When we hear the words ‘birth control’, most of us think of the pill or IUDs – measures women take to prevent pregnancy. But male birth control is a rapidly growing field of medical research, and recent innovations could put viable male contraceptives on pharmacy shelves within a decade.
The National Institute of Health in the US, in partnership with the nonprofit Population Council, recently presented promising research into a male birth control gel. Dr Diana Blithe, head of the NIH’s Contraceptive Development Program, has said of the early-stage trials that though scientists’ “expectation was that [the gel] would be similar to hormonal birth control pills,” the results are “much, much better than that.”
The gel is applied topically, once a day onto the shoulders, and works by decreasing sperm counts to levels low enough that pregnancy risk becomes negligible. It does so through a combination of nestorone and testosterone – similar to the pill for women.
Normal sperm counts sit at around 15-200 million sperm per mL of semen, and need to drop to less than 1 million per mL to prevent pregnancy. The NIH trials had 86% of participants achieving this threshold by 15 weeks of use; some reached it as quickly as 4 weeks.
The gel’s development represents the furthest any male birth control option has made it in terms of R&D, with researchers now in talks with the FDA about final definitive trials. And it’s not the only option in the field.
Scientists in Australia recently successfully performed ‘no scalpel vasectomies’ on some two dozen trial participants. The procedure involved injecting a temporary hydrogel into the vas deferens to act as a ‘filter’, blocking sperm from getting into the semen. Over in the UK, recent trials have shown success for a non-hormonal pill called YCT-529, which blocks an enzyme necessary for sperm production.
The Perks and Pitfalls of Male Birth Control
The demand for male birth control has been steadily growing; in the US especially so after the overturn of Roe v Wade. As Melbourne urologist Dr Nathan Lawrentschuk told ABC,
“A lot of men would like to be in the driver’s seat when it comes to…their contraception”. So what’s the hold up?
There are a few reasons. First, trying to shift the scientific field to refocus on a totally different reproductive system takes time and a lot of convincing. Second, the nature of male reproduction takes a bit more work – while female eggs are ‘produced’ at the rate of one per month, male spermatozoa are constantly churned out in millions every day.
Also, research into male birth control has been incredibly focused on avoiding unpleasant side-effects, leading to several major studies being prematurely halted when participants reported mood swings and depression (symptoms many women on the pill will be all too familiar with).
But at this point, as leading researcher Professor Robert McLachlan asserts, the science undoubtedly shows that male birth control “works perfectly well”. The real difficulty now is in money: big pharma is just not interested in funding research at the pace needed. There’s a perception that birth control is the burden of those with uteri; and female birth control works ‘well enough’ now that there’s no real need for the status quo to change.
Still, contraception norms do appear to be shifting, with surveys showing the majority of men are willing to take birth control measures should they become available. And with the latest spate of innovations, many observers are optimistic that by the 2030s, we could see male birth control options become a reality.
Cover photo by Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition on Unsplash.
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