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For much of life, women have shouldered most of the responsibility of contraceptives thanks to “the pill”, which quite frankly wreaks havoc on the body, mind and soul.
Meanwhile, male contraceptives are limited to condoms or vasectomies, with the equivalent to the pill continuing to elude science – really it’s just been repeatedly booted out as soon as it starts to have any negative side effects.
Ha ha, yeah, welcome to a woman’s world. I’ve been smoted and I am unleashing the feminism. Don’t turn back if you have any care and kindness for humankind.
Anyway, there’s a new male contraceptive pill that has the potential to be a complete game changer once it’s been through enough testing and received enough vigorous nodding from the (probably) all-male panel of approvers.
This new on-demand, non-hormonal drug, developed by scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine, works by stopping sperm from swimming, New Atlas reported.
In tests, the scientists gave male mice a single dose of a protein called soluble adenylyl cyclase (SAC) inhibitor called TDI-11861, and let them loose with the ladies.
SAC is vital for sperm function – there may or may not be a pun in that.
Back to the tests: after 52 mating attempts not a single female mouse fell pregnant, while in contrast, the control group impregnated about a third of the females.
Importantly, the researchers say the drug was quick to work, inhibiting the mice’s sperm within 30 to 60 minutes, and remained 100% effective for up to two and a half hours. By the three-hour mark, some sperm began to regain their motility, and after 24 hours the mice were essentially back to full fertility.
The idea is then to pop a pill an hour before sex – in which time the sperm will be stunned for at least a few hours – long enough to stop them from reaching the egg – and keep an eye on the clock for when it wears off.
Many more tests are planned and needed, moving to rabbits before people.
It is excellent news for us all that the team didn’t find any negative effects after giving the mice these drugs continuously for six weeks.
I mean they’re non-hormonal – so already the male pill is miles ahead of the females’.
[source:newatlas]
