A hormone-free pill, called YCT-529, that temporarily stops sperm production by blocking a vitamin A metabolite has just concluded its first safety trial in humans, getting a step closer to increasing male contraceptive options
some women can’t take birth control pills, and the other birth control options have downsides as well.
nothing is 100% effective, so if you want to be even more sure that you won’t make babies, both pertners being sterlized is extra security.
some men would like to be sterile but are hesitant to have a vasectomy done. They are generally simple but they don’t always go well.
for younger single men in casual encounters, you can never be sure of the other’s birth control status. I’m sure there are men who would like the option to be in control of their sperm.
I’m not saying there shouldn’t be male hormonal birth control, it’s just that after 40 years of the same story over and over, it seems the effort should be redirected. Vasalgel has been “in development” since the 70s. It’s not getting any closer.
Meanwhile, the US still only has one size of non hormonal IUD available, and two sizes of hormonal. They don’t fit most nulliparous women comfortably. This is a very fixable problem. 50 years of R&D could have solved this.
Male birth control has to be safer and have fewer side effects than letting women carry the burden of birth control.
I mean, I don’t think this is such a high bar to pass.
Pregnancy is bad but I’d argue the consequences of 18 years of unwilling parenthood far outstrips the consequences of 9 months of pregnancy. The consequences for those 18 years impact both parties.
Furthermore, men have almost zero agency of what happens in the case of an unintended pregnancy. A man can’t say, “this would ruin my life, I am going to choose not to have the baby.”
That makes the risk quite high for a man, IMO, and the only way to take agency over that risk is male birth control.
At first read that came off as callous, but I see your point. I had that thought as well regarding improving female birth control. Where’s the research into a hormone-free pill for women?
It is a bit callous. I’m old enough to have seen this pop up a dozen or so times.
Every time the depression, weight gain, acne and libido changes are deemed too severe for approval and women are sitting here like… yeah, it’s all that plus increased occurrence of stroke and heart attack for us, but ok.
I actually interpreted it as callous to the suffering women endure at first read for some reason. But yeah, there’s very much an element of, “The stakes are higher for women, so they can deal with the side effects,” which is awful.
Callous or not, it’s hard to justify trials ethically for that reason. Yes, it would be better for society as a whole, even if it could potentially be worse for an individual; but is it ethically right to burn up an individual for the sake of society? And now if you’ll excuse me, I have to walk away from Omelas.
Edit: Pre-empting a question: Yes, I walk. I recognize that the trolley would be quicker.
Thing is, female birth control is easier, because female body already has mechanism that stops fertility, we just invoke it on demand. Male body basically keeps on making sperm till death. It’s usually issues with erection or something that acts like “it’s time to stop buddy” than anything else. It’s not really about male privilege, patriarchy or whatever, it’s just biology.
Condom has worked the best as physical barrier and some injectable gels in vas deferens, but they are highly impractical application wise. Most of hormonal methods didn’t work well at all.
Nether method is more complicated or more natural or “easier.” It’s fiddling with hormones to decrease fertility.
Your personal perception is that because when women are pregnant they can’t get pregnant, they should be the ones to have their hormones fiddled with, despite the risk of death, that has, thus far not been shown in male hormonal birth control. That’s got nothing to do with science.
I’m sorry to call you out, but I think you’re disregarding a valid point and establishing a false equivalence between this contraceptive method, and traditional hormone-based methods.
Please let me elaborate. This drug is not hormone-based. It works by blocking a receptor called “RAR-alpha” that exists in every cell’s nucleus, and it works as a switch that controls gene transcription - it determines what the cell eventually produces and does. The body chops up vitamin A and uses it to trigger this receptor, and we know that it plays a role in many different processes, from cell differentiation (including formation of the heart, nervous system, and white blood cells), to development (like the formation of limbs) and even cell death. Incidentally, it also plays a role in sperm production, which kinda makes sense because of how important it is for cell differentiation and development.
The body doesn’t produce a “blocker” for these receptors, which is the function that the drug in the study, YCT-529, performs. This actually mimics the loss of RARa signaling in a vitamin A deficiency, which unsurprisingly, causes fertility problems (among a host of other symptoms).
This is a different approach from “traditional” hormonal contraception, where the most common pills (progesterone only or progesterone-estrogen) activate the same receptors that the body usually activates (and this is what the person above you was referring to) - but in way that prevents the regular cycle from progressing. The fact that the body has these “natural levers” that regulate this process is the reason why birth-control pills have existed for decades - we just push those buttons harder (I’m not denying there are consequences to this, I’m just pointing out the buttons exist). There is no such mechanism for sperm production however, so scientists have been looking at all steps that lead to sperm being produced trying to find something they can block, and that hopefully won’t have terrible consequences elsewhere.
I 100% agree that calling either method “more complicated” or “more natural” or “easier" is wrong. But we cannot gloss over the fact that this drug is a compound that is novel to the human body, and that it works through mechanisms that we only have a limited understanding over, while the other is inherently less risky (because most of its effects are to mimic the body’s normal responses) and, at this time, much better understood.
Hopefully this will prove to be a very safe and effective drug, and that responsibility for contraception is equally divided because of it, but this needs to be proven first.
Also sorry for the wall of text, but it’s kinda in my ballpark so I sort of ran with it.
Except there are many women who would like to get pregnant and trap the sperm doner into child support. I think many men would love to be in charge of their futures. Condoms can fail or be sabotaged.
Edit: Downvote me all you want but in the name of equality there should be options for males to take if they want to give their female partners the choice not to take anything. Not saying women don’t deserve better options but there should be options for males too.
Female birth control has to be safer and have fewer side effects than pregnancy.
