Productive Non-Reproductive Research

Columbia News Service reporter Amy Crawford, writing in The Island Packet Online has a *very* readable article on the state of male contraception. Towards the end she asks, and answers, an important question that raised a question of my own.

Are men ready for [male contraceptives]? Definitely, say researchers. In a 2002 survey of 9,000 men on four continents, more than half said they would use male hormonal birth control. Male hormonal birth control methods appear to have lower risks of side effects than female methods, which can be dangerous for some women, according to Swerdloff.

Read the whole article here.

So! Should we say half of men surveyed on four continents said they *would* take hormonal contraceptives, or should we say half *wouldn't?* Since I tend to be pretty optimistic (though I do have my dour moments) you'd think I'd see the finding as glass-half-full. Ok, and I do think that's pretty good news considering there have been loudly and clearly stated expectations that men would *not* for maybe 50 years. So... actually don't call me optimistic yet, call me curious.

Does anyone have any idea how that 50/50 number adds up for women and hormonal contraceptives? It's not at all necessary for one sex to take a pill, or not, just because the other does, or doesn't. And the two aren't directly comparable anyway for 10,000 reasons including, oh, say, one's been available for maybe 50 years and the other's not; one's known to cause quite a rash of side effects and nothing is known of the other; and one's known to keep the pill-taker from getting pregnant and the other will similarly protect the pill-taker's *partner.* So it's almost an apples to oranges comparison...

But I'd still like to know. Because even if I can't use the figure to tell if the male contraception glass is half empty or half full that information *would* help me understand whether half that loaf is better than none. I'd rather know that than the sum of everyone's optimism and pessimism anyway.

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It's a cool article, by the way, explaining what the biggest problem with a testosterone/progestin combo pill (it already works pretty much flawlessly and side-effect-free for 85% of men but... it takes three months to figure out whether any one individual is in the 85% camp or the 15%.) Crawford also nicely explains how another promising candidate interferes with, basically, vitamin A uptake in sperm cells, preventing them from developing normally but otherwise not interfering with other (known) bodily processes. It's years out but could be very helpful... it's also non-hormonal and, at least in lab mice, completely reversible. There's also the (unexplained in the article) prospect of special underpants?!?! Which maybe work by fiddling with testicle temperatures, which in turn is known to kill sperm? There are other, more promising sounding possibilities as well. All in all a great article. (Even if, as usual, we still have to *wait!* And, of course, no word on whether U.S. insurers would cover it.)