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New male contraceptive may be submitted for Indian approval this year

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Re: New male contraceptive may be submitted for Indian approval this year

#281
post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In less time than it took you to type this comment, I clicked on the embedded link in the article: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329830-400-brain-dr... The Richard Lynn they quote, has been published in Nature, amongst many other other publications: http://www.rlynn.co.uk/ The Prof. Woodley they quote, is also a real person: http://www.vub.ac.be/CLEA/cgi-bin/homepage.cgi?email=michael... As is Jan te Nijen…

You quoted "USA/UK have lost as much as 14 IQ points since Victorian times" and cited a tabloid article. Presumably the reason that the parent commenter thought it appropriate to to mention that it was a tabloid article was because it used the standard tabloid technique of putting a sensational notion in a headline that is almost entirely unsubstantiated in the text. You offer as support several links, mostly just pr…

I covered this in my original statement with the comment about "topping up" the Flynn effect.

The rest of your comment doesn't apply to my point, seeing as I was pointing out that it was easy to find the actual people at the actual uni's quoted, via simple Google searches, and that their published papers did in fact make the various claims.

Thus the original response of "this is from a tabloid" added no value.

Re: New male contraceptive may be submitted for Indian approval this year

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bang on. Me and my partner were planning on me getting a vasectomy in a year, when her implant runs out. We've had to bring that forward a year because one side effect is also a symptom of cancer or polyps. After removal, she experienced a huge lift in energy levels and greater stability of mood. I have 2 children so a vasectomy isn't so bad an idea. Even still, it is an invasive and permanent treatment and I'd prefe…

As a father of two: Said procedure is incredibly harm- and painless. I understand the fear, but I've seen people (even here) spread a lot of FUD about it. If you prefer something else: Sure! If you're merely uneasy about the process: Don't be, it's so common, fast and easy.

Pro tip: go to a place that does the no-incision variety and then make sure that's what you're getting. Just the first part isn't enough. Just because you read that they take the same amount of (doctor) time and so assume that any place offering them must only do those, and that if they didn't they would surely offer you a choice, don't neglect to double check.

Source: all too painful personal experience (guess what doesn't always work on the first try? That's right. Local anesthetic.)

Re: New male contraceptive may be submitted for Indian approval this year

#284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bang on. Me and my partner were planning on me getting a vasectomy in a year, when her implant runs out. We've had to bring that forward a year because one side effect is also a symptom of cancer or polyps. After removal, she experienced a huge lift in energy levels and greater stability of mood. I have 2 children so a vasectomy isn't so bad an idea. Even still, it is an invasive and permanent treatment and I'd prefe…

Hi. I'm against vasectomies and all contraception because my religion (Catholic) teaches they are gravely sinful, but aside from this, I've read that some very small percentage of men have recurring pain for years following vasectomies- something to Google/ think about if you're considering this. Like the top commenter said, another option is Natural Family Planning - the Symptothermal method taught by the Couple to…

Huh, you weren't kidding:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/periodic-abstinen...

although we do have this:

> "You really can't extrapolate from this paper," says David Grimes, an obstetrician-gynecologist and vice president of biomedical affairs at the nonprofit public health organization Family Health International. "Naive readers see these results, and they think [STM] is the greatest thing since laptop computers. The researchers on this paper went back and cherry-picked this data from an ongoing study from the past 20 years. They chose the users who were the best users for this method."

and there aren't any references there at all. Besides, the requirement that a couple perfectly adhere to the rules is pretty ... unergonomic.

(caveat: I'm of course not remotely anti-contraception, but it was a fun couple of searches)

Re: New male contraceptive may be submitted for Indian approval this year

#285
post #222

This is big. This is the future of contraception, because it works, it's incredibly cheap, it has (almost?) no side effects. All current solutions are a joke. Hormone-based contraception feels like something from the middle ages. It has serious side effects, it has "harmless" side effects that aren't even related to the pill anymore after years of intake, but still an annoyance (migraine, headaches, yeast infections,…

Just adding on to this with an anecdote. My mother had something called norplant (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levonorgestrel-releasing_impla..., it has been rebranded recently and there were class action lawsuits filed in the late 90s and early 00s due to awful side effects that were not listed) and had ovarian cysts later in life due to this device (she also had emotional problems while she was on them). It became completely debilitating to her health and required extremely invasive surgery to rectify (and prevent from ever coming back). It was actually shocking how much different she was after the surgery. The cysts can be extremely painful for up to a few weeks if they don't burst (her's didn't burst at ALL). She is more energetic after her surgery than I've ever seen her, despite being almost 50. Please be careful if you are gonna use these kinds of things and understand the risks (I know my mom's case is exceptional and not necessarily indicative of normal problems/use).

