# What Ever Became of the Male 'Pill'? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 30, 2010, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-became-of-the-male-pill/565798 "2010-12-30T05:08:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-became-of-the-male-pill/565798/1 "2010-12-30T05:08:27Z")
I don’t want to date myself (but I’m not _that_ old). But I do remember one thing from my childhood and early adolescence: at one time, they were trying to develop a male contraceptive pill. What ever became of it? I remember reading an article once that said there were several encouraging candidate drugs for this. Where are they now? And why don’t people talk about this anymore? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-became-of-the-male-pill/565798/2 "2010-12-30T06:33:45Z")
From two Wikipedia articles: > [@](#): > > \*Calcium channel blockers such as nifedipine may cause reversible infertility by altering the lipid metabolism of sperm so that they are not able to fertilize an egg. Recent Research at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University show that as of June 2010, such a pill may be 5 years away. Testing it the pill on Mice has been found to be effective, with no side effects. > > - Adjudin, a non-toxic analog of lonidamine which, in tests on rats, has been shown to cause reversible infertility. The drug disrupts the junctions between nurse cells (Sertoli cells) in the testes and forming spermatids. The sperm are released prematurely and never become functional gametes. A new targeted delivery mechanism has made Adjudin much more effective. > - Multiple male hormonal contraceptive protocols have been developed. One is a combination protocol, involving injections of Depo-Provera to prevent spermatogenesis, combined with the topical application of testosterone gel to provide hormonal support.[22][23] Another is a monthly injection of testosterone undecanoate, which recently performed very well in a Phase III trial in China. > - Research has been performed on interference with the maturation of sperm in the epididymis. > - Phenoxybenzamine has been found to block ejaculation, which not only gives it the potential to be an effective contraceptive, but could also lead to much cleaner sex. Studies have found that the quality of the semen is unaffected and the results are reversible by simply discontinuing the treatment. > - Silodosin, an α1-adrenoceptor antagonist with high uroselectivity, has been shown to completely block ejaculation in human males while permitting the sensation of orgasm. > - RISUG (Reversible Inhibition of Sperm Under Guidance), is an experimental injection into the vas deferens that coats the walls of the vas with a spermicidal substance. The method can potentially be reversed by washing out the vas deferens with a second injection. > - Experiments in heat-based contraception involve heating the testicles to a high temperature for a short period of time. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-became-of-the-male-pill/565798/3 "2010-12-30T06:36:34Z")
> [@Nametag](#): > > From two Wikipedia articles: Yeah, I think I do recognize one or two of those drugs, when I read that article a long time ago. Well, then why haven’t any of these drugs been approved by the FDA for use (and does it have anything to do with sexism)? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-became-of-the-male-pill/565798/4 "2010-12-30T06:53:26Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > Well, then why haven’t any of these drugs been approved by the FDA for use (and does it have anything to do with sexism)? Because nobody’s asked? There’s a process you have to go through to get a drug approved: you have to get clearance to test it on people, you have to run various types of studies on people (and they have to work), and then you can formally request approval. At that time, your data is reviewed and you may get approval if you convince the FDA it works and isn’t too dangerous. The stuff **Nametag** quotes says things like “research has been performed” and “protocols have been developed.” It sounds like those things are much earlier in the development process. Testosterone undecanoate _is_ approved and on the market, but not for contraception in men. So it can be used that way if a patient wants it and his doctor believes it’s a good idea, but companies can’t advertise and ask doctors to use it for contraception unless they get FDA approval. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-became-of-the-male-pill/565798/5 "2010-12-30T07:00:41Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > Yeah, I think I do recognize one or two of those drugs, when I read that article a long time ago. Well, then why haven’t any of these drugs been approved by the FDA for use (and does it have anything to do with sexism)? Well, there’s less willingness to fund male focused medical research in general; women get twice as much funding for the gender-targeted medical research last I heard. In this case there’s the additional factor that the problem is fundamentally more difficult; the male reproductive system is harder to render infertile without outright shutting it down. You’ve probably hear of “chemical castration”? At least some of the drugs used for that were originally failed attempts at a male birth control drug. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-became-of-the-male-pill/565798/6 "2010-12-30T07:34:59Z")
