Trial of male birth control halted because some of the men couldn't handle the same side effects women have always dealt with

TheChemist158 · 2016-10-31T07:28:39+00:00

Women, does male birth control bother you?

Eh, whatever gets the job done. I'm not quaking in my boots. My boots are decidedly still and largely uncaring.

What did inspire some negative emotions was digging through the links to other news articles to find the actual damn study here.

I'm having trouble getting through the article you linked because I find my rage boiling over every few paragraphs. Needless to say, I'm not impressed by it. Aside from repeating itself over and over again, it shows a deep lack of understanding of how human trails work, and how this one in particular went down.

First and foremost, they conflate a human trial of a new drug with the use of another drug already on the market. These are very different situations.

Unless the researchers produce evidence that this injection increases the risk of death, cancer – or any side effect with a disproportionately higher risk than the forms of contraception billions of women are already using – they are courting controversy.

This sentence in particular makes me want to claw my face off. Because holy fucking cow, that isn't how human trials work at all. You don't need evidence to prove that something is dangerous. This is a new drug, we don't know how it will affect a large population. We only tested it on 320 people and found that it was going a significant proportion of them trouble. And believe it or not, but male lives still matter. We aren't going to just let them keep taking a drug that seems to give them bad side effects because there is a real risk of worse side effects. I swear to you, they would do the same if a contraceptive for women was giving researchers health concerns. Because this kind of stuff is a huge thing in science. It's not a matter of "do you think you can tough it out". It's a question of if there is a great risk, and if their current suffering is justified. I don't think I convey how important this stuff is, so let's just say by international law, we like to error on the safe side.

Now, if you want to blame someone, it's not the researchers nor the test subjects. The subjects didn't say that it was "intolerable", nor did the researchers decide to stop. A committee established by WHO looked at the data and told the researchers to stop. So if you are going to be mad at someone, blame the WHO.

Also, they seems to think that women are someone forced to take birth control. We aren't. No one in the damn world is cramming pills down our throats. If you are on the pill, you decided to get on the pill.

Now, I'm going to go back to the whole "why we don't just ask test subjects to tough it out" thing. One person out of the 320 died. Killed himself. Now, the researchers are saying that it was unrelated but considering that mood swings and depression were reported side effects, and they could certainly influence a guy's decision to take his life, I can see this one death giving the committee some serious pause. The risks of the study cannot outweigh the benefits, and if suicide might be a risk, it can reasonably be argued that the risks do outweigh the benefits. Another person also had irregular heart beats, which can be a very serious thing, particularly with a new drug when you aren't sure what is going on. Another one intentionally over-dosed. So put yourself on that panel. One person died, two more have risks. A total of 8 severe reactions. You don't know if there will be more to come. You don't know if suicidal depression is going to be a common side effect.

For comparison, here is a similar paper on NuvaRing. Out of over a 1,000 women, 60 stopped due to side effects, roughly the same amount of in the male study. Only 28% of the female subjects had side effects related to the drug, compared a lot for the male one. They don't seem to say how many experienced some side effect, but half of them experienced ance alone, a quarter had painful injection sites, a third had increased libido, 15% had emotional issues, and another 15% had muscle aches. Compare this to the NuvaRing, which had the headaches as the most common side affect at just 7%. And no one died either.

SexyMcSexington · 2016-10-31T02:39:31+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/5a6dea/trials_for_male_contraceptive_halted_after_men/d9dzu6l/

The study was shut down after two deaths. One person committed suicide. They determined this wasn't related after the fact. They also had someone develop depression and another person intentionally overdose. They weren't able to rule that second one out.

I hardly think women are quaking at the boots at the effect of male contraception. But that is one heavily editorialized article to play a schoolyard-level game of "women rule, men drool”. I don’t think female contraceptives are a walk in the park, but this is some revenge-fantasy puerile horseshit.

tallwheel · 2016-10-31T05:17:43+00:00

This is a waste of time, vasagel is where it's at.

[deleted] · 2016-10-31T05:59:09+00:00

male birth control doesn't bother me. it seems to me that there is overlap between the fools who say women are afraid of it and those who can't or won't do something as simple as put on a condom, so for all their bit-chomping i suspect they aren't the group it will actually be effective for.

i think expanding options for contraception for men is a good thing, so i hope there will be more in the future.

DashneDK2 · 2016-10-31T03:19:23+00:00

The female pill is nasty as well. Besides all the listed side effects (and including higher risk of heart attack, cancer, etc.) it pollutes the environment with oestrogen. If not outright banned, then it should be heavily discouraged.

Of course that would negate one of feminism's strongest victories.

wub1234 · 2016-10-31T04:19:43+00:00

Women are accustomed to regular anatomical discomfort because you have to cope with menstruation. Men are not. Men will cope with discomfort from external factors very well (think of Marines, for example). We don't expect our bodies to cause us discomfort.

TheScamr · 2016-10-31T05:45:58+00:00

You mean to say that being a moody bitch is an intolerable state of being for a man?

alreadyredschool · 2016-10-31T09:28:50+00:00

The same side effects would mean the same intensity. For s 96% rate I wouldn't do it, just aim for the face and you have 98%.

Do any of those side effects sound familiar? Oh yes, they’re the minor side effects of the combined pill,

Who wrote that shit? A 14 year old misandrist?

Atlas_B_Shruggin · 2016-10-31T02:54:49+00:00

Men don't get pregnant, why will they bother taking contraceptives with dangerous or unpleasant side effects? Women are the ones who get pregnant so the importance of contraception outweighs the risks and side effects. I don't see the issue here

darkmoon09 · 2016-10-31T06:44:43+00:00

There's alrady a better male birth control prototype - Vasalgel, which has been proven to be simpler, effective, and practically free of any side effects because it has nothing to do with hormonal treatment like the case you're posting.

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DarkLord0chinChin · 2016-10-31T08:46:53+00:00

Comparing men and women from a feminist standpoint of blank slate equality is incorrect

anitapk · 2016-10-31T09:03:49+00:00

A woman is expected to experience all those symptoms linked to PMS, they also often use them as excuses and to get comfort from peers.

A man with lower libido because of a pill would bother the woman too - women aren't used to be rejected sexually and don't take it as lightly as men do as we saw from many threads.

MisgenderedCactus · 2016-10-31T09:35:56+00:00

Women, does male birth control bother you?

Absolutely not! I even donate biannually to the Parsemus Foundation, a company making male birth control options like Vasalgel.

I am hopeful that one day men will be able to have just as much control over their fatherhood as women have over their motherhood. It will be better for everyone.

GridReXX · 2016-11-01T16:16:16+00:00

Haha!

My friend group discussed this at a Halloween party last night.

The dudes were like "hell no side effects !"

Then all of the women actually read off the side effects 🕵🏾‍♀️.

It's the same damn side effects we get !

Anyway I thought it was funny.

Title	Trial of male birth control halted because some of the men couldn't handle the same side effects women have always dealt with
Author	SpaceWhiskey
Upvotes	10
Comments	102
Date	October 31, 2016 2:33 AM UTC (9 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/5a9xtt/trial_of_male_birth_control_halted_because_some/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/trial-of-male-birth-control-halted-because-some-of.272094 https://theredarchive.com/post/272094

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