Male Birth Control, India phase 2 trial will be finished soon | |
In India phase 2 trial will be finished in about a month. This article implies that FDA approval will be quite quick. Quote: A Guy Thing?
By Maggie Koerth-Baker for MSN Health & Fitness
Freelance
Male birth control products are getting closer to market—really—but the question remains if men will use them.
Signing up for the draft, twisting the lids off pickle jars, putting the toilet seat down—the standard list of manly responsibilities hasn’t changed much since your grandfather was in short pants. Coincidentally, neither have guys’ options for safer sex. Within the next 10 to 12 years, though, new methods of birth control will make uncomfortable condoms and irreversible vasectomies a thing of the past and put men more firmly in control of their own fertility.
Scientists have been toying with male birth control since at least the 1970s. Nearly as old are the periodic flurries of breathless news stories promising that said miracle pills will arrive at your local pharmacy within a few years. Even some of the more popular women’s magazines have practically sworn off the story until the development is more substantive than just another tease from R & D folks.
So what gives? Why has it been so darn difficult to master the male reproductive system?
One of the main problems is biological. When research into male contraception first began, the scientists working on it were heavily influenced by the female pill—which works by raising estrogen levels and preventing the release of eggs. Because of this, scientists started out trying to control male fertility in a similar way, by adjusting the levels of testosterone to block sperm production.
Turns out, this was easier dreamed than done. The process of finding a workable hormone combination took a lot longer than anyone had expected and, along the way, some frustrated researchers turned their attention away from hormones altogether, further setting back the timetable.
The second problem is a bit more complicated. Financial support for this kind of research has never been very strong. And experts like Elaine Lissner, president of the Male Contraception Information Project, say that public and individual attitudes are at the heart of the cash crunch.
“Up until maybe 10 or 15 years ago, guys were sort of, ‘You ‘ain’t touching my private parts,’ ” she says. Most governments and pharmaceutical companies didn’t see any reason to bother pouring limited resources into a product the public wasn’t interested in.
A Change in Attitudes?
But Lissner and others say that men’s attitudes have changed, particularly as Generation X-ers came face to face with fatherhood. Cord Brinkman, a single 23-year-old from Kansas City, Mo., says male contraception is appealing because it represents a way to even up the reproductive playing field. “Men are legally and financially responsible for any children they father,” he says, “but there are few options available for men who wish to avoid that.”
Male contraception proponents also cite a survey published in the journal Human Reproduction in December 2004. Collecting data from about 9,000 men in eight different countries, the study found that 55 percent would be interested in hormonally based birth control methods. Lissner hopes this slim majority will convince governments to pour more cash into research.
On the other hand, if purse holders don’t believe that male contraception is worth funding, then the concept could remain in limbo indefinitely. “The science is there,” Lissner says, “but it’s like you have a bunch of race horses at the starting gate and you’re just feeding them a bit of hay. You can’t expect them to get anywhere on that.”
A caution: Public interest might not be as strong as the Human Reproduction survey would indicate—at least, not in the United States. According to a new MSN-Zogby poll, only 13 percent of American men said they would use it. Among both genders, 36 percent of American adults said their “current method is fine” and approximately another one-third said they would wait a year before using any new male birth control product.
Anecdotally, it is fair to speculate there’s also a lot of apathy. Cord Brinkman might be excited about male birth control himself, but he says most of his friends haven’t thought about it and don’t seem to care.
The Research Pipeline
Troubles with funding and consumer interest aside, there are several methods of male birth control that indeed are working their way through the research pipeline. Divided into two broad categories—hormonally based and everything else—there are at least a dozen methods floating around. Here are the promising developments:
Method: Hormonal.
How It Works: The latest, and most successful, version involves careful dosages of two different hormones. The first is progesterone, a chemical that also is a big player in most female birth control pills. Increasing a guy’s progesterone levels will shut off sperm production, but also leads to awkward side effects—like breast growth. Regular doses of testosterone counteract this.
It’s taken under the skin. According to researcher Regine Sitruk-Ware, the Population Council Center for Biomedical Research is working on a way to deliver the necessary doses in one or two yearly implants.
Likelihood You’ll Live to See It: High. Hormonal birth control has been in the works for a long time. A pharmaceutical company called Organon had a version in the final stages of clinical trials last year, but opted to drop it after the delivery method (implant and regular injections) proved too inconvenient.
Method: RISUG.
How It Works: Essentially a reversible vasectomy, the Reversible Inhibition of Sperm Under Guidance system involves one simple injection into the vas deferens, the tube that sperm travel through on their way from the testes to the urethra. The shot delivers a dose of a compound that blocks up the tube and breaks apart the cell membranes of any sperm that try to sneak past.
Likelihood You’ll Live to See It: Very high. RISUG is set to begin Phase III clinical trials in India this month. If it passes those, the only thing left in the way is approval by the FDA.
Method: Dry orgasm pill.
How It Works: Just like it sounds, the dry orgasm pill would chemically prevent the involuntary muscle movements that get sperm and the rest of the ingredients of semen into (and out of) the urethra. According to Kirsten Thompson of the Male Contraception Coalition, because this method prevents the passage of bodily fluids it has the potential to replace the condom—preventing both pregnancy and STD exchange.
Likelihood You’ll Live to See It: Mid to low. The basics of the pill were only discovered in November 2006. This method still has a long way to go before it even gets to clinical trials.
Maggie Koerth-Baker’s work has appeared in AARP magazine, The Associated Press and Health magazine. | Link.
It's possible to comment here at the source article.
~ A man needs a woman like a lion needs a stove. ~
~ Women deserve only equal opportunity, not equal outcomes. ~
~ Men are not collectively "guilty" of anything. ~
~ Never needing to be pregnant is a blessing. ~
~ Feminist ideology “men have to respect women, but women have no reason to respect men” ~
~ Everybody makes choices, and nobody should be entitled to special treatment because of those choices.
Equal results based on unequal treatment amounts to no kind of equality at all. ~
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13th-March-2007
