Technology

This kind of thing pops up repeatedly. There's some big, splashy news about a male contraceptive, and then it flames out, or ends up being vaporware.

The problem is that you need to stop a few million sperm with every single ejaculation; reducing that number by 99% means that you're still risking pregnancy. Severing the ductus deferens (a vasectomy) means no sperm get through; trying to clip or block them means that some can potentially get through. Hormonal BC has the same issue; while it significantly reduces sperm count, it may not eliminate it entirely. (And there can be some really significant negative side effects from eliminating endogenous testosterone production, since hormonal levels need to be pretty far out of whack before there's a really big cut in sperm production.)

OTOH, women have to stop two eggs per month, or stop them from being implanted in the uterine wall. A 99% reduction in fertility for women means that it's very, very unlikely that they're going to be able to get pregnant.

(Yes, women suffer from hormonal BC as well, but some women need it just to be able to live normal lives. It's overall less of a problem than it ends up being for men. And women have the option of an IUD as well.)

Personally, I'm in favor of vasectomy; it's allowed me to avoid having any children for 20-odd years now.

Vaselgel is too cheap to manufacture to get the funding it needs to bring it to market, that's why they have been trying for 20 years and haven't succeeded yet. In the US the rights are owned by a non profit Parsemu Foundation formed to fund it. It looks like their private partner NEXT Life Sciences is actually set to come to market with a vaselgel product in 2026 they are calling Plan A.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/next-life-sciences-announces-launch-of-plan-a-birth-control-for-men-301779007.html

Interesting marketing choice comparing it to the Plan B pill.

A vasectomy in my twenties was the best decision I ever made.

10/10, would snip, tie and burn again.

I gave up on waiting for this tech to become available and just got a vasectomy.

They are going to need to work on their sales pitch...

It looks promising, even though it is quite far away from becoming available to the general public.

Still I wish that there was more of a push for something like a contraceptive pill for men. It feels like it has been ignored for years and only now they are starting a bit with development and trials...

These reversable, injectable, male contraceptives have been promised for at least 5 years, when will they come to market?

More options are great I suppose, but as a gem-xer I don't get the modern revolt against the condom. Modern condoms are pretty damn thin / good and are a form of male birth control with bonus of very good disease prevention, have next to no side effects, and minimize messes too.

This isn't exactly new. Vasalgel offers a similar injection that blocks the tubes, however before then back in the early 2010's there was also a guy in India testing a better version which did not block the tubes - the compound was polarised, and when the sperm went through it was disoriented such that it couldn't swim to the egg. The human clinical trials had a 100% success rate at preventing pregnancy, albeit human trials tend not to have that many people (I think there were 26). My understanding is that this became Vasalgel because the pharmacuetical industry didn't like the fact that it completely avoided the complications that can come with vasectomies where the tube is completely blocked.

I've been seeing promises about a new male contraceptive for more than a decade now. They never seem to hit the shelves form some reason.

This turns the scrotum into a stress ball.

RISUG has been in promised for what, nearly a decade now? This has been the FSD/Star Citizen of the male contraceptive world, always right around the corner.

Is this not the exact same thing as vasalgel? How is this new or different?

Been trying this for 2 decades

Contraline’s method involves making a small piercing in the scrotum and using a handheld injector to push the hydrogel through a catheter that’s connected to the vas deferens. The catheter is then taken out, and the puncture heals on its own.

That sounds like a bit more than just an injection. Not quite like going in for a flu shot to the nuts