April 1, 2009 • 13 mins
Several methods of male birth control, from implants to injections, are currently being tested. Tune in to this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com to find out how soon you'll be able to find male birth control in your local pharmacy.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom? Never told
you from House top works dot Com. Hey there, and
welcome to the podcast. This is Kristen. Hey, this is Molly. Molly. Uh.
(00:21):
Birth control has been in some news this week, the
week that we're recording. The big headline is that the
Senate passed the foreign in ten billion dollar omnibus bill,
and all of the earmarks that have gone into it
had been, you know, controversial news item of the week.
But one of those earmarks, uh, is a good thing
(00:45):
for women who are on birth control, and that is
the Affordable Birth Control Act, Right, I'm tell me about it, Kristen. Well,
the net net of the Affordable birth Control Act is
that birth control from health clinics, unity health clinics, and
college clinics will be cheaper. So that's good. That is good.
(01:06):
But Kristen, have you heard all these people who you
know say this part of the bill doesn't help me,
and this part of the bill doesn't help me. Have
there been any men who have come out of the
woodwork and said this part of the bill, this birth
control part, does not help me. Well, Molly, I cannot
exactly answer that question because I have not done any
personal surveys of men I and I haven't heard of
any men talking about it in the news. But that
(01:28):
might be because when it comes to birth control, it's
sort of sort of a woman's thing, right, Women by
and large more responsible for birth control. And think of
all the birth control options women have. We've got the pill,
get the patch, ranks, shots, all sorts of things. But
what do men have? Christen? Two things? Two things? You got, condoms,
the old snip snip, sectomy, sectomy um. Not a whole
(01:54):
lot of options. Yeah, pretty limited. But for years and
years we've always heard this thing that in five years,
there's gonna be male birth control in five years, in
five years, and we're going to talk today about why
this five years may never come ever. Right, So, birth
control hit the markets and then you know, in the
nineteen sixties and today around eighteen million American women take it,
(02:21):
so that that's a pretty heavy burden that women are
are shouldering for preventing unwanted pregnancies. It's sort of up
to sort of up to us to decide whether or not,
you know, that's going to happen because while condoms, you know,
men can use condoms, but they're not as effective as
female birth control. Right, Females do have the luxury of
(02:42):
having birth control options there nine more than nine nine
percent effective, and men don't have that option. But you know,
we're we're a marketplace in this country. It seems like
people should be rushing to the market with something that's
nine nine percent effective for men. Give men that choice, right,
So let's talk about the progress that's been made, because
obviously we're a country of entrepreneurs. People tried to do this.
(03:05):
There have been studies and studies. Oh yeah, I mean sorry, Right,
As far as research into male birth control, they're really
two options. You can go the hormonal route as with
female birth control, or you can go the non hormonal route.
So the first thing that researchers looked into were hormones
(03:28):
and specifically testosterone, right, And so this would be first
I looked at a pill format because what's good for
the female is good for the mail. If a man
took a pill of testosterone, what would happen. It would
shut down their sperm because basically how sperm production works
in the mail is the testosterone releases the sperm, but
(03:48):
eventually there's something in the brain that shuts off that
sperm production, tells the brain there's enough sperm. So if
you took an excess of testosterone, it would do that.
It would say constantly to the brain, you have an
of sperm, don't make anymore. But extra testosterone does not
have the most pleasant side effects. We're talking acne, weight gain,
(04:12):
prostate gland growth, and abnormal liver functions. So instead of testosterone,
they looked to another hormone called progestogen. And if you
are a woman who takes birth control, this might sound
familiar to you because it is a hormone also found
in female birth control, and progestigen kind of the same
(04:33):
thing as testosterone in uh in men, and in that
it would shut down sperm production. It also has some
side effects like shutting down male sexuality altogether, basically just
creating this really effeminine male that'd be pretty hard to market.
I think I think so too. Well, Like we said,
another sort of roundabout form of birth control. So there
(04:53):
have been studies of trying to mash these together. Could
you do something where the man got the testosterone but
then also got the progestigen to kind of counteract, and
what they were thinking was you would get actually progestigent
implants and then you would have to go in for
for shots of testosterone on a regular basis. I mean,
(05:17):
all right, Molly, let's let's face it, that's kind of
it's a kind of scary prospect. Implants in your arm
plus shots as opposed to taking a pill not going
the same thing. That's hard to market. That's a little
two time consuming. Um, but a one company, one fart
pharmaceutical company was really looking into this, the reporting a
lot of research money into it, and it's since kinda disappeared.
