Contraceptive Pill for Men Remains Elusive

For as long as I’ve been doing men’s studies, researchers have claimed that the birth control pill for men is only a few years away.  That promise has never materialized.  The problem has to do with the tenaciousness of the male reproductive system, which produces 1,000 sperm each second (compared to the one ovum a month in women). 

Nevertheless, CNN reports, the thirty studies done in the last thirty years may be about to pay off.  A study of 1,000 Chinese men achieved 95% success with a hormonal injection.  That same rate has not been duplicated in the United States, though contraceptive gels are looking like a promising option. 

In any case, wide-scale studies have yet to be started, meaning we’re still five years or more away from having the pill for men available.

Painkillers = Ear Killers?

A study in the March 2010 issue of The American Journal of Medicine reported that there was a correlation between men’s use of certain painkillers and deafness later in life.  “Analgesic Use and the Risk of Hearing Loss in Men” described how men who used NSAIDs and acetominophen were more likely to lose their hearing after longterm use.  The numbers were not excessively alarming, except for the sustained use of these painkillers among young men, in which the magnitude of the association between OTC analgesic use and deafness was “substantially higher.”  Occasional use of these common drugs did not show any significant correlation.  Read the article here.