Male contraceptive shows promise in monkeys
Women have numerous birth control methods to choose from, but men have only two main options: condoms or vasectomy. New research is pointing toward a third alternative, a shot that primes the immune system against a protein critical for reproduction.
Researchers have toyed with the idea of “immunocontraception” for decades, says Michael O’Rand of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. But most immunocontraception experiments in animals have attempted to prompt antisperm immune reactions in females, a method that hasn’t worked very well.