Now the chemical snip! Male pill works like a vasectomy – but will girls trust men to take it?

A scientific breakthrough could finally make a male contraceptive pill reality, researchers said last night.

Previous attempts to develop a pill have tried either to alter a man’s hormones or to make his sperm ineffective.

The new technique works like a temporary vasectomy, stopping sperm leaving the body during sex – which scientists say will reassure men concerned that other approaches could affect their long-term virility and libido.

It is also likely to appeal to women uneasy about the female pill’s potential to raise the risk of heart attacks, strokes and blood clots.
 
But some women may not welcome the news. In 2011 a survey by Anglia Ruskin University found that half of women would not rely on a male pill as contraception – because they did not trust their partners to remember to take it.

Dr Sabatino Ventura, whose team at the Monash University in Australia published their findings last night, said the technique works by blocking two proteins involved in the ejaculation process.

Using medication to target the mechanism by which sperm leaves the body, rather than trying to alter a man’s hormones or kill his sperm, meant the potential side-effects would be vastly reduced, he said.

Significantly, the technique would not affect a man’s sex drive, and fertility could be switched back on simply by not taking the pill. Dr Ventura said: ‘Most of the previous strategies to make a male contraceptive have either been hormonal strategies, which would produce a lot of sexual side-effects or effects on masculinity, or they would make sperm dysfunctional, which might produce long-term effects on offspring. Our strategy avoids all those problems.’

Taken daily, a male pill would let couples share the task of family planning. Although there are a range of contraception options available to women, for men currently there are only condoms or a permanent surgical vasectomy.

The new technique, detailed in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has been shown to work in mice.

The male mice were 100 per cent infertile after two proteins were deleted from their bodies. Crucially, the sperm retained in their body was undamaged and was later used via IVF to produce healthy baby mice

In the past 50 years there have been few changes in male contraception compared with the range of options available to women

In humans the same process would work by using medication to disrupt the same two proteins, blocking a message from the brain which moves sperm into the penis. The man would still ejaculate but there would be no sperm.

Dr Allan Pacey, fertility expert at Sheffield University, said the study showed great promise but added: ‘There is a long way to go. We need to do a few studies in humans to be sure this works in the way it has in mice and there are no side-effects.’

Source Mail Online