A gel injected into the scrotum could be the next male contraceptive
(www.wired.com)
from L4s@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 06 Jan 2024 18:00
https://lemmy.world/post/10395470
from L4s@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 06 Jan 2024 18:00
https://lemmy.world/post/10395470
A gel injected into the scrotum could be the next male contraceptive::Biotech company Contraline has safely implanted a sperm-blocking hydrogel in 23 men. It’s designed to be a fully reversible vasectomy.
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Wonder what could go wrong here? Ever here of a Hydrocele?
They have been using this successfully on primates for about two decades. While there are potentially complications with EVERY medical procedure; this is a significantly safer, cheaper, and more effective means of reversible mechanical birth control than anything that has ever been done before. It is truly a revolutionary technology that will no doubt change human civilization.
Thank you for that. I could have sworn I read about this over a decade ago.
I mean, as a man, even if it’s tested and 99% safe it just sounds weird. If it’s not a pill or a regular injection I can’t see many men lining up for a scrotum filling.
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I loled.
Laugh all you want. If you don’t think cheap, effective, reversible, and essentially painless mechanical contraception for men won’t dramatically change society then you’re a special kind of ignorant.
Ah yes, I'm the ignorant one. You people have no clue what's coming for us if you think this has any sort of relevancy. And even in your utopia fantasies this would absolutely not change society in any meaningful way. It's just freaking contraception.
Your own ignorance gives you away, just as I said before. Contraception was arguably one of the single most important technological innovations in human history. It completely changed and restructured the sociological paradigm of human society forever, prompted the sexual revolution, gave women freedom and independence from the shackles of patrilineal history so they could help reforge society into something more equitable.
You sir, are a fucking imbecile if you can’t see the beautiful simplicity of male contraception changing the psychological paradigm in any meaningful way, and teaching men (albeit better, more enlightened men than you) the value of personal responsibility for their sexuality.
By the way, I’m not some gender studies enthusiast or anything of the like. I’m just smart enough to understand the basic principals of freedom and determination that come from controlling one’s own body & destiny. Go read a fucking book or something, educate yourself.
Don’t bother replying either because I won’t be feeding the trolls anymore today. This is for everyone else here who’s synapses are appropriately firing.
/endrant
Yes, because we didn't had any reliable one. Welcome to the year 2024 buddy. Have a good guess how 3024 will look like.
Your continued personal attacks and projection just continue to show us that you have no actual argument or clue what the fuck you're talking about. But go on, more ad hominem attacks will surely prove your point.
You people should've stayed on Reddit.
That’s a bingo!
Do you think female birth control is 100% safe and comfortable for women? Hydrocele are nothing compared to some of the adverse side affects of female birth control. Hydrocele only form in the thing sheath surrounding the testical, are do to physical irritation (not injected fluid), and usually go away on their own. Also, I’d imagine people smart enough to develop male birth control considered that exceptionally common alement.
How does it compare to Vasalgel?
It looks promising, even though it is quite far away from becoming available to the general public.
Still I wish that there was more of a push for something like a contraceptive pill for men. It feels like it has been ignored for years and only now they are starting a bit with development and trials…
I don’t think it’s been ignored. Birth control pills for men would be a massive money maker. (Here is a recent article I found on BC for men: www.nih.gov/…/male-contraceptive-disables-sperm)
While I am speaking way outside my confort zone here, it seems magnitudes harder to effectively disable millions of sperm and their associated production as opposed to simply knocking a woman’s hormone balance a little out of whack to prevent ovulation.
The bigger question is being ignored though: If we have to inject our scrotum with a gel, where are we going to store our pee???
We’ll just have to pee out of our butts like girls do.
Unfortunately there has to be almost no side effects for almost all users, as there are no (as yet) medical benefits to male contraception.
In women, not being pregnant can prevent death for some of them, regulate painful periods, etc. - it is considered the risk of the myriad side effects is worth it because at least it does some good.
