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Originally Posted by Tamerlain
Now before anyone starts, I am aware of the risks associated with the pill - I know it's not 100% either.  I just trust it more because there's more history of it working than there is with new male contraceptives.
As for this specific form of male contraceptive, I return to my previous comments. For me, I would like to see success/failure rates before I jumped on board as a supporter.
-Tamerlain |
Well, research for a non-hormonal, male contraceptive has to start somewhere. RISUG's clinical trials look very promising as far as both efficacy and safety are concerned:
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The first clinical trial of RISUG determined that an injection of 60 milligrams is the therapeutic dose (Guha 1993). The men who participated in that first trial have had RISUG implanted for 15 years and counting with no complications. The Phase II clinical trial volunteers have now been using RISUG for more than ten years. When RISUG was properly implanted, no pregnancies occurred during the 1-3 years of the study (Guha 1997), and informal follow ups with the volunteers have confirmed no pregnancies since.
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What side effects are expected?
Some of the participants in the Phase II clinical trial reported slight swelling of the testes with no associated pain. The swelling resolved itself within 2 weeks of the injection with no treatment (Guha 1997). None of the RISUG trial participants have asked to leave the study because of uncomfortable side effects. By contrast, attrition rates during male hormonal contraceptive trials can be as high as 20% of participants.
RISUG does not cause the common side effects of a vasectomy: granulomas and an autoimmune response (Mishra 2003). A granuloma is an inflamed and sometimes painful nodule of tissue where sperm have leaked from the reproductive tract into the surrounding tissues. Men whose bodies form granulomas are having an auto-immune response to their own sperm. Once they exit the reproductive tract, the sperm are treated by the body as a foreign substance to be removed. Researchers hypothesize that RISUG does not cause these side effects because it does not fully block the vasa deferentia.
(http://www.malecontraceptives.org/methods/risug.php)
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The Phase III trial results from India should be interesting; the toxicology concerns weren't unwarranted, but in spite of their "very satisfactory" results, North American research groups don't seem to be exactly chomping at the bit. Male hormonal pill research seems like an incredible waste of resources because of what is already known about them in general, and because they don't offer any of the potential benefits of vas deferens occluding techniques.