Birth Control: New Look at the Old

Once they were kept discreetly hidden under the pharmacist's counter. Purchasers asked for them in a hushed whisper and carried them off in an innocuous paper bag. Suddenly condoms* have become respectable. Produced in dazzling colors, materials and designs, these most ancient of male birth-control devices can now be openly displayed in 46 states, along with cough syrups, hair sprays and skin cream. Though exact figures are kept secret, sales have now apparently climbed to $150 million a year, probably double that of five years ago. Condoms have even become something of a symbol for today's more liberated women, who buy them off the bright new display racks. The flourishing condom market is only one sign of a growing sociomedical phenomenon in the U.S.: a back-to-basics movement in birth control. Alarmed by potentially dangerous side effects of the Pill and of intrauterine devices (TIME, July 15, 1974), more and more women are abandoning them for older "barrier" devices. Along with condoms, diaphragms are selling so briskly, says the Rockefeller Foundation's Dr. Elizabeth B. Connell, that "manufacturers can hardly keep up with the demand." Meanwhile, researchers are at work trying to develop new and better forms of chemical contraception. Despite a worrisome decline in worldwide funding, the effort occupies scores of scientists in the U.S. and abroad, and as the Ford Foundation's massive new 622-page report, Reproduction and Human Welfare (MIT Press), points out, it has led to greater understanding of the many mysteries of the human reproductive system. Researchers admit that there is little likelihood of finding one ideal, risk-free, foolproof contraceptive. Instead, they are experimenting with a number of different possibilities. Among them: ANTIPREGNANCY VACCINE. Recently developed by Dr. G.P. Talwar of the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, the vaccine works on an ingeniously simple principle: it causes an impregnated woman to menstruate and thus wash away the fertilized ovum. Talwar was able to isolate part of the complex human chorionic gonadotropin molecule (HCG)--the hormone released by a freshly fertilized egg as a signal for the woman's body to release progesterone, which halts menstruation. He then produced a vaccine that stimulates formation of antibodies that neutralize HCG and block its signal. The next menses therefore occur as usual and remove the ovum. So far the vaccine has been tested only on women who were surgically sterilized, but after inoculation their blood showed clear signs of antibodies against HCG. Immunized women would presumably still be able to bear children by taking progesterone, which would help ensure the fertilized egg's survival. PILLS FOR MALES. For a long time, researchers were overwhelmed by the difficulty of trying to suppress the tens of millions of spermatozoa produced daily by the normal adult male; possibly any one of them could fertilize the solitary female ovum. In addition, the researchers' trial efforts usually had a serious defect: they suppressed libido. But recent tests by scientists, including Dr. C. Alvin Paulsen of the University of Washington's medical school, show that a pill for men is no longer a dream. A daily oral dose of a new drug called danazol, which cuts production of male sex hormone and thus sperm output, in combination with a monthly shot of the hormone testosterone (to ensure a healthy sex drive), has shown encouraging results. About 85% of the test subjects, all vigorous young men, were rendered infertile for the period of the treatment.

VAGINAL "PILL." Some researchers are trying to develop ways of delivering the Pill's key steroids--estrogens and progesterones--in smaller and therefore less dangerous doses. One device being tested by Dr. Daniel R. Mishell of the University of Southern California School of Medicine seems to hold unusual promise: it is a small (two-inch diameter), doughnut-shaped flexible plastic ring that a woman can insert into her vagina. It prevents conception, not by blocking the sperm, as does the diaphragm, but by releasing a small steady trickle of steroids into the bloodstream through the mucous membranes of the vagina. The quantity is sufficient to prevent ovulation, says Mishell, but should be low enough to avoid the Pill's potentially hazardous side effects.

* Named after an apocryphal 17th century English court physician, Dr. Condom, who supposedly invented them after Charles II became alarmed by the number of his illegitimate children.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.