https://www.parsemus.org/projects/vasalgel/
It's a one-application, reversible male contraceptive. "Application" is surgical, but not an involved one.
If it ever makes it to the market, it seems like a much simpler, safer intervention, conceptually. Disclaimer: non-medical programmer, so I have no genuinely useful insights into this subject. Just a layperson making guesses.
The problem is that there's simply no interest in the national seats of power for male contraceptives. Even female contraceptive technology moves at a glacial pace. The copper chain has been standard in Europe for over a decade now, but all you can get in the Americas is the much more dangerous copper coil (which can puncture the uterus). In fact, I doubt you've ever even heard of the copper chain. Even typing [copper chain contraceptive] into google brings up the familiar T-shaped copper coil device, not the free-hanging copper sleeved chain. You have to type ["copper chain" contraceptive], including the quotes, which then takes you to some German and Austrian sites. And BTW you can get the procedure done as a tourist for 300 euros.
Safe contraception is not a difficult problem to solve (for men and women), but any politician pushing it would kill their career.
I definitely do not recommend to take it lightly. I don't think it is a good idea to do it as a tourist since the gyns at home are not trained to handle the chain.
An alternative might be the copper ball though.
As it is now there is still a high chance of unplanned pregnancies across the population and I wouldn't be surprised if they made up the bulk of children born. If men had an effective fire-and-forget long term contraceptive then unplanned pregnancies would be practically nonexistent.
Seems that "copper pearls" (without the quotes) or "copper IUB" yield the result immediately, but both terms seem to be commercial in nature - I smell a slight attempt at rebranding going on.
I’ve donated a small amount to Parsemus and I would easily pay $5k for their $20 procedure but for whatever reason they haven’t made it to the market.
I don't have time to search a lot for this, but I did find one study that pointed at reduced sperm quality in young men: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3641477/
How do you endure that? When I was still young and lived with my parents we had a thermometer in the bath tub. Anything over 40 °C was torture. I don't think I ever managed anything above 42°C.
I'd be afraid to do it regularly though... felt interesting / nice, but also "this is extreme, maybe I shouldn't be doing this".
You are stretching it. Most hot onsen are above 40C but certainly not above 45 or close to 50. At 50 you feel like you are boiling. And even if the source is at 45 C you never sit right next to the source, a few meters away the temperature loses several degrees.
ANd people in Japan don't go to onsen every single day either. At home the usual temperature is rather 40~41.
I like my baths regular and hot. While I don't doubt this affects sperm count somehow, when we started trying for a child I didn't dial back the baths and we were pregnant in about 6 weeks.
In principle it's not a lot different than thinking about what would happen if you had a 100 degree fever vs 110 - 100 you'd feel only a little unwell, and 110... I'm not sure if that's even survivable for a few hours; usual concern is how your brain cells fair in such conditions. (Let's try not to find out through personal experience?).
Of course, none of these numbers really matter if you just measure the temperature of your water, to get an idea what it actually is. But the difference between <104 and >110 is a pretty big one, in terms of how it'll affect you.
* Under 80, most people don't want to swim.
* The momentary shock-cold feeling when you jump in goes away somewhere near 85.
* 90 degrees feels warm and comfortable, not hot. A bit high for swimming on a hot day but much less than that and most folks don't want to swim at night.
* Less than 100 degrees feels "cold" for a hot tub. 104 keeps everyone happy. Hot tubs definitely go higher than 104 (although might require some funky button-work to "unlock" the temperature).
* 110+ feels tingly, dip-in-slowly hot. You go in for a few minutes, then sit on the side for a few minutes, then dip back in, etc. You could sit with your lower half in the water for an hour as long as your upper half was exposed and you had cold water to drink. You'll sweat a lot.
If the above poster has a hot tub set at 116, I wouldn't want to pay his electric bill.
116 °F ≈ 47 °C
Not sure how I would even keep water at 116F that long...
Sous vide?
I no longer have the link, but I found a study saying that birth defect rates were higher in mouse offspring from fathers that experienced the treatment than in ones whose fathers did not.
Not great evidence to go on, but I decided not to go that route.
Our current regulatory apparatus is way too risk averse: look up horror stories surrounding IRB approval in biomedical research. (You need oversight for having people fill out a survey!)
I understand the urge to protect people from various specific harms, but slow scientific progress is a harm all its own.
> it seems like a much simpler, safer intervention