Male Hormonal Contraception: Love’s Labour’s Lost?

Although a large proportion of clinical research is driven by the pharmaceutical industry in the case of male contraception industry fails. Without the long-range perspective and endurance of institutions and organizations such as the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development CONRAD Population Council WHO some medical research councils and a few foundations male contraception would long ago have been abandoned. The principle and effectiveness of hormonal male contraception has been demonstrated in many studies crowned by the most recent trial in the current issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. The fact that the majority of clinical trials on hormonal male contraception have been published in this journal emphasizes the high priority the scientific community attributes to these endeavors. Little more is required to convince industry to bring this development to fruition. Comparing the situation with the development of the female pill the lack of public advocacy for male contraception is striking. Male contraception lacks prominent advocates whereas the development of female contraception benefited from personalities such as Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) and Katherine McCormick (1875-1967). Were Arnold Schwarzenegger or Barack Obama to advocate male contraception it would become a marketable entity in no time! (excerpt)