The Male Contraception Information Project just got word: the Intra Vas Device folks will present results showing "substantial equivalence to traditional vasectomy methods" at next week's Future of Male Contraception conference. Translation? Like with vasectomy, it takes a while for the sperm to clear out, but after 3 months, most men should have too few sperm getting around the plugs to be fertile. Stay tuned for a report of the full results after next week’s conference.
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How the Intra Vas Device works
It's coming up next week: the second-ever "Future of Male Contraception" conference will be next Thursday and Friday in Seattle, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health and other major research organizations. The attendee list is a who's who of male contraception research in the US, with participants also coming from Australia, Argentina, India, Europe, and the UK. Watch for press releases from MCIP next week as breaking news is released.
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We know the wet heat method developed by Dr. Martha Voegeli provides contraception, but it requires bathing the testes for 45 minutes per day for 3 weeks to provide 6 months of contraception. What about plain old hot-tubbing? Can it cause problems for men trying to conceive, or is that an old wives' tale?
On September 18th the New York Times' science section took a look at the question. It cites a recent study from scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, showing that even once a week hot-tubbing had a serious effect on men trying to conceive. When men stopped their using hot tubs, their sperm bounced back: by 3-6 months they had five times as many active sperm. (Unless they were heavy smokers, in which case they had bigger problems!)
We're not recommending this for contraception; wet heat needs to be used more regularly than this, and at higher temperatures, to be reliable as a contraceptive. But it's one more piece of evidence that the heat effect is real and deserves more attention as a contraceptive. A bit of work is going on at UCLA and some used to be happening in France, but nobody has funded the kind of big trial that would give us conclusive data. With a talk on the subject at next week's Future of Male Contraception conference, maybe that will change.
Read more:
Hot tubs hurt fertility, UCSF study
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We at the International Male Contraception Coalition have released the second issue of a quarterly report for policymakers, featuring another 700 signatures from men and women around the world urging the development of new contraceptives for men. The report also summarizes the quarter’s most important science and policy news.
If you took the survey at MaleContraceptives.org recently, your letter may be featured – take a look! We tried to give policymakers a sense of why men and women care so much about this issue by letting people tell their personal stories. Some of the stories are quite moving. The cumulative data from the survey will also be presented as a poster at the Future of Male Contraception conference in Seattle next week, where top researchers and policymakers will see it.
If you haven't filled out the survey yet, you can still do so. Your story could be included in the next quarterly report.
The Quarterly is under a Creative Commons Attribution license, so it can be freely reproduced and excerpted provided it is attributed to the IMCC. That means you can pass it along to anybody you want to convince that men and women really want new choices.
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Male Contraception Quarterly, Number 2
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A lengthy look at the Scottish hormonal contraceptive study and the hurdles commercialization faces. "For Steven Driver, the decision to try out a new male pill was a simple one. His long-term girlfriend had struggled with the side-effects of her own contraceptives for 11 years and he felt it only right that he take his turn..."
A hard pill to swallow
The Scotsman, 16 September
Bayer's decision to quit male contraceptive research is described as a part of a strategic focus on high-profit areas: "Bayer's research efforts are focused on four areas that it views as having especially high growth potential: cancer treatment, cardiology, women's health care and diagnostic imaging (such as X-rays and MRIs). In an effort to make its research and development more fruitful, the company has initiated a process that determines whether projects are likely to be commercial as well as scientific successes. As a result, it has abandoned efforts to develop certain kinds of antibiotics and a male contraceptive."
Prescriptions for Growth
Barron's, 3 September
Attitudes towards male contraception among a more conservative than average group of young people, undergraduates at Utah State University (many of them married). Acknowledges the side effects women have from female contraceptives; many of the women's husbands are not eager to sign up for something similar, or think they would forget to take a daily method.
The future of male birth control
The Utah Statesman, 19 September
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If you are attending the American Society of Andrology’s 31 st Annual Meeting, come introduce yourself. MCC’s director Kirsten Thompson will attend the Symposium “Contraception – Beyond Abstience” on April 10. MCC and MCIP are here to help speed the development of new male contraceptives, and we welcome your thoughts on strategies and collaborations.
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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 Contraception 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.
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