Scientifically, we know how to create a male Pill. Yet despite much clinical research, the top 20 pharmaceutical companies have shown zero interest in taking such a product to market. Aside from big pharma's focus on older people (a resounding "yes" on treatment for erectile function, an equally resounding "no" for contraception), the biggest problem is the fact that a young man's reproductive span is two to three times longer than a 20-year-old woman's.
A young woman will not ask whether continued use of her Pill would affect her fertility at 45 or 50, whereas many 20-year-old men would require a guaranteed answer. To provide an epidemiologically valid answer to a young man would be expensive, time-consuming (thus cannibalising most of the potential patent life) and open to lawsuits, since men may blame their Pill for age-related erectile dysfunction and prostate-gland problems. LinkDjerassi is an interesting man in his own right. I wrote a bit about him back here, Djerassic Perk, in which I incorrectly predicted that he would win the Chemistry Nobel Prize. Every year, I still wonder why not. He's over 90 years old now and won't be around forever.
Djerassi has his share of detractors, but the Pill has certainly had important social consequences. Then there apparently is an Austrian newspaper interview in which he regrets some of the subsequent demographic changes his co-invention wrought. You can read about that here. I'll bet the original article is in German and I'd like to get my hands on it.
27 comments:
Young women *should* demand to know if there is a chance of permanent damage to their fertility.
Also, as random side-effects go, I'll probably be advising my children to *somehow* figure out how to avoid giving the grandkids food or drink made with Estrogen Water.
What percentage of female birth control products are used by women in a "trusting" monogamous relationship? Because, outside of those thrusting relationships, I see no way in hell that a woman is going to take a man's word that he's infertile. Women still bear the major burden in a pregnancy, obviously, and no technology now imagined will change that. Men trust women to be honest about their BC use because men know that women have more to lose. Often, men are horribly mistaken in who they place their trust, but, so far, the assumption that women can be trusted rules the field of play for both sexes.
That should be "trusting" not "thrusting" in sentence 2 of the previous post. But, hey, that really is too good of a Freudian slip to delete & re-do.
I agree with Synova. I strongly suspect that a few decades from now the Pill will be viewed like cigarettes, found to be a huge factor in a lot of health issues.
So many of the women I know who have been on the pill find that when they finally want to choose to be pregnant, they can't. Of course, that fuels the fertility industry. So Pharm makes money on both sides.
I'm a good Protestant so I don't have any moral issues with contraceptives, but mucking about with hormones leads to a lot more emotional and physical issues than any one is willing, yet, to admit. Not to mention all the hormones that get dumped in the water supply.
without the thrusting there's no need for the trusting
So many of the women I know who have been on the pill find that when they finally want to choose to be pregnant, they can't.
Loads of fun lead to loads of worry?
"Djerassi described families who had decided against reproduction as “wanting to enjoy their schnitzels while leaving the rest of the world to get on with it.”
The fall in the birth rate, he claimed, was an “epidemic” far worse but less highlighted than obesity. In his view, young Austrians who fail to procreate are committing national suicide.
Your link goes to a beer commercial, Lem.
As Lem intended, perhaps. Especially for Austrians.
Synova:
Yes. But there's a price to be paid both for controlling fertility (or not controlling it) *and* also bucking the steady stream of estrogen (and estrogen mimickers) into the supply. There is, and it's not a cheap one.
Back in the day, in the brief time when it even would have been an issue, I was a strong believer in redundant birth control and, more important, in employing birth control methods with exactitude, precision and commitment to the letter and to the "t." Without fail.
No birth control method of any kind, including abstinence and what used to be called the rhythm method, can be relied upon to succeed without a commitment to precision, exactitude and discipline. After all, even such commitment is no guarantee. How less, then, can there be a reliance on a guarantee one does not control?
XRay said...
As Lem intended, perhaps. Especially for Austrians.
Doch! Es muss ein Stiegl sein!
But there's a price to be paid both for controlling fertility (or not controlling it) *and* also bucking the steady stream of estrogen (and estrogen mimickers) into the supply.
There's also an untolled price of (and untold story about) estrogens in water supplies. Unfortunately, given their chemical nature, these molecules persist.
Re: Estrogen water.
Weird for my generation and age, I've spent *may-y-y-bb-ee" a collective total of something like 3 to 3-1/2 years on the Pill and I have not partaken of HRT at all. Whatever estrogen I have pissed into the sewer, it's pretty much been my own, Lord help me and everyone else.
; )
Chickelit!
That hormones stay in the water through treatment is incredibly alarming. I can only think that the only reason people are not completely freaking over it is that birth control is a religion... all women should be on it... or something. Talking about what that hormone load does to women is off the table entirely... how much more are the hormones in our water supply simply not to be mentioned?
(Probably menopause drugs too for this.)
I was only on the pill for a few years. It didn't bother me but I didn't like it. One of my kids went on for what seemed like a good idea and got significantly ill from them... so I've got almost three months (minus two weeks) of BC pills in my drawer. We looked up the side effects and it was the whole list...
And yes, I'm a good Protestant too, and have nothing against birth control. Birth control is a wonderful idea.
But I'm starting to wonder if a few unexpected children would be better for everyone all around than jerking our hormones backwards and sideways and thinking that there aren't consequences.
FTR, I was also an early skeptic of the overuse and misuse of antibiotics and so my track record of using them is similarly sparing, when I got to control that. My own son has been on antibiotics less than what one hand could count (and the first time was at birth, due to the ob's having cut my son's head and exposing him to infection).
So, most of the antibiotics that I have pissed into the sewer are also my own.
---
FTR, because I can see why it is necessary to declare so: I do believe in vaccination and immunization. Vaccinations have saved lives. I've seen the results from both sides (pre-vac and post-vac worlds). My son has been fully vaccinated from his start. I'm grateful for the science of all of that.
I'm grateful for the science of all of that.
Give thanks to the milkmaids and to Pasteur's prepared mind.
Noticing and disciplined stuff, as it happened. Great combo.
I was in WalMart the other day and there were these three black guys looking at the condoms. They were in their mid-to-late teens and they seemed not to be too sure of what they were doing. There was some nervous laughter among them.
Anyway, it occurred to me to hand them a twenty and say, "You guys have got the right idea so keep a supply on hand."
But I didn't because that would have been racist.
More creepy than racist but, yeah, racist nonetheless.
The male pill has been used in China since the 1980's without the kinds of side effects seen in female birth control. American men will all go on the pill until they are ten years married and THAT is why the west won't release it. Birth rates in the western societies are too low now. What prevents a woman from taking contraception as well as the man? That would be a double win for the pharmaceutical industry. This article is bogus.
Unlike the female conception process, males can freeze sperm ahead so that later fertility is not an issue.
Loads of fun and no worries.
Well... worry about power outages and freezers breaking down but...
"I have a modest proposal... why don't we completely purge all references to people of color from our society. This will save anyone from being racist. Turn them all invisible. Problem. Solved."
That is a great idea. Let's make it the policy of this blog and all of its commenters.
Benign neglect.
It's not just for that mole on your back anymore.
Lucky we didn't say anything about the dirty knife.
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