For men, who do not become pregnant, not being able to get someone else pregnant is not a medical benefit for the man.
And unfortunately hormonal modification does cause problems. Lots of them.
Tbh I would call suicide prevention a health benefit. Have you seen the prices of gestures wildly
How many men are committing suicide because they got someone pregnant? Feel like having women fall down stairs or just being an absentee father seems to be the preferred action…
This kind of thing pops up repeatedly. There’s some big, splashy news about a male contraceptive, and then it flames out, or ends up being vaporware.
The problem is that you need to stop a few million sperm with every single ejaculation; reducing that number by 99% means that you’re still risking pregnancy. Severing the ductus deferens (a vasectomy) means no sperm get through; trying to clip or block them means that some can potentially get through. Hormonal BC has the same issue; while it significantly reduces sperm count, it may not eliminate it entirely. (And there can be some really significant negative side effects from eliminating endogenous testosterone production, since hormonal levels need to be pretty far out of whack before there’s a really big cut in sperm production.)
OTOH, women have to stop two eggs per month, or stop them from being implanted in the uterine wall. A 99% reduction in fertility for women means that it’s very, very unlikely that they’re going to be able to get pregnant.
(Yes, women suffer from hormonal BC as well, but some women need it just to be able to live normal lives. It’s overall less of a problem than it ends up being for men. And women have the option of an IUD as well.)
Personally, I’m in favor of vasectomy; it’s allowed me to avoid having any children for 20-odd years now.
While you make a valid point about the difficulty of instituting the technology, it is in no way “vaporware” as you suggest. This is something that continues to be actively researched for use in humans, and has already been effectively used in primates. You can see just one example of this below, but there are others.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28191316/
I am supremely confident that this is going to become a widely utilized technology in the near future as our understanding of chemical polymer synthesis continues to improve. While it may not be today or tomorrow, it is certainly the area to focus money for continued research and development.
I’m happy that you found a solution that works for you, but there are 8 billion other people on this earth. Many of them may want a reversible solution (and/or) suffer serious ill-effects from hormonal or mechanical female birth control (IUD). More options is always better, and with the rise of authoritarian bans on reproductive healthcare in the United States, this is all the more reason to focus positive attention on emerging technologies that have the opportunity to protect the reproductive health of women.
Unfortunately no. The issue is. I worked under my supervisor that has been at the forefront of this tech for years.
The issue is men refuse to get the injection or any contraception that has side effects. Time and again the biggest obstacle for both men and women was that the procedure was not 100%.
Therefore the side effects could be permanent. Same as women but for some unknown reason both men and women were not happy to take the risk with a sperm reduction system that could fail in 2 ways.
It doesn’t stop sperm or it doesn’t stop stop sperm. The risks were too great that it wouldn’t be reversible or it wouldn’t be as effective as condom or pill. Both bring 99%.
They should be offered the opportunity to freeze their sperm at no cost if they have the vasectomy, as an insurance policy. Then the risk is null.
Freezing only lasts 10 years. I know because I have it.
What are you going to do at year 9 and 12 months 29 days?
So they can extend it but the quality will be reduced and likely I won’t be able to have kids. It was already pretty shot due to surgical trauma. Likely I just won’t be able to sire children.
Probably best for the world in that case
I eat lots of stuff after the expiration date and I’m just fine. However, that’s probably not the best analogy to use when we’re talking about spermcicles.
Under proper storage, sperm will last indefinitely. At least based on what sperm banks say
Not according to the hospital where mine is stored.
Do you think vasectomies are free?
I think they could be.
In countries with proper national health, yes. Source: live in EU and got mine for the cost of the uber to get home.
You mean we can’t blame the patriarch for under investment in men’s contraceptives and that it’s actually biology to blame? I’m SHOCKED.
Also, maybe I don’t want a needle stuck into my balls.
