Headlines spawned in indignant outrage after news broke that a trial for a male birth control shot was cut short. Across the world, news publications broke the story with sensational headlines: The Atlantic reported “The Different Stakes of Male and Female Birth Control,” USA Today headlined the story with “Male birth control study nixed after men can't handle side effects women face daily” and The Independent said “Yes, contraceptives have side effects – and it’s time for men to put up with them too.” Indignation at women having to suffer worse side effects for the same purpose of stopping pregnancy is justified. However, this outburst is directed at the wrong problem. Demanding an equally burdensome birth control method for men will not lead to sustainable and beneficial change for birth control for both genders, ultimately ignoring the most damning problem: women must still endure unsafe birth control, while pharmaceutical companies profit from producing it.
The male birth control shot trial is only the second phase in a three-phase series to introduce the product to the public. The National Institutes of Health uses the second phase to see if the drug is “effective and to further evaluate its safety.” Two independent boards reviewed the study’s data to determine if the study should continue. One gave the green light in January 2011. The other in March 2011 recommended to stop the study, citing the side effects, with emphasis on those men who said they experienced depression and others who experienced mood disorders while on the birth control (though the study terminated in 2011, the report was published only this year).
So to knock out an egregious myth: the male subjects were not scared off by the side effects. Eighty-two percent of male participants said they would continue to use this method of contraception, even with the side effects. It was not the men subject to the treatment that decided to stop the trial, but one of two independent bodies of observers. CONRAD, a non-profit research organization and co-sponsor of the study, released a statement confirming future research on male birth control.
Publications eager to push a narrative of gender inequality propagate misleading information about the trial. Yes, women are unfairly expected to take on the burden of preventing pregnancies — aside from male condoms and vasectomies, men lack a birth control method. Current issues with female birth control understandably lead one to outrage on behalf of women’s reproductive health. However, calling for men to accept the same pains that women must face implies accepting pharmaceutical companies to continue benefiting off of necessary but subpar drugs sold to women.
In 2006, Bayer released the popular oral contraceptive Yaz. Bayer boasted Yaz helped women lose weight, control acne and prevent pregnancy. After a slew of accusations against Yaz, the FDA released a study that showed a 74 percent increased risk of blood clots in those regularly taking pills containing drospirenone, like Yaz. An FDA-sponsored independent advisory committee, however, did not approve a warning label for the pill. When the Project on Government Oversight looked into the panel, it found that four committee members, including the chair, had financial ties to Bayer. None had disclosed them to the other panel members at the meeting.
Modern trials and productions of female birth control are rife with poor quality and production mistakes. No one deserves to suffer like that. It makes no sense to call for the male birth control shot to be released as some kind of comeuppance for women suffering through the effects of hormonal birth control. Rather, we should not allow pharmaceutical companies to continue to profit off of drugs that shakily perform a necessary task with unconscionable side-effects.
Though the pill and condoms are popular representatives of birth control, they become exponentially less effective over time. In ten years, a woman on the pill will become pregnant 61 times out of 100. Over 10 years of using a male condom, a woman will become pregnant 86 times out of 100. While birth control methods like the intrauterine device have proven to stop pregnancy at much higher rates than oral contraceptives, a plurality of American women aged 15 to 44 currently use the pill. We need better access to better birth control.
Women should not have to settle for mediocre drugs that do not guarantee effectiveness over time, endanger lives and lead to unpleasant side effects. Sensational headlines would have you believe that stopping the male birth control trial is due to a double standard inherent even in the side effects we can expect of medicine. They fail to address the most damning problem: female birth control has not advanced to an acceptable point for women.
Tsering Say is an Opinion Columnist for The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at t.say@cavalierdaily.com.
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