Testosterone in male contraception

Abstract

The first of a series of topics that Kate Noble lists in an article in a special TIME-Magazine issue (Winter 1997/1998) on “Shape of things to come” in the years 1999 to 2500 is: “Male birth control pill or contraceptive injection becomes commonly available”. This prediction does not come as a surprise to the researcher active in the field. The surprising element is the year designated to witness the “common availability”: 1999! From all we know today, this male contraceptive will be hormone-based and while scientists have believed for a long time that the principle of hormonal male contraception is ready to be converted into a viable consumable drug, the pharmaceutical industry, for whom drug development is an inherent task, has refused to fulfill this task for hormonal male contraception. Confronted with this reluctance, leading scientists active in the field of male contraception felt compelled to draft the “Weimar Manifesto on Male Contraception” in June 1997 (see insert on opposite page) and to urge industry to assume an active role in male contraceptive development. Since then, at least three companies have publicly declared their new commitment to male contraception development. An enthusiastic article in the Guardian on October 6, 1997 (“Trials may put men on the pill by 2000”) predicts general availability of a hormonal male contraceptive by 2000. This statement probably gave rise to TIME’s optimism.