Hormone treatment could work as male birth control

A new male birth control method to reduce semen output offers results comparable to a vasectomy and may dispel the belief that contraception is a woman's responsibility, researchers and experts suggest.

University of Sydney researchers published study results in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism Feb. 26, reporting that testosterone and progestin hormones can be combined to form a new kind of contraceptive for men.

Researchers analyzed male-contraceptive studies published between 1990 and 2006 and found that the combination of testosterone and progestin effectively suppresses semen output.

Peter Liu, the lead survey author and associate professor at the University of Sydney, said in a March 25 statement that the combination of the two hormones would be reversible and as effective as a vasectomy, a more invasive form of contraception involving surgery.

Though the results seem to foretell a future of men popping the pill instead of women, Liu said in an e-mail that further studies on the drug are needed, because exposure to androgens, or synthetic steroid hormones, must be varied as a male is continually treated. The study found that men respond differently to the treatment -- white men respond sooner than, but not as well as, the non-white men in the study.

Warren Farrell, a California-based author of Father and Child Reunion, a book about the importance of fathers to families, said in his book that a male birth control pill is necessary because it adds to women's options to take the pill and allows men to share the risk of pregnancy.

Farrell said drug companies have felt women would not trust a man to actually be on the pill.

"They've felt men wouldn't take the pill because they don't perceive birth control to be their responsibility," he said in a phone interview.

School of Management sophomore Matt Mintz said men should think contraception is their responsibility, but said current methods are effective enough without extra medication.

"[Male] birth control isn't necessary when there are other means to prevent possible child birth," Mintz said. "Just using condoms and spermicide eliminates almost any chance of pregnancy, so that seems fine by me."