Ultrasound Being Tested For Use as Male Contraceptive
A single dose could last six months The birth control pill turns 50 this month -- the birth control pill for women, that is. While researchers have searched for a hormonal contraceptive pill for men for at least that long, so far they've been unsuccessful. Men produce a thousand sperm each second versus the monthly female egg, making the male reproductive process harder to control. But researchers think they may have finally found a safe and simple means of temporarily stopping sperm production using a common clinical device: ultrasound. University of North Carolina researchers, working with a $100,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, think that delivering a single dose of ultrasound to the male reproductive organs can stop sperm production for six months, after which time production fires up again. Perhaps the best part: it's non-hormonal, low-cost, and once treated the man has to do/remember absolutely nothing to...