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Male pill: The scientist working on 'progress for humanity' (www.bbc.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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A Welsh scientist working on a new male pill wants to reduce the burden on women of protecting against unwanted pregnancies.

Prof Chris Barratt is leading research on a non-hormonal drug which prevents sperm cells from reaching an egg.

His team at the University of Dundee has received significant funding from the Bill and Melina Gates Foundation.

"It's been a very poorly researched topic for 40 or 50 years," Prof Barratt said, but society has changed.

His team's research could see men given a gel or a pill that would affect the sperm cell, effectively disabling its function.

Instead of targeting the production of sperm, his research focuses on slowing the sperm cells' swimming action down and making them similar to those in infertile patients.

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[+] [email protected] -19 points 10 months ago (15 children)

There have been several attempts at this over the years and at the final hurdle they always fail because men refuse to deal with any of the side effects (but are happy for us to continue to do so), and/or with the toxic idea of it being "emasculating".

And if it ever did get past those hurdles, it might work for couples in a long term trusting relationship, but I, nor any other woman I know, would trust some random guy to have either taken the pill and/or be honest about it. If "stealthing" is a thing, believe that people would lie about taking a pill. Even if it had to be taken on the spot, some people would come up with ways to fake it. I'm not going to risk it, and I'm in the UK where we still have semi-reasonable access to abortion, I can't imagine anyone with more restricted access being willing to..

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

You may be remembering the study from almost 10 years ago where a whole bunch of men got injections and some stopped because they got severe acne. Now, that seems like a wimp thing to do. It doesn't include the fact that some men had wild mood swings with it (doesn't happen with womens pill), one developed severe depression, and one successfully committed suicide.

I also disagree with the wording from NPR - men didn't "complain" about the side effects, they REPORTED them. Because they were on a clinical study. And that's what you do on clinical studies.

The boards overseeing the trial stopped it at that point. The men that stayed in on the trial would have kept going if they could have, even with the side effects. So no - men can and have dealt with the side effects.

"stealthing" is also a thing now. It's just women claiming to be on the pill to men instead of vice versa. Trust between two people always has to be there, and some people will break that trust to get their parts licked. It's human nature, not a man vs woman vs NB thing.

Stealthing still going to be a problem with STIs, even with a pill/injection male contraception. Condoms are still going to be necessary.

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