Categories: Need to know

Ultrasounds: a reversible contraceptive for men?

Blast to the testes safely stops sperm production

by macleans.ca on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 2:01pm - 39 Comments

Ultrasound could be used as a reversible contraceptive for men, according to researchers at the University of North Carolina, who say a blast to the testes safely stops sperm production for up to six months. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has provided $100,000 to push head clinical trials, the BBC reports, in hopes of offering a new method of birth control. “We think this could provide men with up to six months of reliable, low-cost, non-hormonal contraception from a single round of treatment,” lead researcher Dr. James Tsuruta said. “Our long-term goal is to use ultrasound from therapeutic instruments that are commonly found in sports medicine or physical therapy clinics as an inexpensive, long-term, reversible male contraceptive suitable for use in developing to first world countries.”

BBC

http://intensedebate.com/people/Gaunilon Gaunilon

Alternately they could just keep it zipped. When used as directed this method has a 100% success rate, can be reversed instantly as needed, has no known ill effects, and costs nothing.

Or you can zap your nuts with high frequency compression waves. Yup.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

Some might consider preventing sexual activity to be an "ill effect"

http://intensedebate.com/people/Gaunilon Gaunilon

Some others might consider it to be responsible self-restraint, particularly compared to resorting to an abortion after the contraceptive fails.

http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

You see, G, there's this thing about the "used as directed" part…
Home412AD

In my experience, wives, even girlfriends, can raise extreme, sometimes shrill objections when told a fellow doesn't want to make out with them. The foolish, silly things seem to take a man refusing to make love with them as some kind of rejection. Go figure. Women! Real men never consider what they may want, of course.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Gaunilon Gaunilon

Whoever came up with that subtitle deserves to be sacked.

http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

Huh. I thought it was the headline writer's seminal work…

http://intensedebate.com/people/Gaunilon Gaunilon

Not the usual frequencely inscrotable headline, that's for sure.

http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

You saying he or she dropped the ball?

Gaunilon

Yepididymis the mark on this one.
http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

Well, at least the writer was Sertoli trying his or her best.
http://intensedebate.com/people/SeanStok Sean

And it doesn't make much deferens, anyway.
http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

You kidding? The deferens is huge. Vas, even! But then, size isn't supposed to matter.
http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

For such a serous subject, I am not sure that we should joke orchid around like this. What do you think?
http://intensedebate.com/people/SeanStok Sean

I'm nearly prostate from laughing, so keep 'em coming.
http://intensedebate.com/people/SeanStok Sean

And if you glans around at other comments, these are no worse than most.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Gaunilon Gaunilon

It's always fun to test/tickle one's wits with a few puns, but this thread is really flagellating it to death.
http://intensedebate.com/people/SeanStok Sean

You have to admit, our collective efforts always manage to amal-gamete more puns than one would think possible.
http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

Tumescence of humour, we are all pubertal teens at heart.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Gaunilon Gaunilon

We do seme to have very fertilized imaginations.
true north

LMAO !!! Thankyou people for a fantastic start to my day, after reading this bantering it won't matter what transpires thru out my day, because I will have this sillyness to reflect on !! (still snickering,, tear in eye..)

Grendix

like nutsacked? (grin)

Nicolas

Interesting news to me, I had ultra sound of my testicles and specifically asked if there was possible negative effect because my wife and I wanted to conceive. I was told there was no danger, 3 months later a baby was conceived and had down syndrome….coincidence?

http://www.brilyn.net Brian Lynchehaun

Yes.

Home412AD

At first glance, the new method of birth control looks promising. A great deal depends on how much the medicine business will charge for a procedure that costs nothing, of course. When we throw in skilled labor, and the electricity for a five-minute job a practical nurse could do, the price could easily be higher than $50.00. We wouldn't want anyone in the medicine business forced to work more than three days a week, after all.

The biggest question appears to be what happens to hormone production while sperm production is stopped for half a year. Six months without testosterone would make a big difference in how much work a man got done in an average day. As we all know from our high school history classes, eunuchs aren't the most energetic workers a company or government can ask for.
true north

Back in the late 60's thru 70's I played in a Rock band and stood in front of ( and sat on) a massive set of speakers that pounded out around 900-1000 watts rms of power..Loud !! Well,, I have a hearing problem and my Children love playing music…so i am kind of sceptical !!! lol

true north

''ooops.. typo.. Skeptical….
http://intensedebate.com/people/Gaunilon Gaunilon

It's not just the amplitude (loudness) that matters here, it's the frequency. Audio speakers don't produce ultrasound; there'd be no point to engineering them to do so since it's inaudible.

true north

I do believe I have just been educated in the basic's of Ultra- Sound..Thankyou Mr. Gaunilon. I will now go and tell my Son that hugging his bass speaker before his date tonite is not a form of birth control…….

http://intensedebate.com/people/Gaunilon Gaunilon

Actually if your son's girlfriend sees him hugging his speaker, that might be a form of birth control. But that's an entirely different phenomenon…

true north

I 'll show him your post.. he might listen to you more than me !!

http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

So if it's inaudible, how would anyone know whether those speakers produce ultrasound?

Gaunilon

It costs extra to design an amplifier with wideband response. No engineer would do this just to produce sounds that no one hears.

Anyway, if they did produce ultrasound every dog within a five mile radius of the concert would be howling like a banshee.

http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

Guess we won't put our expectant neighbour up to the subwoofer to see if it'll be a boy or a girl, then…
http://intensedebate.com/people/Gaunilon Gaunilon

You mean whether it is a boy or a girl…. ;-)
http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

Nope. Right now, present tense, it is merely a parasitic collection of cells sucking energy and nutrients from its host. Although the lady doesn't seem to be playing the victim role all that well. In fact, she seems positively pleased.
Gaunilon

I'm sure she'd be even more pleased if you tell her that she either has a penis or two vaginas, depending on the sex of the parasitic collection of cells she's carrying.
http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

Not that I checked (quickly stashing telescope behind back), but my guess would be that, even with a parasitic penis (all right fess, up, who's the smartypants who just muttered aren't-they-all?), she probably still has a vagina, too.

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