A contraceptive for men
A contraceptive for men
Updated 03:21am (Mla time) Nov 19, 2004
By Rina Jimenez-David
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the November 19, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
AT THE HEIGHT of the furor over contraception and family planning in the 1970s, a family planning organization came out with a famous poster that showed a man with an enormous pregnant belly standing in profile, with the headline: "What if men got pregnant?"
The implication, of course, was that if men could get pregnant, they would not only wholeheartedly support (and practice) family planning, they would also use all their power and resources to ensure more and better research into human reproduction, and fight tooth and nail to make sure they could gain access to all forms of contraception and maybe even abortion.
A TV ad, produced by Campaigns and Grey for the Foundation for Philippine Adolescents and directed by Sockie Fernandez, picks up on the theme, with three "pregnant" men seriously discussing their need of and right to reproductive health services.
Why the need to turn the tables on men? Because, as research findings show, the majority of men believe that preventing a pregnancy is a woman's concern since only women get pregnant. Some husbands would even go so far as prevent their wives from using contraception for fear that with the women no longer at risk of pregnancy, they would be emboldened to embark on extra-marital affairs. (Based on the men's own attitudes, perhaps?)
The belief that only women worry about preventing pregnancy has had serious implications on health policies and research. Governments, for instance, have historically targeted women as the main clientele for family planning and other reproductive health services, believing that men have no need for or interest in these matters. Most methods of family planning that have been developed over the last 50 years have also been targeted at female users, with men having only a limited number of methods to choose from: the condom, vasectomy, and abstention from sex.
* * *
BUT are men really all that indifferent to protection from the unwanted consequences of sex? It isn't only fear of HIV/AIDS infection that has made men more conscious of the need for safe sex. A local study of men's attitudes toward reproductive health (conducted by De La Salle University, if I remember right) shows that men are just as concerned about attaining their desired family size and raising their children well as their partners. The problem is that men either are made to feel that childcare and reproduction are none of their business (except as sperm donors), or they don't know how they are supposed to do their part. If women complain about lack of information on and access to services, men have even greater reason to complain, since very little has been done to inform them about their role in family planning and where they could go for services like vasectomy.
Only lately, too, has it been recognized that men just like women enjoy sexual and reproductive rights, including the right not to become a father when they have neither plan nor desire to do so. The problem with contraception for men, some say, is that the methods available to them are either too embarrassing or messy (the condom) or permanent and nearly irreversible (vasectomy).
Well, here's good news for men. Tests conducted among monkeys in the United States have yielded positive results that augur well for the development of a reversible immunocontraceptive injection that works 78 percent of the time -- "at least in monkeys."
* * *
USA Today, citing a study published in Science magazine, says the contraceptive injection uses a vaccine that targets a protein called Eppin that coats the sperm surface. "Seven of every nine animals [injected with the vaccine] developed an immune response, indicating that the vaccine was working," said M.G. O'Rand, a professor of cell and developmental biology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill School of Medicine. None of the monkeys tested "fathered babies while taking the shots," he added.
The study provides "the first clear evidence" in primates that antibodies to sperm-coating proteins can prevent conception," added John Herr, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Research in Contraception and Reproductive Health.
There is, however, one hitch. O'Rand cautions that two of the seven monkeys remained infertile even after the shots were stopped.
Another cautionary note was issued by Susan Benoff, former president of the Society for Male Reproduction and Urology. While some men might be willing to take a contraceptive pill, she said, "most of her male patients aren't crazy about needles." Most men would still prefer condoms, she said, which are "inexpensive, widely available and help prevent sexually transmitted infections," a service which the injectable contraceptive for men (and other methods) does not provide.
There is one more obstacle to the popularization of this contraceptive for men. And that is the unwillingness of women "to trust their partners with such a weighty responsibility." Says Benoff: "If you are a woman, you are the one who's going to be pushing out the eight-pound bowling ball, so you really have to trust that he's going to do what he says he's going to do."
* * *
IF you can't trust him, then here's even better contraceptive news for women.
According to the New Zealand Herald, Australia will be the first to participate in a trial for the "world's first spray-on contraceptive" which is expected to get underway before Christmas. The fast-drying spray is applied to the inner side of a woman's forearm once a day and provides a "measured dose of the progestin Nestorone." It might even be used for hormone replacement therapy if proven successful, said the report.
If the trials prove successful, then the spray could be available to the public in four years.
