Imagine your excitement: You’re a researcher working on a drug called Zavesca that’s already on the market in the U.S. and Europe for treatment of a rare disease, and one day you notice that it seems to be acting as a contraceptive in male mice. Not only that, the contraceptive dose is one tenth the disease-treatment dose, so you may be able to bring side effects down to almost nothing. If it works in men, you may have the first “male Pill” on your hands, available immediately!
Not so fast, it turns out. Researchers got funding to try it in men, and guess what: it works in mice, but not men. Dr. John Amory at the University of Washington, who conducted the study in men, says, “We knew it was going to be either a strike out or a home run. It was a big disappointment.”
But though the Zavesca door has closed, this month another door opened. Researchers at New York ’s Population Council figured out how to revive a potential contraceptive that had been stopped by delivery issues. It’s called Adjudin, and you may have heard about it recently from the New York Times, the BBC, CBS, and other major media outlets.
When researchers tried to feed Adjudin to rats orally, it wasn’t absorbed well, and the high doses needed were harmful to body organs. But by injecting the compound as an attachment to a modified hormone that seeks out the testes, researchers have found that a low dose is both safe and effective in rats.
The next step is to find a more appealing delivery system than shots; a matchstick-sized implant, which would go under the skin of the upper arm like Norplant or Implanon, has been discussed. Oh, and they need to make sure it works in men, not just rats! So there’s lots to do still, but researchers are to be commended for keeping the male contraceptive development pipeline full.
To learn more:
• For more detail on this month’s Zavesca and Adjudin news, see MCIP’s press release.
• MaleContraceptives.org Zavesca and Adjudin pages have all the latest news.
It’s official: The US trials of the Intra Vas Device (IVD) are underway. A number of men at the Tampa, Florida, and Shreveport, Louisiana, sites now have their IVDs. Some of them are open to being interviewed about their experiences, so you may be seeing the IVD in the news over the coming months.
To learn more:
• Read about the Intra Vas Device and how it works.
• Read about enrollment requirements and a description of the IVD clinical trial design.
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Male contraceptive research has made the big leagues: coverage in the New York Times! You can read the NYT columnist’s take on whether new male contraception will always be five to ten years in the future: “Contraception as an option for the man” (requires registration).
The Adjudin breakthrough was covered extremely widely, with MCIP helping many journalists with background material. Some of the first articles were in Seed Magazine, Scientific American, and BBC News, with additional coverage everywhere from South Asian Women’s Forum (India) to Trade Arabia (Bahrain) to Xinhua (China), to WebMD, Bloggers News Network, and CBS News in the US. Add in the Melbourne Herald Sun (Australia), the Nigerian Tribune (Nigeria), and Pravda (Russia), and it’s safe to say the news made it all around the world.
The New York Observer went a little deeper than many: it interviewed a lead Adjudin researcher, Dr. Yan Cheng, and asked a “who’s who” of New Yorkers what they thought of men having more options in the future. These guys didn’t hold back! See “Obsessed Scientist Finally Throttles ’Em! Non-Paternity Potion”.
College reporters, both men and women, are starting to pick up on this subject and ask fellow students what they think of it. Is it better to give men another option, or would it discourage condom use? Disease prevention is important, but 40% of the pregnancies in the US are unplanned… Everybody personally thinks they can be trusted with a choice, but do they think their fellow students can? And if everybody should be using condoms, then why are the Pill and other methods still on the market? This month saw coverage in the
Daily Illini ( University of Illinois ), with upcoming coverage in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
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Thanks for your continuing letters to RISUG policymakers (see the September issue of the Male Contraception Update for the back story). Policymakers didn’t realize how much worldwide demand there is for this long-term contraceptive before seeing these letters with their own eyes.
The manufacturer still doesn’t have the material ready for the study, but there’s some good news: governmental representatives have said they’re committed to demanding the highest production standards (ICH GMP) so that the results of the study will be useful worldwide.
It’s now been 1 year and 7 months since the manufacturer’s scheduled RISUG delivery date, and 4 months since project leaders agreed to make an all-out effort for 2 more months before exploring other options. We hope to have better news to report soon.
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Many of our readers are familiar with the do-it-yourself heat methods, in which testes-only baths or special underwear can provide free, readily available male contraception to those men dedicated enough to read up and understand what’s known and not known. However, not everybody is aware of the more convenient heat method, ultrasound. When applied to the testes, a few minutes of sound waves – the same kind used by physical therapists to help heal injuries – can provide six months of contraception. The method is painless, and ultrasound machines are not particularly expensive.
MCIP is in contact with a foundation interested in repeating the ultrasound studies, which have been mostly ignored since the 1970s. Will ultrasound still work when studied by another team?
If you’re interested in using ultrasound someday, send an e-mail to MCIP. The initial study will be on animals, not men, but we’d like to pass along your comments and questions. What makes you interested in this method? What questions would you most like to see answered before using it? To read about ultrasound’s background and what’s already known, see the review in MCIP’s heat methods section.
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Editors
Elaine Lissner, Director of the Male Contraception Information Project (MCIP)
Email: info@NewMaleContraception.org
MCIP is entirely nonprofit and works in three areas: raising public awareness of promising nonhormonal male contraceptives, advocating increased and expedited government research, and serving as a resource for journalists who wish to write about the subject.
Kirsten Thompson, Director of the Male Contraceptive Coalition (MCC)
Email: info@MaleContraceptives.org
The Coalition’s objectives are to speed the development of new male contraceptives through increased legislative and institutional support, to raise funds for applied male contraception research and development, and to educate the public about the work of the research community.
