Cancer Risk of Hormonal Contraceptive Methods Inspires Award-Winning Contraceptive Concept for Men

By | October 21, 2021

WASHINGTON, D.C. October 22 (C-Fam) A German inventor won her country’s James Dyson Award for an ultrasound-based “testicle bath” that immobilizes sperm cells to induce temporary sterility in men. Rebecca Weiss said the inspiration came when she was diagnosed with cervical cancer precursor cells “due to contraception with the pill.” Such statements are rare among contraceptive advocates, who often downplay the risks of adverse effects by dismissing them as “myths” or emphasizing the risks of giving birth.

To date, Weiss’s device, named “COSO” is a concept based on a procedure has only been tested on animals, but it is intended to be a painless, reversible, and not associated with “previously known side effects.”

Concern about the health risks and the side effects of contraceptive methods is the leading reason women around the world choose not to use them, despite wishing to delay or avoid pregnancy.  Such women are described as having an “unmet need” for family planning, and the global elimination of “unmet need” is one of the main “transformative results” the UN Population Fund’s aims to achieve.

Women’s fears of risks and side effects from contraceptives have been described as a barrier to eliminating “unmet need” by family planning advocates. A 2015 study surveyed African women’s “belief in family planning myths,” including that “contraceptives are dangerous to women’s health” and “contraceptives cause cancer.”

Health officials’ tolerance for side effects vary a great deal. Last March, many European countries suspended the use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine after reports of dangerous blood clots were reported in some recipients. This swift and serious action prompted questions from some women, who pointed out that hormonal contraceptives have also caused dangerous blood clots—some of them lethal—yet this is treated as an acceptable risk.

Women’s rights advocates have also noted that the contraceptive methods most strongly being promoted in developing countries, such as injectables like Depo-Provera, are used much more rarely in wealthy Western countries. In the U.S., Depo-Provera has a “black box” label from the Food and Drug Administration warning of its association with bone density loss. Nevertheless, the self-injectable form of this drug has been touted as a “game changer” for reducing “unmet need” for family planning in developing countries.

Currently available contraceptive options for men remain limited to condoms, which carry a higher likelihood of user failure than other methods, and vasectomies, which are permanent. A trial for a male contraceptive pill was halted after participants complained of side effects including acne, mood swings, and altered libido, and the study’s review board raised safety concerns. Weiss noted this failed study in her COSO proposal.

COSO is not the first family planning idea that is nonhormonal and (ostensibly, in the case of COSO) without side effects. Fertility awareness-based methods that involve tracking the female menstrual cycle have been in existence for decades, and some, such as the Standard Days Method, have been designated as “modern methods” of family planning. In recent years, apps for smartphones have enabled easier fertility tracking.

Fertility awareness-based methods are not only nonhormonal, but noncontraceptive, in that they do not work by rendering the sex act itself infertile. This has led to their being treated with skepticism by the international family planning movement, which is almost entirely pro-abortion as well as pro-contraception. The Guardian published an article on one popular fertility tracking app with the tone of an exposé, denouncing its creators as “anti-abortion” and “anti-gay” Catholics.

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