Male Contraception on the Way?

by Jason Stotts

The Hindustan Times and the Scotsman (okay, I’m really not sure of these sources here, but they were the best I could find) are reporting that the WHO has been conducting trials on a new male contraceptive jab (shot) that seems to be passing trials with flying colors:

The World Health Organisation trial, involving 200 couples around the globe, uses a combination of the hormones testosterone and progesterone which dramatically reduce a man’s sperm count.

The contraceptive, given in the trial in two jabs, works by reducing sperm counts from above 20 million sperm per millilitre to zero, and to less than one million in others, below the viable threshold for a pregnancy. This result provides better contraceptive protection than condoms, and a similar success rate to the female pill.

Professor Richard Anderson, from Edinburgh University’s reproductive and developmental sciences division, said: “The results are very encouraging and it has gone very well. Most of our couples will be finishing (the trial] over the course of the spring. A couple of other centres will go on the rest of this year, so it will be a while before we get a final analysis.”

I hope to hear more good information about this in the future.  It’d be great if there were an option for men to take some more responsibility for birth control.  Also, the more options for birth control the better.