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Why Don’t We Have A Male Birth Control Pill Yet?
The complex story behind a common myth
There’s a very common myth that I keep seeing online. It goes something like this:
“The reason we don’t have a birth control pill for men is because when they tested it men said they wouldn’t take it because of symptoms like aches, muscle cramps, and depression. The same symptoms women have had on the pill for DECADES.”
You see this all the time. Here’s a recent post about the 96% effective male hormonal birth control and how it was shelved. It’s a very compelling narrative, so it goes viral all the time — women have been dealing with side-effects for decades but men can’t handle them for one measly trial just to get the birth control approved. Weak!
It’s just not exactly true.
Most of these posts are referencing this 2016 phase 2 study looking at a hormonal injection for male contraception. It was indeed stopped early because of concerns about side-effects, which were pretty similar in some ways to the side-effects that women have to deal with when taking hormonal contraception. But the reality is far more complicated and less satisfying than the online outrage.
Let’s look at the science.
