Hi Jim,

Your message raises a lot of issues.

Elaine and I have talked about her work promoting heat-based methods for
male contraception. Most of the content of her MCIP website was posted
in 1994, and things have changed a bit since then. Dr. Wang's UCLA
trial of suspensories (which Elaine mentions in her main paper) did not
go well; Wang never even published the results. Dr. Wang has since
begun researching the use of heat in combination with testosterone. (See
Wang et al. Endocrinology 2000 Apr; 141(4): 1414-24)

Elaine and I are both concerned about men using heat methods at home for
two reasons:

1) You may become permanently sterile.
Applying heat to your testicles is not totally benign. If the heat is
not within a very specific range (+ or - 1 degree Fahrenheit), you may
kill the cells that make sperm, instead of just temporarily disabling
them. This is of much more concern with hot baths than with
suspensories.

2) Unless you are extremely fastidious about getting sperm checks, you
may end up with an unexpected pregnancy.
Elaine talks about this on her "helpful hints" page: "There has been a
case of a man who used the method without backup contraception and
frequent enough sperm checks and ended up with a pregnancy after three
or four months." This is especially of concern with suspensories.

The last thing I want is for a someone to end up accidentally sterile or
with an unintentionally pregnant partner. That is why I suggest that
experimenting with this at home is not advisable.

All that said, I agree that heat-based male contraception holds much
potential. It would be extremely cheap, independent of pharmaceutical
companies, and potentially universally available. Unfortunately, it is
just this independence from drug companies that keeps heat-based methods
under-funded and under-researched.

I would love to see safe, effective and readily reversible male
contraceptives come to market. That's why we created the
malecontraceptives.org.

Please remember that we share this common goal when making future
postings to this site. Refrain from the use of invectives.

Thanks,
Kirsten

jp40177 wrote:
>
> On May 1, 2002, Kristen wrote
>
> "The only way to get access to these (vasectomy alternative) methods
> is:
>
> 1) Take your fertility into your own hands by experimenting with them
> at home. Not advisable, as you might imagine.
>
> 2) Join a clinical trial. We are keeping a current list of clinical
> trial locations at www.malecontraceptives.org/clinical.htm"
>
> Did Kirsten remember what Elaine Lissner said about this?
>
> "Wet heat and artificial cryptorchidism have received a lot of
> interest, as they appear to be the only new methods which are ready
> to use without waiting for the scientific establishment."
>
> http://gumption.org/mcip/hint.html
>
> Did Kristen mean that putting your fertility into the hands of some
> stranger, who is trying to win approval for some exeperimental,
> profitable drug or procedure, is MORE advisable?
>
> Clinical trials are not always especially safe. People get hurt or
> even killed in them. Pharmaceutical trials especially are
> problematic.
>
> No one has been hurt by hot baths or warm, tight underwear. And
> these methods are effective.
>
> But they can also be awkward. I have experimented at home with these
> methods to try to find the most convenient implementation, and I have
> posted on these experiments, just exactly so that I and other men CAN
> take their own fertility into their own hands.
>
> Kirsten calls this "not advisable, as you might imagine."
>
> WOMEN have long held sacred that control of THEIR own fertility rests
> exclusively within THEIR own hands. And a WOMAN has a dazzling array
> of contraceptives from which to choose: Elaine Lissner's so
> called "contraceptive supermarket." Some of these contraceptives are
> more effective, some less so. Some of these contraceptives are
> safer, some less so. No one questions a WOMAN'S choice; no one tells
> HER that this choice or that is "not advisable, as you might imagine."
>
> Is there some reason why it is "not advisable, as you might imagine"
> that MEN should enjoy the same right that WOMEN have?
>
> I am taking my posted messages from this group and bringing them to
> other Yahoo Groups of category Birth Control: Male_Birth_Control and
> Contraception. Anyone interested in what I am doing is free to e-
> mail me at jp40177@....
>
> Jim