It's what we've all been waiting for: male birth control. Scientists have finally been testing out an injection version of a male contraceptive in a trial of 320 men that lasted for over a year, but was recently cut short due to side effects such as depression, acne, and heightened libido, which caused twenty of the men to drop out. The injection was found to be 96% effective in preventing pregnancies over the course of the trial. It contains the hormones progestogen (which blocks sperm production) and testosterone (which counterbalances this reduction of male hormones.) For the lack of progress on male birth control over the past few decades this trial is an incredibly successful start, the side effects do need to be taken into consideration though. Researchers will take the successes and side effects into account while trying to figure out a better balance of the hormones. There has been a lot of backlash over the decision to halt the study because of complaints of minor side effects, because female contraceptions that are currently on the market produce similar and much worse side effects. My conclusion from this is not that men should suck it up and deal with these side effects, but that women's health needs to be taken just as seriously as men's.

The first version of the birth control pill for women was the result of combined efforts from activist Margaret Sanger, endocrinologist Gregory Pincus, and gynecologist John Rock. It began with Pincus testing progesterone on female rates in 1952 and discovering that it stopped ovulation. The first human trial was conducted in 1954 and tested the pill on 50 women in Massachusetts, again finding that it would prevent pregnancy. They needed to conduct a large scale test, but for marketing purposes chose to do so in Puerto Rico in 1956. Women reported side effects of nausea, headaches, vomiting, stomach pain, etc. The President of Puerto Rico said that even though the pill did seem to prevent pregnancy successfully, the side effects were too bad to have it approved. Pincus ignored him and the issues and carried on. Three of the Puerto Rican women died while the study was being conducted but were not autopsied. It is now suspected that it may have been because of blood clotting, a side effect of the pill, but these deaths were ignored at the time. Back in the United States, the FDA approved the pill for severe menstrual disorders in 1957 and approved it for contraception in 1960.

The pill was an instant success, it had a million users within a year. When women began to ask their doctor about the side effects they were experiencing, they were met with responses of "don't worry your pretty little head" and were ignored. It was found that the pill was causing serious side effects in some women, such as heart attacks, blood clots, and strokes, some of which led to death. In 1970 the Senate held hearings about the safety of the birth control pill, but were not letting women who were affected by these side effects speak. A group of feminists interrupted the hearings and demanded to have access to the information about the pill they were being given and what the possible dangers were. Soon after the dosage was cut in half and information pamphlets were required to be given out with the pill, but there are still many side effects today that are disregarded as "minor." The less common, but still possible, dangerous side effects of the combined pill include stoke, blood clots, liver disease, gallbladder disease, and high blood pressure.

The combined pill, along with other female birth control methods such as the progestin-only pill, IUDs, and the implant also have very common side effects similar to those men experienced in this trial. Apparently, it is perfectly okay for women to deal with depression, nausea, migraines, weight gain, mood changes, decreased libidos, irregular bleeding, etc. It's good that the side effects in the male study are being seriously, but I do disagree with them halting the entire study because of the twenty men when over 75% of the men said that they would use this method of contraception in the future. I hope scientists can reach a point soon where the injection is effective with minimal side effects, but if they're this concerned with side effects that women have been told to deal with for decades, they should also be taking a look at improving female contraception to minimize side effects. If acne and mood changes are a cause for concerns when they're affecting men, the least women can ask for is for doctors not to laugh at their concerns over the serious pain their experiencing.