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In present day 2015, the available options for contraception aren’t great, and the burden still rests largely on women to mitigate the damages of our wanton impulses. Aside from the copper IUD, all the birth control devices and pharmaceuticals available to women alter our hormones with various weird side effects. When it comes to birth control for men, aside from condoms and pulling out (neither of which are very reliable in practice), a vasectomy has been the only other option for preventing unwanted pregnancies. Though there’s about a coin-flip chance of it being reversible, those odds aren’t enough to make it something guys under 40 typically consider. A few other male contraceptives are being explored, but there are no approved male contraceptive drugs in the United States.
But what if there was a simple way a man to fire blanks until he and his partner were ready to have a kid—without the snip snap?
The process takes about 15 minutes. A doctor injects a tiny dot of a synthetic gel into the sperm-carrying tube just outside of each testicle. Once injected, the gel sets in the tube and acts like a filter, allowing fluid to pass through but not sperm. “Like water might percolate through Jello,” said Elaine Lissner, director of the Parsemus Foundation.
This isn’t like a Depo-Provera shot you have to get once every few months either—once injected, the sperm-filtering gel would remain in place for 10 years. If the recipient decides he wants to take a shot at having kids at any point in between, all it takes is another injection of sodium bicarbonate (aka baking soda) to dissolve the liquid, and the sperm factory becomes operational again.
It may sound too good to be true, but clinical and animal trials in India have shown that the method works with near-perfect results and no serious side effects. And unlike the birth control pill and condoms, which have a real-life efficacy rate far lower than the ‘perfect use’ scenarios advertised on the packages, the birth control injection, like an IUD, comes with virtually no room for human error.
So why isn't this in widespread use? Well, one reason might be that commercially, there is more money to be made selling contraceptive pills than a 10-yearly injection, and secondly, I guess "needles in close proximity to testicles" is not something that many men like the sound of...
(Score: 5, Informative) by TLA on Monday April 06 2015, @07:32AM
1. Depo shots are used on young girls who are told that it is entirely beneficial. Particularly vulnerable groups include those in state care and adoptees.
2. Depo shots are in fact used to mitigate the "risk" of offspringing mixed-race children.
3. Depo shots cause wild hormonal imbalances. Including stopped and/or phantom periods and EVIL PMT.
4. Depo shots are used on female prisoners.
5. Depo shots have other side effects that last far beyond their designed purpose and lifetime. Including delayed resumption of normal menstrual cycle.
There's more but my wife who's not awake yet can tell you about the horror of depo shots.
...
Here she is with a few:
6. Depo shots cause eating disorders.
7. Depo shots cause clinical depression.
8. Depo shots cause constant headaches.
9. Depo shots cause nervous dysfunction including "dead leg" and heartburn.
10. Depo shots cause circulation problems.
11. Depo shots cause sexual dysfunction.
History: she was on Depo from the age of 17, on and off until 24, by which time she'd also had two children (and miscarried twice more), and two more once she was off it. So Depo doesn't work as intended, it just fucks you up.
Excuse me, I think I need to reboot my horse. - NCommander
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @10:02AM
History: she was on Depo from the age of 17, on and off until 24, by which time she'd also had two children (and miscarried twice more), and two more once she was off it. So Depo doesn't work as intended, it just fucks you up.
Classic anecdote over data fallacy. All medical treatments have failure rates and side-effects. Humans are not binary state machines.
(Score: 2) by TLA on Monday April 06 2015, @11:09AM
show me this data.
Excuse me, I think I need to reboot my horse. - NCommander
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday April 06 2015, @01:46PM
No, idiot, you're the one making a broad-based claim. He's challenging you to back up your paranoia.
There's this thing in the medical profession called "acceptable risk" wherein they carefully study the side effects of medicines, and those effects are sufficiently rare and minor in comparison of the benefit of the medicine, they prescribe it anyways.
The data that ought to be shown is yours claiming that these risks fall outside that boundary, rather than just blindly asserting they exist(as if that were equivalent to being common or severe)
(Score: 2) by TLA on Monday April 06 2015, @02:07PM
ni, idiot, gave testimony from someone who has had the depoprovera injection and she told of her experiences with it. Now it's his turn to show this fabled data claiming its complete safety.
Excuse me, I think I need to reboot my horse. - NCommander
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday April 06 2015, @02:14PM
No one said that, hence calling you an idiot.
Congratulations on graduating to goddamn idiot.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday April 06 2015, @02:36PM
And you know what? Sorry if I'm being overly hostile. I just detest people pushing the whole "Medicine has side effects therefor should never be used" line. I was sick to death of it 5 years ago.
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Monday April 06 2015, @03:30PM
I was sick to death of it 5 years ago.
Figuratively speaking of course.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @03:36PM
And you know what? Sorry if I'm being overly hostile. I just detest people pushing the whole "Medicine works statistically therefor should always be used" line. I was sick to death of that 25 years ago.
Fixed that.
Statistics become meaningless when something doesn't work for the specific case in which I am concerned - medicine or otherwise.
(Score: 1, Troll) by ikanreed on Monday April 06 2015, @03:42PM
You're the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @04:12PM
Statistically you have one testicle and one ovary, therefore that is precisely the reality of the situation and no rationalization can change it. Clearly makes sense.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday April 06 2015, @04:19PM
It's not like medical science actually takes things like gender and age and conditions into account, so you've stumbled on an amazing insight.
No wait. You're dumb, and should completely rethink your worldview. You won't because we're having an internet argument, but you should