Male contraceptive shows promise

[xchrom]

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/341823/title/Male_contraceptive_shows_promise

HOUSTON — Guys might someday have a birth-control option that rivals the pill. Two gels applied to the skin deliver hormones that knock down a man’s sperm count, acting as a male contraceptive, researchers reported June 25 at the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting.

While women have had access to hormone-based contraceptives for decades, men have had few alternatives beyond condoms and vasectomies. In the new trial, scientists randomly assigned 99 men in the Seattle and Los Angeles areas to apply two unlabeled gels to their skin daily. Some men got gels containing testosterone and Nestorone, a synthetic hormone similar to progestin. Others got a testosterone gel and a placebo.

In all, 56 of the men completed at least 20 weeks of the regimen. By the end, 89 percent of men who got the dual hormone treatment saw their sperm counts plummet from about 15 million per cubic milliliter of ejaculate to less than 1 million. What’s more, a majority of those men made no detectable sperm at all, the researchers found.

“Less than 1 million is an arbitrary line, but it’s a threshold that we say is compatible with effective contraception,” said study coauthor Christina Wang, a physician at UCLA. “There was very effective suppression of spermatogenesis.”

[Fresh_Start]

1. something about million/cc makes this feel like a crap shoot

I realize that its low but it still feels less like control and more like 'are you feeling lucky today?'

[pnwest]

2. Utterly useless. Not one woman on this planet

is going to a) believe a guy who says he's on the pill, b) trust a man to remember to take it every day.

[xchrom]

3. ...

[Neoma]

4. One, I have 4 times in every day that I have to take different pills. I'm sure my husband can do 1.

Two, if my husband has to take pills, we'd probably coordinate the time to the same time I take pills. But I'd trust him on it either way.

I'm also pretty sure that this doesn't mean that women will stop taking birth control pills, just because guys have it too. And in these economic times, do you honestly think that everyone will want babies when they're broke? Men have vasectomies to avoid pregnancies. I'm sure a lot of them would rather have a pill.

[NickB79]

5. Let's see, I trust my wife with my life and our daughter's life

But I'll be damned if she'll trust me to use contraceptives

[pnwest]

6. Once she's asked you to do a trash run, how many

times does she have to ask you again before it gets done? This is not a flippant question, I'm dead serious. Or, please don't drink straight from the milk carton, or please throw away that empty container instead of putting it back in the cabinet. If any one of these are familiar, or any similar requests and expectations have to be "nagged" about at all in your relationship, then believe me, she will not trust that you will ascribe any importance to using a gel every day.

[xchrom]

9. How about you? You're perfect in the details of living?

Or is it only men who fall short?

[Heddi]

10. I don't nag my husband, he's a fully functional, capabable human being.

Why would someone marry another person who is incapable of doing simple tasks like putting out the garbage, or drinking from a cup, or putting empty containers into cabinets instead of the garbage?

I think you're projecting here, LibraryGi..I mean Pnwest....Not everyone is married to a moron. And not every man is a moron, and not every woman is the picture of perfection

[hedgehog]

8. A woman engaged in a casual encounter is likely to honest about being on the pill

because she would have to deal with the consequences of a pregnancy. A male can lie about his use of contraception and vanish after a one night stand.

[hedgehog]

7. What happens when a woman absorbs the hormonal cream the man applied to himself?

Exposure to unknown amounts of Testorerone and synthetic progestin. Sounds like every girl's dream!