Male birth control has to be safer and have fewer side effects than letting women carry the burden of birth control.
There will not be a male birth control pill. We would be better off putting these resources toward improving the safety of female birth control.
more options are always good for edge cases.
some women can’t take birth control pills, and the other birth control options have downsides as well.
nothing is 100% effective, so if you want to be even more sure that you won’t make babies, both pertners being sterlized is extra security.
some men would like to be sterile but are hesitant to have a vasectomy done. They are generally simple but they don’t always go well.
for younger single men in casual encounters, you can never be sure of the other’s birth control status. I’m sure there are men who would like the option to be in control of their sperm.
I’m not saying there shouldn’t be male hormonal birth control, it’s just that after 40 years of the same story over and over, it seems the effort should be redirected. Vasalgel has been “in development” since the 70s. It’s not getting any closer.
Meanwhile, the US still only has one size of non hormonal IUD available, and two sizes of hormonal. They don’t fit most nulliparous women comfortably. This is a very fixable problem. 50 years of R&D could have solved this.
I mean, I don’t think this is such a high bar to pass.
Pregnancy is bad but I’d argue the consequences of 18 years of unwilling parenthood far outstrips the consequences of 9 months of pregnancy. The consequences for those 18 years impact both parties.
Furthermore, men have almost zero agency of what happens in the case of an unintended pregnancy. A man can’t say, “this would ruin my life, I am going to choose not to have the baby.”
That makes the risk quite high for a man, IMO, and the only way to take agency over that risk is male birth control.
At first read that came off as callous, but I see your point. I had that thought as well regarding improving female birth control. Where’s the research into a hormone-free pill for women?
It is a bit callous. I’m old enough to have seen this pop up a dozen or so times.
Every time the depression, weight gain, acne and libido changes are deemed too severe for approval and women are sitting here like… yeah, it’s all that plus increased occurrence of stroke and heart attack for us, but ok.
I actually interpreted it as callous to the suffering women endure at first read for some reason. But yeah, there’s very much an element of, “The stakes are higher for women, so they can deal with the side effects,” which is awful.
Callous or not, it’s hard to justify trials ethically for that reason. Yes, it would be better for society as a whole, even if it could potentially be worse for an individual; but is it ethically right to burn up an individual for the sake of society? And now if you’ll excuse me, I have to walk away from Omelas.
Edit: Pre-empting a question: Yes, I walk. I recognize that the trolley would be quicker.
This first phase study shows no side effect.
It seems you are underestimating the value for men to not be responsible for unwanted babies and to have more control of their own contraception.
Thing is, female birth control is easier, because female body already has mechanism that stops fertility, we just invoke it on demand. Male body basically keeps on making sperm till death. It’s usually issues with erection or something that acts like “it’s time to stop buddy” than anything else. It’s not really about male privilege, patriarchy or whatever, it’s just biology.
Condom has worked the best as physical barrier and some injectable gels in vas deferens, but they are highly impractical application wise. Most of hormonal methods didn’t work well at all.
Nether method is more complicated or more natural or “easier.” It’s fiddling with hormones to decrease fertility.
Your personal perception is that because when women are pregnant they can’t get pregnant, they should be the ones to have their hormones fiddled with, despite the risk of death, that has, thus far not been shown in male hormonal birth control. That’s got nothing to do with science.
I’m sorry to call you out, but I think you’re disregarding a valid point and establishing a false equivalence between this contraceptive method, and traditional hormone-based methods.
Please let me elaborate. This drug is not hormone-based. It works by blocking a receptor called “RAR-alpha” that exists in every cell’s nucleus, and it works as a switch that controls gene transcription - it determines what the cell eventually produces and does. The body chops up vitamin A and uses it to trigger this receptor, and we know that it plays a role in many different processes, from cell differentiation (including formation of the heart, nervous system, and white blood cells), to development (like the formation of limbs) and even cell death. Incidentally, it also plays a role in sperm production, which kinda makes sense because of how important it is for cell differentiation and development.
The body doesn’t produce a “blocker” for these receptors, which is the function that the drug in the study, YCT-529, performs. This actually mimics the loss of RARa signaling in a vitamin A deficiency, which unsurprisingly, causes fertility problems (among a host of other symptoms).
This is a different approach from “traditional” hormonal contraception, where the most common pills (progesterone only or progesterone-estrogen) activate the same receptors that the body usually activates (and this is what the person above you was referring to) - but in way that prevents the regular cycle from progressing. The fact that the body has these “natural levers” that regulate this process is the reason why birth-control pills have existed for decades - we just push those buttons harder (I’m not denying there are consequences to this, I’m just pointing out the buttons exist). There is no such mechanism for sperm production however, so scientists have been looking at all steps that lead to sperm being produced trying to find something they can block, and that hopefully won’t have terrible consequences elsewhere.
I 100% agree that calling either method “more complicated” or “more natural” or “easier" is wrong. But we cannot gloss over the fact that this drug is a compound that is novel to the human body, and that it works through mechanisms that we only have a limited understanding over, while the other is inherently less risky (because most of its effects are to mimic the body’s normal responses) and, at this time, much better understood.
Hopefully this will prove to be a very safe and effective drug, and that responsibility for contraception is equally divided because of it, but this needs to be proven first.
Also sorry for the wall of text, but it’s kinda in my ballpark so I sort of ran with it.
Except there are many women who would like to get pregnant and trap the sperm doner into child support. I think many men would love to be in charge of their futures. Condoms can fail or be sabotaged.
Edit: Downvote me all you want but in the name of equality there should be options for males to take if they want to give their female partners the choice not to take anything. Not saying women don’t deserve better options but there should be options for males too.