Birth-control pill for men shows promise

Well, well, well. The ball has been knocked roundly into your court, gentlemen.

A birth-control pill for men has (finally!) been developed, and could hit the market in five years.

UW School of Medicine endocrinologist Dr. Stephanie Page presented her research recently at the Endocrine Society’s meeting in Chicago.

Page studied 83 men who took the oral contraceptive — called dimethandrolone undecanoate, or DMAU — for a month, which resulted in a drop in their testosterone levels, as well as two hormones required for sperm production. There were also few side-effects, and liver and kidney functions weren’t impaired.

Page made clear that this was “an early-phase study” that showed that when men took the prototype pill for a month, “we see the changes in their hormones that we think will be effective as we move along in the development.

“We haven’t proved that over 10 years it is going to be safe,” Page added. “But we are hopeful.”

Participants had a slight decrease in their HDL, or “good” cholesterol, and — in a stroke of smirk-worthy karma — a slight weight gain.

This is much more acceptable than when the World Health Organization in 2016 commissioned a trial of a twohormone injection designed to lower sperm count.

Even though the results were 96 per cent effective in preventing pregnancies, the second stage of the trial was stopped after men suffered severe acne and mood swings. One man developed severe depression, and another tried to commit suicide.

So it was left to women to suffer sore boobs; mood swings; weight gain; inserting rubber cups filled with cold gel into ourselves; and having tiny metal objects implanted in our uteruses because, well, we’re not babies. We just make them.

“That’s your quote, not mine,” Page said. Noted.

In the time she has been working on the pill — her report was co-authored by Christina Wang of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, California — Page has had plenty of people ask: “Are men going to use a birth-control pill?”

“Men are interested in contraception,” she said “but they just don’t have the options.”

There are men in stable relationships with partners who can’t use birth control. And there are single men who want to control — how did Page put it? — “their own fertility.”