‘A Viagra for Birth Control’: How a pill that can stop sperm from swimming could revolutionise male contraception

It could revolutionise male contraception. “Every other experimental hormonal or non-hormonal male contraceptive takes weeks to bring sperm count down or render them unable to fertilise eggs.” According to Balbach, the compound wore off after three hours and the males recovered their fertility. In samples collected 2 hours after mice received the drug, only about six per cent of sperm were mobile on average compared with about 30 per cent in samples from control mice,” reports New Scientist. The drug also didn’t cause noticeable side effects, even when mice received three times the standard dose of a comparable compound continuously for 42 days,” the adds. “The fact that it is able to act, and be reversed, so quickly is really quite exciting… If the trials on mice can be replicated in humans with the same degree of efficacy, then this could well be the male contraceptive approach we have been looking for,” he told BBC.