Updated 03:21am (Mla time) Nov 19, 2004
By Rina Jimenez-David
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the November 19, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
AT THE HEIGHT of the furor over contraception and family planning in the 1970s, a family planning organization came out with a famous poster that showed a man with an enormous pregnant belly standing in profile, with the headline: "What if men got pregnant?"
The implication, of course, was that if men could get pregnant, they would not only wholeheartedly support (and practice) family planning, they would also use all their power and resources to ensure more and better research into human reproduction, and fight tooth and nail to make sure they could gain access to all forms of contraception and maybe even abortion.
A TV ad, produced by Campaigns and Grey for the Foundation for Philippine Adolescents and directed by Sockie Fernandez, picks up on the theme, with three "pregnant" men seriously discussing their need of and right to reproductive health services.
Why the need to turn the tables on men? Because, as research findings show, the majority of men believe that preventing a pregnancy is a woman's concern since only women get pregnant. Some husbands would even go so far as prevent their wives from using contraception for fear that with the women no longer at risk of pregnancy, they would be emboldened to embark on extra-marital affairs. (Based on the men's own attitudes, perhaps?)
The belief that only women worry about preventing pregnancy has had serious implications on health policies and research. Governments, for instance, have historically targeted women as the main clientele for family planning and other reproductive health services, believing that men have no need for or interest in these matters. Most methods of family planning that have been developed over the last 50 years have also been targeted at female users, with men having only a limited number of methods to choose from: the condom, vasectomy, and abstention from sex.
* * *
BUT are men really all that indifferent to protection from the unwanted consequences of sex? It isn't only fear of HIV/AIDS infection that has made men more conscious of the need for safe sex. A local study of men's attitudes toward reproductive health (conducted by De La Salle University, if I remember right) shows that men are just as concerned about attaining their desired family size and raising their children well as their partners. The problem is that men either are made to feel that childcare and reproduction are none of their business (except as sperm donors), or they don't know how they are supposed to do their part. If women complain about lack of information on and access to services, men have even greater reason to complain, since very little has been done to inform them about their role in family planning and where they could go for services like vasectomy.
Only lately, too, has it been recognized that men just like women enjoy sexual and reproductive rights, including the right not to become a father when they have neither plan nor desire to do so. The problem with contraception for men, some say, is that the methods available to them are either too embarrassing or messy (the condom) or permanent and nearly irreversible (vasectomy).
Well, here's good news for men. Tests conducted among monkeys in the United States have yielded positive results that augur well for the development of a reversible immunocontraceptive injection that works 78 percent of the time -- "at least in monkeys."
* * *
USA Today, citing a study published in Science magazine, says the contraceptive injection uses a vaccine that targets a protein called Eppin that coats the sperm surface. "Seven of every nine animals [injected with the vaccine] developed an immune response, indicating that the vaccine was working," said M.G. O'Rand, a professor of cell and developmental biology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill School of Medicine. None of the monkeys tested "fathered babies while taking the shots," he added.
The study provides "the first clear evidence" in primates that antibodies to sperm-coating proteins can prevent conception," added John Herr, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Research in Contraception and Reproductive Health.
There is, however, one hitch. O'Rand cautions that two of the seven monkeys remained infertile even after the shots were stopped.
Another cautionary note was issued by Susan Benoff, former president of the Society for Male Reproduction and Urology. While some men might be willing to take a contraceptive pill, she said, "most of her male patients aren't crazy about needles." Most men would still prefer condoms, she said, which are "inexpensive, widely available and help prevent sexually transmitted infections," a service which the injectable contraceptive for men (and other methods) does not provide.
There is one more obstacle to the popularization of this contraceptive for men. And that is the unwillingness of women "to trust their partners with such a weighty responsibility." Says Benoff: "If you are a woman, you are the one who's going to be pushing out the eight-pound bowling ball, so you really have to trust that he's going to do what he says he's going to do."
* * *
IF you can't trust him, then here's even better contraceptive news for women.
According to the New Zealand Herald, Australia will be the first to participate in a trial for the "world's first spray-on contraceptive" which is expected to get underway before Christmas. The fast-drying spray is applied to the inner side of a woman's forearm once a day and provides a "measured dose of the progestin Nestorone." It might even be used for hormone replacement therapy if proven successful, said the report.
If the trials prove successful, then the spray could be available to the public in four years.
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