(05:40):
All right, we'll talk about that later. The barriers to
actually gain these things to the market. But as you
can see, it's pretty time consuming process for these hormonal things.
Not to mention that if a mail was on a
hormonal birth control it would take months and months to
kick in exactly. Females have the luxury that pretty much
you know, as soon as you're on the pill for
a week, they say, you know you're good to go.
So all right, let's go non hormonal. What can we
(06:02):
do that doesn't mess with men's bodies the way that
our hormones do well. Researchers at the University of Massachusetts
thought that the key to male birth control was something
called the CS protein, and the c S protein is
a trigger that causes the tails on sperm to grow
(06:22):
as they are exiting the penis. Right, So basically, if
you block the CS protein, you make all these sperm
bad swimmers. Right, they're not that it doesn't kill the sperm.
You're still the men are still producing all these millions
and millions and millions of summer but they just can't
really go anywhere. They can't go anywhere. They they they're stuck. Yeah,
(06:45):
so good idea, right, I mean we like it. Yeah,
it wasn't gonna have many side effects like all these hormones.
But they can't find an enzyme that will block that protein.
So good idea, but not quite into practice yet. Now.
Another option that scientists have been going forward studying Kristen
(07:08):
is uh taking on the immune system. All right, So
what they do is there's this protein called epen which
is in the test seas and the epiddymis, and that
sort of makes the sperm mature and readies them for
their trip outside the body. And basically what scientists at
the University of Washington have been able to do is
to immunize monkeys against epen. So once you have an
(07:28):
immune response to epen, then you're infertile. Basically, it's a
temporary kind of you know, cut off of the open
and then when you stop getting these injections that make
immune to eppen, you're good to go again. Well, all
of this sounds all the sounds really great. We've got
all these hormonal options, these non hormonal options. What do
we have in the marketplace? Nothing? Nothing, So that's the question.
(07:52):
The big question is why? What is what has happened? Um?
According to the pharmaceutical companies, the simplest answer to that
question is money. They don't have it. They're not going
to get it for this product. Well, they're just a
lot of the research funding for male birth control has
simply been cut off. Um. Like I mentioned before, the
(08:13):
protestation implants and testosterone shot combo has been totally abandoned
by the pharmaceutical company that was that was looking into it.
And they say that they're cutting off the funding because,
you know, they just don't think that they could sell
it to men, you know who, you know, none of
none of these guys are gonna want to have to
take birth control and essentially render themselves infertile. I disagree, Kristen,
(08:39):
and I have members on my side. All right. There
was a study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation that
said that two thirds of American men would be willing
to try a pill that would, you know, take the
burden off their lady friends. Oh so, so it's a mystery.
It's like we've got one group saying one thing and
another saying another. Well, we have to I think we
(09:00):
do have to, uh have to address the fact that
looking for male birth control option is kind of a
different animal from looking for female birth control because females,
we got one egg to tackle every month, all right,
like clockwork, more or less. Men, what was that number
that you threw out earlier. Moly million. That's more than
(09:21):
three times the population of California. Wow, fun fact. And
that is the number of sperm that a man ejaculates
every time. That's right, insane. My mind is boggled right now.
I'm kind of struggling for words. So you can see
the problem that scientists or epic and so it is
sort of a monumental study to get this right mix
of hormones or non hormonal methods the work that block
(09:43):
that many sperm. So it's a it's a huge it's
a huge undertaking. Um And well, unfortunately, I guess, or however,
fortunately or unfortunately, whichever side of the fence you're standing on,
the funding from pharmaceutical companies is just drying up. But Kristen,
you know think that if something worked completely like you know,
we said it would, we would just be at market already.
(10:04):
But like you know, as you just point out the
hundred twenty million sperm, yeah, we just haven't had a
study yet of all these great ideas that's a hundred
percent effective. And some of the effectiveness studies on male
birth control the men who worked on it worked one
percent of the time. Awesome. But at the same time
they found that around ten to fifteen percent of the
(10:25):
men taking these forms of birth control were not affected
at all. And that is a big slice of the pie.
