Comment by kstenerud | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kstenerud | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I've followed their (almost nonexistent) progress for a decade now, and even donated money.

The problem is that there's simply no interest in the national seats of power for male contraceptives. Even female contraceptive technology moves at a glacial pace. The copper chain has been standard in Europe for over a decade now, but all you can get in the Americas is the much more dangerous copper coil (which can puncture the uterus). In fact, I doubt you've ever even heard of the copper chain. Even typing [copper chain contraceptive] into google brings up the familiar T-shaped copper coil device, not the free-hanging copper sleeved chain. You have to type ["copper chain" contraceptive], including the quotes, which then takes you to some German and Austrian sites. And BTW you can get the procedure done as a tourist for 300 euros.

Safe contraception is not a difficult problem to solve (for men and women), but any politician pushing it would kill their career.

I have a copper chain but it is by no means as safe as you think it is. My gyn no longer provides it because after 120 procedures he had one that went wrong: at first, everything seemed ok but two weeks later the woman had to go to the hospital because the chain ended up outside of the uterus - it had to be surgically removed. It almost punctured her intestines. He was very experienced with the procedure. He told me he talked to colleagues about that and that they were all shocked, but not about the fact that this happened - they where shocked that it only happened after 120 procedures and not sooner, like they experienced it. The main problem is that it is shot into the fundus, which can go terribly wrong.

I definitely do not recommend to take it lightly. I don't think it is a good idea to do it as a tourist since the gyns at home are not trained to handle the chain.

An alternative might be the copper ball though.

This may sound a bit consipiratory but I have wondered if the lack of support for effective long term male contraception is purposely because it's suspected that the birth rate would plummet and we would see huge population decline.

As it is now there is still a high chance of unplanned pregnancies across the population and I wouldn't be surprised if they made up the bulk of children born. If men had an effective fire-and-forget long term contraceptive then unplanned pregnancies would be practically nonexistent.

> You have to type ["copper chain" contraceptive], including the quotes, which then takes you to some German and Austrian sites.

Seems that "copper pearls" (without the quotes) or "copper IUB" yield the result immediately, but both terms seem to be commercial in nature - I smell a slight attempt at rebranding going on.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com