Maybe my partner taking oral contraceptive is better to ensure she doesn’t get pregnant.
Also are women supposed to just trust guys, or are they going to protect themselves every time.
Maybe the real reason we don’t have a male oral contraceptive is because the female ones protect the female first and foremost because people suck.
From what I understand the problem with Vasagel isn’t it’s efficacy but with the reversibility. You can remove it from the tubes easily but the sperm might not perform as before.
You are comparing sperm count and egg count as if the amount it an issue. For eggs not to be released, you end up nuking estrogen production. Hormonal BC for women is a lesser evil when comparing it to unwanted pregnancies and health conditions like endo, but you are underestimating just how bad constantly taking the pill for women is.Vasectomy is the way.
Vesectomy is the way if you know for sure that you never want children - they aren’t reversible like birth control are and shouldn’t really be considered reversible at all because there’s a very real risk of them not being so
That’s because it is. If you have a 95% reduction in number of eggs, then your odds of pregnancy are very, very low. If you have a 95% drop in sperm count, then it’s still pretty easy for a woman to get pregnant.
Yes, taking hormonal BC is pretty bad for a number of women. OTOH, it’s a life saver for some women, like the ones that have 3.5 week periods. For women that experience adverse side effects from hormonal BC, I’d suggest IUDs. For the very, very small number of women that neither IUDs nor hormonal BC work for, I’d suggest using condoms, and avoiding states run by Republicans.
For men that aren’t sure, I would always suggest vasectomy first, or just learn to be gay (since it a choice, dontcha know, /s). If you end up changing your mind, be a foster parent.
The problem I’ve read with Vasalgel is that they had trouble getting enough voulenteers to test it. Trials are dragging out. It does appear to work otherwise.
I was holding out on it for a while, but ended up getting a vasectomy.
I thought that it, and the vasclips, had both failed in the larger clinical trials at achieving birth control rates that were even on par with hormonal BC. This is what I’m remembering from like seven or either years ago though (and internet search is such garbage now that I don’t know if I could find the sources I’m remembering).; there might be a different formulation now, or something.
Ive also avoided making kids for the last decade or so but I was born with personality-based contraceptives so I dont know that it counts
Andrew Tate apparently made money selling his, if you want to try it as a business
Been trying this for 2 decades
A vasectomy in my twenties was the best decision I ever made.
10/10, would snip, tie and burn again.
Same. 12 years ago, still reaping the benefits.
It’s just so damn expensive
£500 well spent. Though I’m still annoyed that my local NHS trust wouldn’t fund it.
For me its something like 2500 in the private hospital because public system doctors will refuse to do it if you are “young” and have no kids
Cheaper than a kid!
Covered by public health care where I am. Just mentioning this as a reminder to look into it wherever you live before assuming it’s expensive.
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If something like this had been about I’d have had it done at 21 rather than my wife fucking up her hormones with the pill for a few years before we ended up getting the permanent snip.
Totes Scrotes!
Vaselgel is too cheap to manufacture to get the funding it needs to bring it to market, that's why they have been trying for 20 years and haven't succeeded yet. In the US the rights are owned by a non profit Parsemu Foundation formed to fund it. It looks like their private partner NEXT Life Sciences is actually set to come to market with a vaselgel product in 2026 they are calling Plan A.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/next-life-sciences-announces-launch-of-plan-a-birth-control-for-men-301779007.html
Interesting marketing choice comparing it to the Plan B pill.
If Plan A works, you don’t need Plan B… 😄
I think that was always the point of the name. this would just be a new plan A.