That's huge. And like you said, if we're dealing at
the hundred and twenty million sperm, we need something that's
pretty much a hundred percent effectively. But there are I mean,
I think that we have to mention a few uh
sort of renegade, if you will, male birth control options
that are being developed right now thanks to an article
(10:47):
in Popular Science magazine. Um, you want me to throw
out a couple of these, Uh, these kind of interesting
and slightly futuristic options they're looking at right. I think
these are things that have come out since the article
on our site was written. Um, there's a option for
a sperm plug. These tiny sperm plugs are made from
(11:09):
the same silicone as artificial joints, and they would basically
block the sperm from exiting out of the penis on
their epic journey. Um. Then we've also got remote control.
You've got let's check this one out. Molly doctor inserts
a thin piece of silicone embedded with circuits UM, and
(11:29):
then the circuits convert radio signals to acoustic waves. Then
UM cause the silicon material to expand and block the sperm.
So it's kind of like a souped up version of
those of those silicone plugs that I just talked about. Well,
men do love remote controls, uh yeah, but maybe not
in their penis. And there's something this is my my
(11:51):
favorite nickname is a drain. Oh it's yeah, it's a
it's a gel inserted into the penis that scrambles the
pH level in the sperms all membranes that basically dissolves
the sperm on their way out. And finally, we have
an ultrasound that would shut down sperm production for say
six months or so. Right, you go and get an
(12:12):
ultrasunate it basically scrambles your insides. So you know, these
are some more options that I mean, they're in production.
There's actually a study the Indian government, according to this
Popular Science article, it's funding a long term study of
that of that drain o GIL. So keep an eye
out for that. Maybe we'll see maybe we'll see sperm
(12:33):
drain o coming out soon. I hope they changed the
name before that happens. It might yeah, it might be
better for marketing, but I think until we see these options,
obviously we're all going to hold on to our birth
control packs because I'm just gonna leave you with this
last number, hundred hundred and twenty millions. So if you
want to learn any more about the dred and twenty
million sperm and male birth control and female birth control
(12:57):
and all that birds and bees information, you and check
out articles on how stuff works dot com, and if
you'd like to send us a question or comment, you
can email me and Molly at mom Stuff at how
stuff works dot com for more on thiss and thousands
(13:17):
of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot Com
brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom? Never told
you from House top works dot Com. Hey there, and
welcome to the podcast. This is Kristen. Hey, this is Molly. Molly. Uh.
(00:21):
Birth control has been in some news this week, the
week that we're recording. The big headline is that the
Senate passed the foreign in ten billion dollar omnibus bill,
and all of the earmarks that have gone into it
had been, you know, controversial news item of the week.
But one of those earmarks, uh, is a good thing
(00:45):
for women who are on birth control, and that is
the Affordable Birth Control Act, Right, I'm tell me about it, Kristen. Well,
the net net of the Affordable birth Control Act is
that birth control from health clinics, unity health clinics, and
college clinics will be cheaper. So that's good. That is good.
(01:06):
But Kristen, have you heard all these people who you
know say this part of the bill doesn't help me,
and this part of the bill doesn't help me. Have
there been any men who have come out of the
woodwork and said this part of the bill, this birth
control part, does not help me. Well, Molly, I cannot
exactly answer that question because I have not done any
personal surveys of men I and I haven't heard of
any men talking about it in the news. But that
(01:28):
might be because when it comes to birth control, it's
sort of sort of a woman's thing, right, Women by
and large more responsible for birth control. And think of
all the birth control options women have. We've got the pill,
get the patch, ranks, shots, all sorts of things. But
what do men have? Christen? Two things? Two things? You got, condoms,
the old snip snip, sectomy, sectomy um. Not a whole
(01:54):
lot of options. Yeah, pretty limited. But for years and
years we've always heard this thing that in five years,
there's gonna be male birth control in five years, in
five years, and we're going to talk today about why
this five years may never come ever. Right, So, birth
control hit the markets and then you know, in the
nineteen sixties and today around eighteen million American women take it,
(02:21):
so that that's a pretty heavy burden that women are
are shouldering for preventing unwanted pregnancies. It's sort of up
to sort of up to us to decide whether or not,
you know, that's going to happen because while condoms, you know,
men can use condoms, but they're not as effective as
female birth control. Right, Females do have the luxury of
(02:42):
having birth control options there nine more than nine nine
percent effective, and men don't have that option. But you know,
we're we're a marketplace in this country. It seems like
people should be rushing to the market with something that's
nine nine percent effective for men. Give men that choice, right,
So let's talk about the progress that's been made, because
obviously we're a country of entrepreneurs. People tried to do this.
