Male contraceptive pill is coming, involves injecting scrotum as a procedure

USA: The male contraceptive pill is coming - and it could be available in three years.

The pill - known as Vasalgel - would be the first approved male contraceptive since the condom.

It's being developed by The Parsemus Foundation, a non-profit whose website says it “works to advance innovative and neglected medical research”.

The foundation says it has had success on animal testing the product, with human testing set to begin next year.

It should soon be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration panel, paving the way for worldwide sale.

Therefore, consumers will be able to get hold of it as early as 2018.

The contraceptive is not actually a pill: it's essentially a gel that is injected (under local anaesthetic) into a man’s sperm-carrying tubes called vas deferens, accessible through the scrotum.

It works by blocking sperm and is expected to be reversible through a second injection that dissolves the “gel”, which is a kind of polymer.

But one injection of the drug is expected to last up to ten years.

Once human trials start next year, researchers should gain a greater understanding about the extent of the drug's sperm-blocking and exactly how easily it can be reversed.

But its development raises important questions of trust between sexually-active people.

Excluding condoms, birth control has traditionally been the responsibility of women.

Men who don't use condoms have trusted women to undertake this responsibility - but would women be equally as trusting of men who wish to take the birth-control shot?

But both sexes seem to think a male pill is a good idea.

According to a survey of nearly 400 Men’s Health Facebook followers, a majority of the men polled (86 per cent) said they would assume birth-control responsibilities.

In the same survey, 72 per cent said they would trust their partner to take birth-control shot.

But some respondents said such trust would not extend to a “casual” sexual partner.

There are other forms of male contraception in development which don’t involve taking an injection to the scrotum.

A herbal pill called Gendarussa has gone through phase two of human trials and is believed to work by impeding the sperm’s ability to fertilise the egg.

There is also a US developed anti-Eppin agent that targets sperm’s ability to swim.