I thought they were implying something misogynist about women’s ability to plan and how the women’s plan will be considered only if the man’s fails first. Maybe that’s the way to get sex ed to where it’s needed though, “the first anti-woke birth control, putting the control back where it should be.” Wouldn’t be surprised in today’s America. /s
From what I’m reading, they’re not set to go to market; that’s just their goal. Most recent article I found was middle of last year that they had raised more money and were hoping to go to human trials by the end of the year. That aligns with what I remember about Vasalgel from years ago - they had finally made it to monkey trials but their monkey study was not showing a consistent ability to return to virility with the second injection. I seem to remember the proposed reason being that vas deferens in the monkeys/apes they were testing with are actually more delicate than humans’ and so humans should still likely be reversible. Last I heard, I believe they were trying to move forward on the human trial of proving that it works as a contraceptive, to be followed by a human trial showing reversibility. Then radio silence and funding issues. My assumption has always been that they struggled to jump to human trials because of the primate study results hurting the likelihood of reversibility. Hopefully they have reworked it to solve that, or maybe the acquisition and new funding is enough to just push through that regardless and see if humans will be fine.
More options are great I suppose, but as a gem-xer I don’t get the modern revolt against the condom. Modern condoms are pretty damn thin / good and are a form of male birth control with bonus of very good disease prevention, have next to no side effects, and minimize messes too.
All true, but they also feel awful, sometimes painfully tight, and are total erection killers. I use them, but I hate using them.
It’s the pause in the flow of things to go get one and put it on plus difficulty finding the right size. Used em my entire life until my wife had an IUD put in. After a few ears she had it removed and going back to condoms was not super fun for either of us.
On the bright side for me, a vasectomy solved all these issues and was totally worth the minimal process to get it. This solution sounds like a dream honestly.
Well look at mister big dick over here…
Feeling awful is true (or having less feeling overall), but you can just buy a bigger size if it’s too tight. The run of the mill condoms are uncomfortable for me too, look at something like www.my-size-condoms.com
I can vouch for My Size. They have a sizing guide to ensure that you’re picking the correct size, they fit very nicely and snuggly but aren’t uncomfortable, and are vegan too. Both partners I’ve had/have and tried them with had no complaints whatsoever.
Additionally, these are also great if you’re on the smaller side.
Needles ahoy then mate!
Condoms suck for everyone involved
That’s an interesting generalization. I’m going to to count myself out of everyone then.
Modern?
Has it increased in some way over time? I think men not wanting to wear condoms because of how they feel is a tale as old as the condom itself.
I think for those that have grown up with porn in their palms it is different yes. Admittedly that’s my impression and that of my peer group. I’m not aware of data on the matter.
There’s no harm in condom + anything else considering all the horror stories of condoms accidentally/intentionally not working.
This gives another option that sounds pretty easy and not very invasive for anyone.
There are horror stories for everything. There are also statistics. If you prefer horror stories to the latter there is nothing you shouldn’t fear.
IMO for anyone in a stable monoamorous relationship, the IUD is the superior option, as long as the female partner is a good fit for it and doesn’t have complications from it.
My wife had significant issues with hers, including basically never-ending spotting and occasional surprise periods, cramps, mood issues, etc. She had it removed after 2 years.
I’m thinking a vasectomy is the next thing, but it isn’t covered on my insurance and finding a doctor is intimidating.
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Oh Wired. You desperate clickbaiting bastards.
Ain’t no man getting a shot in the scrotum. Puh leeze.
Men already get cut open down there and then get their pipes cut and burned. A small injection that is reversible would actually be better. As long as it works very reliably (which it probably won’t).
Hell, there have been cases where even the cutting healed by its own and suddenly they got someone pregnant.
Besides the risk for permanent pain in the area, a vasectomy is not 100% risk free unfortunately (or I would have done it years ago without hesitation).
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No offense but I’m going to wait until it has a good track record on people first.
You will have to wait decades to be able to establish a good enough sample size and history to have confidence in it being safe and effective.