Re: New male contraceptive may be submitted for Indian approval this year

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad you asked. So India in general has an extremely progressive acceptability for sex education. We have ads on national TV promoting condoms (by the govt. With Bollywood jingles) as well as female contraceptives. You can pretty much walk into any govt hospital (which are not much to look at) and get free contraceptives and contraception operative procedures. We have a huge govt funded initiative around sanitary nap…

So from the article: "India has more married women with an unmet need for family planning than any other country, and social stigma and a lack of privacy in stores has kept condom use to less than 6 percent." Progressive acceptability maybe - but it appears Indians have very poor compliance, at least with condoms. Here's some data from the UN in 2015. India does OK compared to the rest of the world in regards to cont…

Young, educated people in Indian urban centers are essentially a demographic that doesn't need to be targeted because they're almost always sensible enough. Take away any of those three conditions, and the need for proper education among that group becomes harder -- as does the difficulty of reaching, convincing, and actually implementing any sustainable "culture of contraceptive use" among them.

It's what you'd expect where adults, especially lower- or lower-middle-class adult women, will almost never talk about sex, resorting to grown-up versions of "wee-wee", or oblique "that time of the month"-ish circumlocutions, if they do at all.

India also has a pretty grim history of adult men being forced to undergo (often botched) sterilization during the infamous Emergency declaration in around 1977, with a significant number of casualties. This kind of history obviously muddies the waters (as if the almost-institutional cultural reluctance to engage with these matters wasn't enough).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization#India

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emergency_(India)#Forced_s...

I must say, though, that there are more TV ads than ever, and even the occasional billboard (which residents' unions will often try to shutter on the grounds of "public morality") for condoms or contraceptive pills. AFAIK (and it's no wonder why) the government doesn't advertise morning-after pills at all, but Indian Big Pharma does (and, again, I doubt how many of the people who'd actually benefit from the ads see them or act upon the information). Unlike the situation in the US, here the driver is some kind of ill-defined "decency" rather than the threat of swift retaliation from an enraged petty deity: not that it makes much of a difference.

Re: New male contraceptive may be submitted for Indian approval this year

#287
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that even though unwanted pregnancies could be a problem giving your teenage son this option will also give him the false impression he's immune to STDs which a condom could have prevented.

I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. I can't fathom a parent who would go through the effort of getting their child on birth control, but not having a discussion about STDs and safe sex. "Kids" are going to have sex, we should take every opportunity to provide them with a means to do it as safely as possible.

It's simple really. Teenagers tend to take more risks. A possible pregnancy is a good reason to use a condom, as a side effect a lot of stds are also prevented. Removing the pregnancy possibility from the equation removes the need for condom use.

Re: New male contraceptive may be submitted for Indian approval this year

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't help but feel you are downplaying the procedure by saying that it sometimes doesn't require pain medication. In the clinic I went to they hand you a subscription for pain medication as routine and give you an ice pack to put on your scrotum. I was happy to have taken the pain meds before the anesthetics wore off I'll tell you!

Just to note, I'm seven days post-op on this procedure :) And while I did not take any meds, I was happy to be sitting in bed with an ice pack watching March Madness. So there was definitely discomfort.

Not American, and the only place I've heard of March Madness is on reddit in a reference to ... guess what? :)

http://fortune.com/2017/03/16/vasectomies-during-march-madne...

Re: New male contraceptive may be submitted for Indian approval this year

#289
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. I can't fathom a parent who would go through the effort of getting their child on birth control, but not having a discussion about STDs and safe sex. "Kids" are going to have sex, we should take every opportunity to provide them with a means to do it as safely as possible.

It's simple really. Teenagers tend to take more risks. A possible pregnancy is a good reason to use a condom, as a side effect a lot of stds are also prevented. Removing the pregnancy possibility from the equation removes the need for condom use.

Yes, I know when I was a teenager, getting a girl pregnant seemed like a FAR worse outcome than getting AIDs and dying. I'm not sure if you think teenagers lack basic reasoning skills, or if this is actually your personal reasoning skills being projected onto all teenagers.

Re: New male contraceptive may be submitted for Indian approval this year

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to note, I'm seven days post-op on this procedure :) And while I did not take any meds, I was happy to be sitting in bed with an ice pack watching March Madness. So there was definitely discomfort.

Not American, and the only place I've heard of March Madness is on reddit in a reference to ... guess what? :) http://fortune.com/2017/03/16/vasectomies-during-march-madne...

lol, the doctor mentioned this! That's hilarious. The timing was definitely a coincidence for me though.
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