I feel like there's a male birth control on the horizon every year for the last ten years. This one hasn't hit human trials yet so no point getting excited.
Meta: Title should be "Male birth control pill to begin testing in late 2022"<p>> will begin testing in human clinical trials in the third or fourth quarter of 2022
The type I am really hopeful about target the flagellum. The only portion of the human body to have this would be sperm cells. Backing up a bit, it's very hard to target a medicine to something highly specific, since it circulates through the body, which re-uses proteins all over the place. This, though, represents a single target.<p>It's a shame. Vasectomy can have complications which are often not discussed in the slightest. My father had some of those, though not as bad as others. Occasionally, the results are permanent, despite a reversal of the vasectomy. To paraphrase Orwell, imagine a boot stamping on a your balls—for ever. I am trying to remember the musician who killed himself over it.
In Western countries and in Asia, fertility rates are pretty (edit: low) these days. I fear they would collapse with the introduction of a male fertility pill.<p>In some sense, maybe that's not bad. The world is probably overpopulated. But if fertility drops too fast it creates real demographics problems in that few young people need to support many old people.
Birth control pills for men are great and all, but there is an aspect to it where having kids would require both parents' stated preferences and revealed preferences to align, and that sounds like some interesting relationship game theory.
"without side effects" is a hyper-bold statement, to be really sure about side effect any drug demand around 10 years after a certain level of adoption...<p>For instance vasectomy for years was considered "safe" even if "definitive" know we know, at least many suggest that vasectomy increase risk of prostate and testicular cancers.<p>So far the only "permanent" (well, for a certain number of years) contraceptive method we have is the copper IUD, it have menstrual cycle side effect but nothing irreversible or really dangerous.
What happens to YCT529 when it's used up or if more than is used up in the body is taken? Is excess urinated out? What impact does that have on the environment?
It’s kinda wild that women are basically expected to take on all the side effect risk of birth control and no one even questions it unless side effects are actually death (Remember Yaz?).<p>I’m also curious about how blocking vitamin A doesn’t have side effects - don’t I need vitamin A?