India's injectable vasectomy - Birth control for men just took a giant step forward -
About 400 years ago, a bright spark came up with the idea to sheath his sword in a piece of sheep's intestine.
And the condom was born.
Since then, male birth control has mostly been tinkering with this initial design. Until now.
After a more than 30-year struggle, an unassuming Indian engineer named Sujoy K. Guha is on the brink of what could well be the most revolutionary contraceptive technology since the pill — and this time it's for men.
Called RISUG, which stands for "reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance," it essentially offers men a surgery-free, injectable vasectomy, which is good news in itself.
Better still, research on animals, including monkeys, has shown that this vasectomy is easily reversible. So what you get is a one-time, hormone-free sperm blocker that you can turn off whenever you want.
The impact could be huge for India, where sterilizationis still the most often used method of birth control.
The numbers say it all. Today, only 3 percent of women are on the pill and 5 percent of couples use condoms. Meanwhile, some 37 percent of women undergo the comparatively dangerous tubectomy operation, while only 1 percent of men get vasectomies.
No wonder the drive to convince men to getconventional vasectomies is so intense that states like Rajasthan have offered cars, motorcycles and TV sets — not to mention gun licenses — as incentives to undergo the procedure.
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