For centuries people have been pill popping, condom wearing, tube tying and doing whatever it takes all in the name of child-less love. And yet with so many birth control options and combinations available, there has never been a 100 percent baby-free guarantee. The age of worry, however, is coming to an end. Vasalgel, a reversible hormone-free injection for men, may be on the market as soon as 2016, according to the Parsemus Foundation.
The Daily Dot published an article on Sept. 12 in which writer Harlan Frazier challenged Vasalgel saying it was “150 million disasters waiting to happen,” addressing issues like invasiveness, physical effects, and a lack of male motivation. While Frazier wasted over 1200 words whining about his rare dry-orgasm condition and wasting internet space, he forgot to check his facts.
Frazier claimed that his retrograde ejaculation condition was caused by medication he was prescribed for a kidney infection that contained alpha blockers. Although one proposed method of male birth control is to give men alpha blockers, Vasalgel does no such thing and thus his argument is invalid.
Vasalgel works similarly to a vasectomy by blocking sperm in the vas deferens (the tube in the penis which sperm swim through to mix with seminal fluid). However, instead of cutting or “snipping” the tube, the doctor simply injects it with the polymer hydrogel that is Vasalgel. Vasalgel is not only highly effective, it is intended to be a completely reversible procedure. If a man wishes to be fertile just months or even years after receiving Vasalgel, another injection can be done to flush away the polymer and return sperm flow.
Frazier claimed that getting the Vasalgel injection is, “an invasive procedure—far more invasive than popping a pill every day.” Of course getting one shot and then doing absolutely nothing else is much more invasive than watching your girlfriend take her birth control. While you sit back and do absolutely nothing after that gruelingly invasive 30-second procedure, your girlfriend will be running back and forth to the pharmacy, scribbling all over calendars and trying to time her pill-taking to a T.
Another statement Frazier made was that men simply wouldn’t want to get the procedure because they are too lazy and selfish. If men can expect their girlfriends to go on birth control, than women are just as entitled to ask their boyfriends to go through with something as simple as the Vasalgel procedure. If a guy is simply too lazy to get Vasalgel once it becomes available he probably won’t be getting laid anyways.
Vasalgel is also the solution to what men have seen as an age old problem: condoms. While condoms should still be used to protect against STIs, STDs, and HIV, monogamous couples who are have been tested can use Vasalgel as the ideal birth control alternative.
“I’m just saying that male birth control is highly imperfect,” Frazier writes. Studies have shown that this is far from the truth.
Just after Vasalgel’s initial development in 2010, the Parsemus Foundation, the organization attempting to put Vasalgel on the market, performed 12 months of rabbit studies. These studies confirmed Vasalgel’s effectiveness in preventing sperm flow, as well as the reverse injection’s ability to restore it in rabbits, according to the foundation’s website. No sperm was detected in the rabbits’ semen samples after receiving the injection and once the polymer had been flushed out sperm flow quickly returned.
Baboon studies are currently underway to determine the precise effectiveness and reversibility of the injection, according to the Parsemus Foundation newsletter. The original baboon subjects were given Vasalgel in March 2014 and have been given the chance to attempt to mate with female baboons. Unlike humans and many other mammals, female primates such as baboons have a genital region that will become a purple color within a week of pregnancy, allowing for less expensive and contact-free testing, as well as much faster and accurate results.
Although human pregnancy symptoms are much more subtle, the Parsemus Foundation has announced on their website that “if all goes well” human clinical trials will start in early 2015 and will possibly be held in Ohio or California. Crowdfunding for these trials will begin in late 2014.
This could be one of the most effective birth control methods on the market, and if anything is highly imperfect it’s the female birth control system and it’s cost.
The most effective “reversible” female birth control options are also some of the most expensive and can have been proven to cause extreme hormonal symptoms. According to Bedsider.org, the female hormonal injection, Depo-Provera depends on the timing of injections to be effective, can cost up to $300 a year and has been proven to cause severe weight gain. The female implant is put into the upper arm and is listed on Bedsider.org to cost up to $800, with a common symptom of irregular bleeding. Most forms of the birth control pill are free under insurance (thanks Obama), but effectiveness can be extremely varied depending on when the pill is taken and antibiotics can make it ineffective.
The Parsemus Foundation released a statement in their FAQ stating, “Vasalgel’s developer is committed to making it affordable and widely available—close to cost in low-income countries, and less than current long-acting contraceptives in the U.S.—but until the process is further along we won’t know exactly how much it will cost. We’ll have to charge enough to make the company sustainable, but for sure it won’t be $800 like long-acting contraceptives (IUDs) for women in the U.S. A contraceptive shouldn’t cost more than a flat-screen TV!”
The foundation claims that the bulk of the cost for a Vasalgel procedure will come from the cost of actually going to the doctor and that they will be working to get the product covered by insurance.
I used to tell people that the future gave me so much hope. That when I sent my kids off to college they’d live in co-ed rooms, be able to buy marijuana from a mom-and-pop pot shop down the street, and top of the line BC would be available for both genders. While cohabiting dorms and nationwide legalization are slow developments, Vasalgel is hope enough for right now. While Harlan Frazier and the rest of America’s lazy men refuse to accept it, change is coming (pun intended).
Selene San Felice can be reached at selene.sanfelice@theminaretonline.com