(03:05):
There have been studies and studies. Oh yeah, I mean sorry, Right,
As far as research into male birth control, they're really
two options. You can go the hormonal route as with
female birth control, or you can go the non hormonal route.
So the first thing that researchers looked into were hormones
(03:28):
and specifically testosterone, right, And so this would be first
I looked at a pill format because what's good for
the female is good for the mail. If a man
took a pill of testosterone, what would happen. It would
shut down their sperm because basically how sperm production works
in the mail is the testosterone releases the sperm, but
(03:48):
eventually there's something in the brain that shuts off that
sperm production, tells the brain there's enough sperm. So if
you took an excess of testosterone, it would do that.
It would say constantly to the brain, you have an
of sperm, don't make anymore. But extra testosterone does not
have the most pleasant side effects. We're talking acne, weight gain,
(04:12):
prostate gland growth, and abnormal liver functions. So instead of testosterone,
they looked to another hormone called progestogen. And if you
are a woman who takes birth control, this might sound
familiar to you because it is a hormone also found
in female birth control, and progestigen kind of the same
(04:33):
thing as testosterone in uh in men, and in that
it would shut down sperm production. It also has some
side effects like shutting down male sexuality altogether, basically just
creating this really effeminine male that'd be pretty hard to market.
I think I think so too. Well, Like we said,
another sort of roundabout form of birth control. So there
(04:53):
have been studies of trying to mash these together. Could
you do something where the man got the testosterone but
then also got the progestigen to kind of counteract, and
what they were thinking was you would get actually progestigent
implants and then you would have to go in for
for shots of testosterone on a regular basis. I mean,
(05:17):
all right, Molly, let's let's face it, that's kind of
it's a kind of scary prospect. Implants in your arm
plus shots as opposed to taking a pill not going
the same thing. That's hard to market. That's a little
two time consuming. Um, but a one company, one fart
pharmaceutical company was really looking into this, the reporting a
lot of research money into it, and it's since kinda disappeared.
(05:40):
All right, we'll talk about that later. The barriers to
actually gain these things to the market. But as you
can see, it's pretty time consuming process for these hormonal things.
Not to mention that if a mail was on a
hormonal birth control it would take months and months to
kick in exactly. Females have the luxury that pretty much
you know, as soon as you're on the pill for
a week, they say, you know you're good to go.
So all right, let's go non hormonal. What can we
(06:02):
do that doesn't mess with men's bodies the way that
our hormones do well. Researchers at the University of Massachusetts
thought that the key to male birth control was something
called the CS protein, and the c S protein is
a trigger that causes the tails on sperm to grow
(06:22):
as they are exiting the penis. Right, So basically, if
you block the CS protein, you make all these sperm
bad swimmers. Right, they're not that it doesn't kill the sperm.
You're still the men are still producing all these millions
and millions and millions of summer but they just can't
really go anywhere. They can't go anywhere. They they they're stuck. Yeah,
(06:45):
so good idea, right, I mean we like it. Yeah,
it wasn't gonna have many side effects like all these hormones.
But they can't find an enzyme that will block that protein.
So good idea, but not quite into practice yet. Now.
Another option that scientists have been going forward studying Kristen
(07:08):
is uh taking on the immune system. All right, So
what they do is there's this protein called epen which
is in the test seas and the epiddymis, and that
sort of makes the sperm mature and readies them for
their trip outside the body. And basically what scientists at
the University of Washington have been able to do is
to immunize monkeys against epen. So once you have an
(07:28):
immune response to epen, then you're infertile. Basically, it's a
temporary kind of you know, cut off of the open
and then when you stop getting these injections that make
immune to eppen, you're good to go again. Well, all
of this sounds all the sounds really great. We've got
all these hormonal options, these non hormonal options. What do
we have in the marketplace? Nothing? Nothing, So that's the question.
(07:52):
The big question is why? What is what has happened? Um?
