their body, their choice, and therefore their responsibility, but society doesn't like the idea that women should be responsible for their body. Society still considers that a man should be responsible for a woman's body. It's sad that in 2017 women are still considered as being unable to be responsible for anything, not even their own body.

  4. not all that different by ArylAkamov · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  5. I've heard this before by roc97007 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "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.
  6. Hate Facts. by x0ra · · Score: 3, Funny


    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.
    </mode>

    :-)

  7. Re:Because men would lie "Yeah baby, I'm on the pi by penandpaper · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Because women don't lie about being on the pill? I got some bad news for you.