A Monthly Contraceptive for Men?

Who needs a pill; as soon as they perfect ingestible testosterone I want my Testosteroni.

I sure would like to know why a pill isn't possible. With as many options as women have and as hard as it can be to take time off work to go to the doctor so frequently, I doubt very many men will sign up for this.

At the same time I don't see why a woman wouldn't trust it. For that matter, why would it be completely up to the man? I know couples who use multiple forms of birth control to be extra careful.

I like the idea that men can have control over their destiny as far as fatherhood goes. It's not that the responsibility now falls solely on the man, but rather that he no longer has to put all of his trust in his significant other (or whom ever he is laying down with), that she is being consistent with taking the pill. What I am worried about here, is that this may lead to an increase in the transmission of STD's if this is being looked at as an alternative to condoms. If it's used as ADDED protection, then all the better, I say.

Testosterone is available in pill form and has been for many years. Oral synthetic testosterone has to be modified to prevent it from being metabolized too quickly by the the liver. That causes substantial additional stress on the liver which generally makes it unsuitable for long term usage, such as contraception.

Elevated testosterone can encourage prostate cancer cells to multiply, too.

Worthless. Not reliable, too difficult, too many side effects.

There is a far superior technology which has been sitting on the shelf for about 20 years: injecting styrene maleic anhydride into the spermatic duct, so that it coats a section of the walls. Sperm passing through are rendered incapable of fertilizing an egg. One treatment lasts several years; but it can be reversed at any time with a flush of DMSO.

No side effects of any kind, no permanent effects on male fertility. Unfortunately, no way to make very much money from it, and obvious huge liabilty risks. So no one is taking it to market.

Rich Rostrom

Increase the sex drive and make people NOT fear of getting pregnant??? Yeah, a really nice move to reduce the spread of those BAD (bad-bad-bad!!) sexually-transmitted viruses.. oh, wait.. what viruses are we talking about?? Maybe the whole thing is really about only demographical problems, don't you think?

No wonder men are not so easily made non-fertile. Because the whole idea of the Nature is to be fertile, especially for men ;) no wonder women are easily made non-fertile. Because their natural function is not only raise children, but weaken other men by stupid casual sex.

> Chemists and pharmacists, why can't testosterone work in a pill?
Because the testosterone works in it's places, where it works (brain, testes, etc) as dihydrotestosterone and other metabolites, so it may get hard for it to get there through oral pathways ;)

finally, if you read a non-popular science book "Functional and Disfunctional sexual behavior - A synthesis of neuroscience and comparative psychology" by A. Agmo (Academic Press, 2007, available in p2p networks) it says most of the studies indicate that blood testosterone levels (in humans!) don't really affect sexual behavior at all. So, this means the article is a scum.

finally, who needs contraception if it's just better to Get Then Pregnant!

Charlie Knickersman (not a real name)
anonymous person with some knowledge in the areas of biology, physics and math

I think an effective contraceptive for men is a good option. Relying on condoms alone is not enough and in many cultures men frown on using condoms, and a vasectomy is often not in the picture.

dr reviews
www.mydochub.com

I think what would be a better idea is if doctors instead of offering a vasectomy or these shots, could install a controllable valve into the guy so one could turn "the hose" on and off at will.

I like the idea. But just like others, it will be hard to implement this. www.taxiquoter.co.uk