It turned out to be a lot harder than claimed, though no harder than most scientists predicted. The people claiming to be on the edge of a breakthrough were mostly the ones chasing grant money. Female contraception is easy because females are infertile most of the time after they reach sexual maturity. Infertility is the norm and fertility is the exception. So to produce a female contraceptive you only need to either mimic the normal condition or prevent the abnormal. Male contraception is much more difficult because males are fertile permanently after maturity. Trying to render a male infertile requires some way of blocking androgen receptors in the gonads, but that is problematic because the androgen receptors also promote the output of testostrerone, and removing receptivity leads to behavioural changes, loss of libido and propensity for heart disease amongst other things. The research you are referring to was trying to produce infertility by blocking the receptors on the sperm themselves that cause them become active just prior to ejaculation. The problem was that the sperm are shielded from the blood supply, so delivering anything to the sperm at that stage is almost impossible unless you use ridiculously high doses. ---
**Author:** ![Bad\_Astronaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Bad\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bad_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-became-of-the-male-pill/565798/7 "2010-12-30T07:35:43Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > I don’t want to date myself (but I’m not _that_ old). But I do remember one thing from my childhood and early adolescence: at one time, they were trying to develop a male contraceptive pill. What ever became of it? I remember reading an article once that said there were several encouraging candidate drugs for this. Where are they now? And why don’t people talk about this anymore? > > 🙂 Even if you do decide to date yourself, I can assure you that contraception will not be needed. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-became-of-the-male-pill/565798/8 "2010-12-30T12:00:22Z")
There is one male pill still under development. It’s a very large and somewhat pointy-shaped pill that is placed in your shoe. Apparently it makes you limp. I am very sorry for the lame joke. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-became-of-the-male-pill/565798/9 "2010-12-30T13:31:50Z")
I read once that vanadium is theoretically a great spermicide as it basically makes the tails break off, leaving the sperm cells immotile. Unfortunately, the book is not a primary source and the author does not cite his sources. However, a Google Scholar search pulls up 157 hits, some of which should be open-access, and some patents as well. (By the way, did you know Elsevier apparently publishes a journal called Contraception?) It looks like one or two groups are doing research in this area, or at least they were several years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-became-of-the-male-pill/565798/10 "2010-12-30T14:11:01Z")
The obvious problem with the Male Pill is that women produce one or sometimes two eggs a month. Men produce millions of sperm. Preventing that one egg from implanting is a lot easier than blocking each and every sperm. ---
**Author:** ![lazybratsche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ba8739/32.png) [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-became-of-the-male-pill/565798/11 "2010-12-30T14:40:53Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > Yeah, I think I do recognize one or two of those drugs, when I read that article a long time ago. Well, then why haven’t any of these drugs been approved by the FDA for use (and does it have anything to do with sexism)? The FDA doesn’t approve a drug until several rounds of human clinical trials show it to be safe and effective. “Unnecessary” drugs like these also have to clear a higher safety standard, since it’s not really treating a disease. Drug companies pay for the testing, and it’s a very long and expensive process – on average it costs about $150 million. So a drug company won’t bother to test a candidate drug unless they have lots of good preclinical evidence (i.e. it’s safe and effective in animals). They also have to be sure they can recoup their investment. How many men would get this drug? What would they be willing to pay? Would insurance companies pay for it? If the economics don’t work out, it won’t be approved. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-became-of-the-male-pill/565798/12 "2010-12-30T15:05:08Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > Yeah, I think I do recognize one or two of those drugs, when I read that article a long time ago. Well, then why haven’t any of these drugs been approved by the FDA for use (and does it have anything to do with sexism)? Is a lack of demand sexism? Whenever the concept of a male pill comes up, very few women think it would be a good idea to rely solely on a male pill, which stands to reason because it’s not the man who has to worry about getting pregnant if it doesn’t work (or if he swore he took it and didn’t) and a lot of men also decide it’s a bad idea because they don’t want to mess with their own body chemistry which is easy to respect considering a lot of women don’t want to deal with hormonal birth control either. So who does that leave as a market once you eliminate wary men _and_ the SOs of women who distrust the male pill? Men who don’t trust their SOs to take their own pills? Men really afraid of paying child support for 18 years? The SOs of women who are willing to risk relying on someone else’s relatively unproven contraception working? ---
**Author:** ![Canadjun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/76d3ee/32.png) [@Canadjun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Canadjun)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-became-of-the-male-pill/565798/13 "2010-12-30T15:51:02Z")
> [@Nametag](#): > > From two Wikipedia articles: > > - Experiments in heat-based contraception involve heating the testicles to a high temperature for a short period of time. Oww!!! ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-became-of-the-male-pill/565798/14 "2010-12-30T16:03:40Z")
> [@](#): > > Silodosin, an α1-adrenoceptor antagonist with high uroselectivity, has been shown to completely block ejaculation in human males while permitting the sensation of orgasm. Where do I sign up? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-became-of-the-male-pill/565798/15 "2010-12-30T17:37:03Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > Is a lack of demand sexism? Whenever the concept of a male pill comes up, very few women think it would be a good idea to rely solely on a male pill, which stands to reason because it’s not the man who has to worry about getting pregnant if it doesn’t work (or if he swore he took it and didn’t) and a lot of men also decide it’s a bad idea because they don’t want to mess with their own body chemistry which is easy to respect considering a lot of women don’t want to deal with hormonal birth control either. > > So who does that leave as a market once you eliminate wary men _and_ the SOs of women who distrust the male pill? Men who don’t trust their SOs to take their own pills? Men really afraid of paying child support for 18 years? The SOs of women who are willing to risk relying on someone else’s relatively unproven contraception working? I think you greatly underestimate how many men dislike having to rely on their partner so totally. Which is strange considering that you think it is reasonable for women to not want to rely on their men’s contraception. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-became-of-the-male-pill/565798/16 "2010-12-30T18:04:23Z")
Given how many men out there are, for lack of a better word, complete scumbags who will do anything and everything to get into a woman’s pants, I can understand why women would be hesitant to trust a random stranger at a bar who says “yeah baby, I’m on the male pill.” Then winds up pregnant. She’s taking all the risk and she’s the one who’s screwed if he was lying about being on the pill. And horny men are the world’s biggest liars! ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-became-of-the-male-pill/565798/17 "2010-12-30T18:09:22Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > She’s taking all the risk and she’s the one who’s screwed if he was lying about being on the pill. She is not taking all the risk. She has an extra risk, but having to pay for child support for years is a risk too. And she has the option of abortion, he doesn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-became-of-the-male-pill/565798/18 "2010-12-30T18:21:50Z")
True. But it’s generally accepted that men are more likely by orders of magnitude to deceive and manipulate women in order to sleep with them than women are to do the same to men. Maybe women are more likely to manipulate men into doing other things, sometimes by _using_ sex, but just getting the sex is not the end goal for the women. Society doesn’t trust men to be honest about this. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-became-of-the-male-pill/565798/19 "2010-12-30T19:01:04Z")
And yet we trust men when they tell us they’ve gotten a vasectomy. I think there’s some man-hatin’ going on with that line of logic. The pill oughtn’t be marketed at women anyhow, but at men. Men who want to control their reproductive destiny, but may not want the long term commitment of a vasectomy or the short term hassle of the male condom. Same as women want more choices. Sorry, I think Occam’s Razor is right this time. There isn’t a marketable male pill because the science isn’t there yet, not because men are lazy lying oafs who wouldn’t buy it. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-became-of-the-male-pill/565798/20 "2010-12-30T19:26:33Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Sorry, I think Occam’s Razor is right this time. There isn’t a marketable male pill because the science isn’t there yet, not because men are lazy lying oafs who wouldn’t buy it. There may well be a perception that there is a risk that men wouldn’t buy it, and that perception of a possible risk would be reason enough to put that early R&D money elsewhere: I mean, there is no risk that people won’t buy a new baldness cure, or a better sleeping pill or whatever. There’s also less of a need because the female pill does exist: it would be nice to have more options, but its not a game changer the way the female pill is. This hasn’t been mentioned, but I suspect AIDS took a lot of the incentive away from developing a male pill. The men most concerned with autonomously controlling their fertility would be the ones outside of a LTR, and post-AIDS, most men having sex outside of a LTR are going to use a condom anyway.