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/a8b3398b-cc0e-439f-a038-1575419e82dc.jpeg">
Gel injection live reaction
This isn’t exactly new. Vasalgel offers a similar injection that blocks the tubes, however before then back in the early 2010’s there was also a guy in India testing a better version which did not block the tubes - the compound was polarised, and when the sperm went through it was disoriented such that it couldn’t swim to the egg. The human clinical trials had a 100% success rate at preventing pregnancy, albeit human trials tend not to have that many people (I think there were 26). My understanding is that this became Vasalgel because the pharmacuetical industry didn’t like the fact that it completely avoided the complications that can come with vasectomies where the tube is completely blocked.
Would be cool to have a remote control device that mechanically opens/closes the tubes, built-in security layer for ensuring only you can unlock it, auto-lock, etc. If the tech-bro venture capitalists weren’t weirdos about spreading their genes around maybe this would be a thing.
You want… Smart balls? Smart tech can’t even make toast right but you want it in your balls!!!
I mean I would only accept the FOSS option for my balls (or lack thereof), but yeah I want like a diabetes insulin pump but for balls. Could add a bunch of quirks and features in there too like a hardening protective mesh and RGB. Why stop there just go full tech-penis.
Your subscription to fertility has expired. Please renew your credit card details in the next 90 days or your balls will be perma-locked.
It’s actually super easy to root your ball controls and run a minimal install, check out some of the projects on github. Compatibility is like 90% there.
Too lazy to search for it, but there was some swiss dude who literally had mechanical valves implanted into his sperm ducts.
Truly a pioneer
And Zydrate comes in a little glass vial
I gave up on waiting for this tech to become available and just got a vasectomy.
RIP.
It’s not really a big loss in my own personal experience. I kept hearing about reversible male contraceptive technologies “just on the horizon” from my early 20’s and I would have preferred getting a reversible procedure if such a thing had been available sooner, but when I turned age 35 and this tech still hadn’t seen the light of day, I asked myself if it being reversible was really such an important factor. I knew by that point that I never wanted to have any kids, and any future partner I would be with would need to be on the same page as me at a minimum, so I just went ahead and got it done while I was still in my sexual prime so I could enjoy the years I have left.
bet politicians wont be lining up to regulate and ban this after 15 weeks
These reversable, injectable, male contraceptives have been promised for at least 5 years, when will they come to market?
A lot longer than that unfortunetly
Edit: Found an older link
…yahoo.com/new-vasectomy-gel-could-offer-temporar…
This turns the scrotum into a stress ball.
TSA:what are you hiding sir.
Me:nothing : o.
TSA:(Boink! Boink!)sir stop resisting! This is standard procedure.(Boink! Boink!)
Wanna bet?
They are going to need to work on their sales pitch…
Hot sexy babe will inject gel into your scrotum.
It’s the only way I can finish.
Meanwhile, BDSM practitioners are thinking “two birds with one stone (to the nuts)”
That sounds like a bit more than just an injection. Not quite like going in for a flu shot to the nuts
I’ve been seeing promises about a new male contraceptive for more than a decade now. They never seem to hit the shelves form some reason.
Probably not a very big market.
I would certainly never use anything more than a condom.
Then hopefully you don’t expect women to take birth control or have an IUD.
As a man, I always laugh when I see other men excited about the prospect of becoming sterile.
I don’t get the joke.
No one does. Them thinking it’s funny is because of their own ignorance.
Can you explain why? Some people don’t want to have kids. Why should the onus fall on only women with birth control and IUDs? More options for male contraceptives are a good thing.
Will you take the pill, honey, or do I have to mash my balls again? And remember, if you won’t, you’re on top…
Is this not the exact same thing as vasalgel? How is this new or different?
Not sure, this seems to be exactly what vasalgel is. At first, I thought the innovation was that they just squirt this stuff into your sack and call it a day, and that would have been different. But nope! Same injection site too. Maybe it’s more effective or something.
RISUG has been in promised for what, nearly a decade now? This has been the FSD/Star Citizen of the male contraceptive world, always right around the corner.
Yeah. I got tired of their promises that it’s only a year or two away like 7 years ago.