A new wave of optimism about the prospect of a male contraceptive pill is with us. Cue hopes of a more equitable sharing of the birth control burden by men.
Recent grounds for excitement include the work of researchers in North Carolina who say they have successfully tested a . It contains a compound known as EP055 that can inhibit sperm motility, with no apparent side effects.
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鈥淪imply put, the compound turns off the sperm鈥檚 ability to swim, significantly limiting fertilisation capabilities,鈥� said Michael O鈥橰and, president of , the company developing the pill. 鈥淭his makes EP055 an ideal candidate for non-hormonal male contraception.鈥� The drug has yet to be tested in men, however.
Closer to routine use by men is a hormonal gel containing synthetic forms of testosterone and progestin, applied to the arms and shoulders daily. The gel lowers sperm production by limiting testosterone production in the testes. It has been ten years in the making, with key clinical trials due later this year. The plan is to recruit up to 420 couples in six countries, including the UK and US. Not far behind is a .
Such news stokes interest because the hunt for a male pill has become the birth control movement鈥檚 white whale: elusive and seemingly impossible to corner when spotted.
But as hope of a breakthrough rises, let鈥檚 not forget the growing debate and discontent among women over hormonal contraceptives, and the lamentable record of men on sharing responsibility for birth control.
Women are increasingly ditching the pill for the coil or . According to a published in Cosmopolitan, 70 per cent of young women have quit or are considering quitting oral contraception. The chief reason is concern over side effects.
While the last big trial for a male hormonal contraceptive in 2016, for an injectable version, was halted after high numbers of participants reported adverse side effects, women have long wrangled with the multifarious and often gruelling consequences of hormonal contraception: nausea, weight gain, breast tenderness and decreased sex drive.
And while women have been anecdotally reporting a correlation between depression and the pill for years, it was not until 2016 that a turned up evidence for such a link: it found that women on the combined pill were 23 per cent more likely to be prescribed an antidepressant than those not on hormonal contraception. And yet the responsibility for birth control continues to be shouldered largely by women.
Would a male pill change the status quo? Various studies have found around half of men would be receptive to the idea of such a contraceptive 鈥� so there seems to be an appetite for more options for men. And yet, other studies have found men are quite likely to resist condom use, a tried and tested, side-effect-free method that offers a level of parity in responsibility for contraception. A 2012 study found 35 per cent of young heterosexual men interviewed admitted to .
Rebalancing contraceptive responsibility requires an informed and constructive conversation around birth control methods. That will in turn require utter transparency about the disadvantages of these methods and the disparity in who experiences those disadvantages.
It is clear that a male pill would be an exciting breakthrough for science. What is less clear is whether it would be the contraceptive equality breakthrough that women are hoping for.
