HealthierU | Why Isn’t There a Male Birth Control Pill?

Between IUDs, pills, hormonal patches, Depo-Provera injections and many other methods, women trying to prevent pregnancies have an array of options—none of them all that appealing. Let’s turn to the contraceptives available to men: only condoms or vasectomy. In this episode, we ask: Why is there still no male equivalent to the female pill? Why has it taken the contraceptive industry so long to make one? To find out, we talked with Dr. Logan Nickels, PhD, Chief research officer of Male Contraceptive Initiative, an organisation that advocates for male contraceptive research and development, and Dr. Christina Wang, MD, an investigator at the Lundquist institute and a professor of medicine at the UCLA Medical Center. Wang is a prominent researcher in the development of a male hormonal pill called DMAUs. We also share a candid conversation between Emory students “Emma” and “Bob,” a couple discussing who should be responsible for preventing pregnancy in a relationship.

This episode was reported and produced by Linh Kieu, a student at Emory University double majoring in neuroscience and human health. She is passionate about science communication, health storytelling, and making research discoveries accessible to audiences everywhere.

Studies and reports referenced in this episode:

• Contraceptive Consumers: Gender and the Political Economy of Birth Control in the 1930s (Journal of Social History) 
• Effects of 28 Days of Oral Dimethandrolone Undecanoate in Healthy Men: A Prototype Male Pill (Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism) 
• CDC: Contraceptive Methods (PDF) 
• History of oral contraceptive drugs and their use worldwide 
• Contraceptive Justice: Why We Need a Male Pill (AMA Journal of Ethics) 
• Birth Control Brands 
• Birth Control: Side Effects and Risks (WebMD) 
• Where is the male contraceptive pill? (Medical News Today) 
• How the Comstock Act Threatens Abortion Rights 
• A Timeline of Contraception (PBS) 

Additional resources: 

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