According to the pharmaceutical companies, the simplest answer to that
question is money. They don't have it. They're not going
to get it for this product. Well, they're just a
lot of the research funding for male birth control has
simply been cut off. Um. Like I mentioned before, the
(08:13):
protestation implants and testosterone shot combo has been totally abandoned
by the pharmaceutical company that was that was looking into it.
And they say that they're cutting off the funding because,
you know, they just don't think that they could sell
it to men, you know who, you know, none of
none of these guys are gonna want to have to
take birth control and essentially render themselves infertile. I disagree, Kristen,
(08:39):
and I have members on my side. All right. There
was a study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation that
said that two thirds of American men would be willing
to try a pill that would, you know, take the
burden off their lady friends. Oh so, so it's a mystery.
It's like we've got one group saying one thing and
another saying another. Well, we have to I think we
(09:00):
do have to, uh have to address the fact that
looking for male birth control option is kind of a
different animal from looking for female birth control because females,
we got one egg to tackle every month, all right,
like clockwork, more or less. Men, what was that number
that you threw out earlier. Moly million. That's more than
(09:21):
three times the population of California. Wow, fun fact. And
that is the number of sperm that a man ejaculates
every time. That's right, insane. My mind is boggled right now.
I'm kind of struggling for words. So you can see
the problem that scientists or epic and so it is
sort of a monumental study to get this right mix
of hormones or non hormonal methods the work that block
(09:43):
that many sperm. So it's a it's a huge it's
a huge undertaking. Um And well, unfortunately, I guess, or however,
fortunately or unfortunately, whichever side of the fence you're standing on,
the funding from pharmaceutical companies is just drying up. But Kristen,
you know think that if something worked completely like you know,
we said it would, we would just be at market already.
(10:04):
But like you know, as you just point out the
hundred twenty million sperm, yeah, we just haven't had a
study yet of all these great ideas that's a hundred
percent effective. And some of the effectiveness studies on male
birth control the men who worked on it worked one
percent of the time. Awesome. But at the same time
they found that around ten to fifteen percent of the
(10:25):
men taking these forms of birth control were not affected
at all. And that is a big slice of the pie.
That's huge. And like you said, if we're dealing at
the hundred and twenty million sperm, we need something that's
pretty much a hundred percent effectively. But there are I mean,
I think that we have to mention a few uh
sort of renegade, if you will, male birth control options
that are being developed right now thanks to an article
(10:47):
in Popular Science magazine. Um, you want me to throw
out a couple of these, Uh, these kind of interesting
and slightly futuristic options they're looking at right. I think
these are things that have come out since the article
on our site was written. Um, there's a option for
a sperm plug. These tiny sperm plugs are made from
(11:09):
the same silicone as artificial joints, and they would basically
block the sperm from exiting out of the penis on
their epic journey. Um. Then we've also got remote control.
You've got let's check this one out. Molly doctor inserts
a thin piece of silicone embedded with circuits UM, and
(11:29):
then the circuits convert radio signals to acoustic waves. Then
UM cause the silicon material to expand and block the sperm.
So it's kind of like a souped up version of
those of those silicone plugs that I just talked about. Well,
men do love remote controls, uh yeah, but maybe not
in their penis. And there's something this is my my
(11:51):
favorite nickname is a drain. Oh it's yeah, it's a
it's a gel inserted into the penis that scrambles the
pH level in the sperms all membranes that basically dissolves
the sperm on their way out. And finally, we have
an ultrasound that would shut down sperm production for say
six months or so. Right, you go and get an
(12:12):
ultrasunate it basically scrambles your insides. So you know, these
are some more options that I mean, they're in production.
There's actually a study the Indian government, according to this
Popular Science article, it's funding a long term study of
that of that drain o GIL. So keep an eye
out for that. Maybe we'll see maybe we'll see sperm
(12:33):
drain o coming out soon. I hope they changed the
name before that happens. It might yeah, it might be
better for marketing, but I think until we see these options,
obviously we're all going to hold on to our birth
control packs because I'm just gonna leave you with this
last number, hundred hundred and twenty millions. So if you
want to learn any more about the dred and twenty
million sperm and male birth control and female birth control
(12:57):
and all that birds and bees information, you and check
out articles on how stuff works dot com, and if
you'd like to send us a question or comment, you
can email me and Molly at mom Stuff at how
stuff works dot com for more on thiss and thousands
(13:17):
of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot Com
brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready, are you
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