Early Thoughts on the Male Contraception Shot

Some early thoughts about the 'male birth control shot':

-It seems to me that all articles fail to describe notable details in the trial.

-There were 320 participants. Only 20 of them (6.25%) left the trial due to actual adverse effects of the drug. 8 of them withdrew for more than one reason.

-It is easier for me to see just how feminists and anti-feminists end up in this hellhole together. Reading again and again stuff like how men don't get it, men are babies, men are too fragile for office, medicine is inherently sexist, it makes it easy to make it feel like I'm the one being accused. In some cases these people clarify which men they are talking about, but for some I can't help wonder if they're talking about all men. On the other hand, I went to the Blue Pill subreddit and saw some ridiculous BS too, like 'men don't get pregnant, why should they have to worry about contraception, any side effect is too much'.

-In March an independent committee established by WHO/RHR and CONRAD determined that the risks reported outweighed the harms in the study. I wonder what that actually means. Can they just do another study later on? How easy would that process be?

-To my understanding, it is the job of the participants to report all side effects, even side effects that might not even have to do with the drug. Reporting acne is not the same as complaining about acne and crying about it to mommie. And it's unclear how severe their problems were.

-It's unclear to me what 'severe' acne or libido increase even means. Acne can vary from normal to disfiguring. Although, I have to wonder just how high libido one's libido has to be for it to be 'severe'.

-One person in the study committed suicide. Study finds this was probably not due to the drug.

-A 'nonfatal serious adverse effect' was depression for one person, rated as probably related. In the past I've had the displeasure of encountering a person who got super triggered at me for talking about suicide and depression in a slightly slack way, Telling this guy to 'suck it up' might be dangerous for his mental health. But to be fair, this is an isolated incidence even though it was rated as serious.

-In another one of these types of cases, a man got tachycardia with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, rated as possibly related.

-Finally, the last 'nonfatal serious adverse effect' was a guy who attempted suicide, rated as 'probably related'. Did you read this in the media? No, I don't think so.

-According to the study, a person has not recovered fertility after 4 years. 8 of the participants took over a year. This is a serious side effect that needs to be noted.

-75% of men responded positively to the survey and said they would give this method of contraception a shot. The person writing the results of the study thinks this supports further development of this contraception approach. I agree. Clearly most men like it.

-In the end I think the person who can avoid pregnancy the easiest ought to do the contraception, be it the male or the female. Of course, I'm not going to tell people how to have sex. A couple should discuss together what they want. Maybe they want to mix the shot with the pill.

-It is not beyond the drug companies' morals to try to leverage social justice/accusations of sexism to try to get a drug passed. Not to say that it is being done here. But it seems people oversimplify the science behind drugs. For example, calling Flianserin 'female viagra' and denying it from store shelves sounds like a possible case of sexism but close inspection of the data shows why it was not allowed.

-Were there possible serious side effects due to the drug? Yes. Were there probably babies? Yes, some of the men in the trial were probably wusses. But they were the minority. I wish I had more details to judge more accurately, but I do not. Then again, neither do the people ranting on FB.

-The figure quoted is a 4% chance of failure. It's unclear exactly what the 4% figure means. If each use there is a 4% chance of failure then the contraceptive method is terrible. More likely it's 4% failure rate when used over a typical year. Jury's out on what a 'typical year' means.

-My final question is this: What percentage of females left studies regarding the pill due to side effects? We know what this study showed that 5% of men left the study due to side effects without specific information on how bad the side effects where. What of females in a similar situation? Surely we need data from both sides to see if there's even a problem here. Without adequate data it seems people are reading headlines (or even articles, albeit terrible ones) and believing what they want to believe without no further investigation.

-My conclusion is that I don't know, and more data is needed. While it is true that some men do need to be reminded of the problems (and even the benefits) of the pill, I got that after the first post and scrolling more and more I only see that with some angry voices and very little specifics on the study. Remember, the angrier both sides get, the less both sides listen to each other. I have a cool head right now and it really is the best way to go when discussing these issues. Plus, it sucks to comment on studies without reading it first (although everyone is guilty of that, including me). If Healthcare Triage makes a video on this topic I will post an update later as necessary.

-The link to the summary of the study is here: http://press.endocrine.org/doi/pdf/10.1210/jc.2016-2141