more freaky prophylaxis

Thanks to a Hideaway reader for pointing out this rather disturbing prophylaxis option that I hadn't heard about yet... if the men's birth control pill doesn't work for you, try the spray on condom from Germany. That's right, a spray on condom. Stop action, pull out your aerosol bottle, spray it on, wait for it to solidify, and resume activities. That's right, solidify. It's kind of like Magic Shell for your wee (not Wii). I'm kind of curious how you remove it since it has been sprayed on and formed a seal with the skin. Not curious enough to volunteer as a product tester though.

But if you prefer to push prophylaxis to the XX member of your coupling, China has released a condom in a can for femmes to the market. I guess technically it isn't spray ON, but you get the idea. NO IDEA whatsoever how you remove that when you're done... The company promotes using it daily - I sure hope they did some medical testing of that; it really doesn't seem like a good idea to me to be applying a physical membrane to your innards on a daily basis.

Public health is important, and new developments that give people more options to prevent unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases is a very good thing. But you really have to wonder what the hell product developers are thinking sometimes. New discoveries are interesting, but new discoveries people can/will actually use are worth their weight in platinum.

~Elphie

science for science sake?

Scientists are developing a birth control pill for men. This single dose, hormone-free drug would prevent the ejaculation of sperm. This isn't something men would have to remember to take every day like women do, but they do have to plan ahead enough to take it "a few hours before having sex".

The pill, a single dose taken a few hours before having sex, affects contraction of the muscles that control ejaculation, but wouldn't interfere with performance or orgasm sensation, researchers at King's College London say. The result is a dry ejaculation.

yeeaaaah. A dry ejaculation may sound great if you're the one who always has to sleep on the wet spot on the sheets, but otherwise it doesn't sound all that pleasant. I suppose this might be something a couple might choose to do. Maybe. But the woman better be damn sure he really took it and took it at the right time. Sure, unwanted pregnancy is something guys want to avoid, but not quite as much as women want to avoid it. The chicken and the pig both contribute to breakfast, but the pig has a much more vested stake in the whole operation. (not tracking on the metaphor? hint: men=chickens, women=pigs).

Unfortunately, the only population I can see this drug really taking off with is rapists who don't want to leave DNA evidence behind, and aren't so considerate as to protect their victims from STDs with a condom. There's a cheery thought now, hmmm?

alas, I expect that this feminist liberating bit of scientific discovery will in practice, go nowhere. hurrah for scientific exploration though! perhaps in 10 (50?) years what we learn from this research will be put to some amazing and super important use...

~Elphie

AIDS prevention option on the horizon?

AIDS drugs promise prevention in a bottle
Pricey pill combo could keep at-risk populations from catching the virus

ATLANTA - Twenty-five years after the first AIDS cases jolted the world, scientists think they soon may have a pill that people could take to keep from getting the virus that causes the global killer.

My initial gut reaction: how cool! another scientific breakthrough making the world a healthier place!

My second thought: condoms are cheaper. and will people really remember to take the pills every day?

Ah yes, the cynic shines through the temporary haze of euphoria.

Sure, if you are an African woman condoms might be hard to get or insist your partner use. But since most African villages can't get adequate supplies of basic antibiotics, I'm not counting on them being able to afford anti-AIDS drugs for all the women to take daily on a prophyalactic basis.

Drug combo costs $650 a month

Expense also could limit use of the drugs.
Gilead donated them for the studies and sells them in poor countries at cost — 57 cents a pill for tenofovir and 87 cents for Truvada, the combination drug. That's more than the cost of condoms, available for pennies and donated by the truckload in Africa, but often unused.

well look at that, I'm not the only one who figured out the economic problem. but wait...

And in the Atlanta labs where Heneine, Folks and others are still minding the monkeys, "the level of enthusiasm is pretty high," Heneine said. "This is very promising. For us to be involved in a potential solution to the big HIV crisis and pandemic is very exciting."

Sure, finding a way to prevent HIV/AIDS is very exciting. But the public health holy grail is a one-time vaccine (with no side effects naturally), not an expensive daily drug cocktail that is harder and more expensive to acquire than condoms. The researchers - while totally reasonable to be excited by the scientific accomplishment - are missing the point. They see themselves finding a potential solution to the big HIV pandemic, but what they are forgetting is that a potential solution already exists. Solutions are only good if people actually use them.

sadly,
~Elphie

Innovations that have made my week...

First, I am stoked that someone has gotten WinXP to run on the new Intel Macs. Lets face it: Mac hardware is sexy. I'll be getting a new box when Windows Vista comes out, and this is the first step towards the possibility of that box being a Mac instead of a PC. (I know, I could get a Mac now and run OSX or Virtual PC, but I'm addicted to a number of Windows based applications and the idea of Windows running natively on a Mac is just too cool).

Forgetting for a moment my own future hardware purchases, I'm even more excited by what this means for the computer hardware industry as a whole. PC manufacturers are going to be forced to innovate and come up with better design to compete with Apple. And that is a good thing for everyone if you ask me. (for a chuckle, here is an example of Apple's m4d d3sign 5killz. You'll have to install Google Video Player - if someone has a link to this in Windows Media Player or any other media players, please send it to me and I'll add the links)

Second bit of news I feel the need to rave about is a significant advance in cancer prevention, reproductive health, and public health in general. In 2005 a vaccine for Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) was developed which should be available in the US in the second half of 2006.

HPV is extremely common. Half of all sexually active women between 18 and 22 in the US are infected (another way to think about this: more women have HPV than graduate college). HPV is harmless in 90% of cases. Unfortunately, some strains of HPV significantly increase a woman's risk for cervical cancer - HPV-16 for example is found in 50% of cervical cancers, and about a dozen other HPV types are involved in most other cases of the disease. An estimated 250,000 women die worldwide from cervical cancer each year.

It is in the news again because human trials of the vaccine have started in Australia and drug companies are starting to submit vaccines for US FDA approval - the first drug is expected to be approved in June 2006. Unfortunately there is resistance to a widespread vaccination program when the vaccines become available. This vaccine, if given to boys and girls (boys may not get cervical cancer, but they are rather instrumental in spreading HPV so it makes sense to me that they should also get the vaccine) could eradicate HPV from the planet as we have done with other infectious diseases in the past. The controversy is that the vaccine needs to be given before an individual becomes sexually active - and very few parents are comfortable acknowledging that their little angels are fooling around at age 13. But IMHO the bigger barrier to widespread vaccination is the fact that this isn't being viewed as a cancer vaccine but an STD vaccine - and we all know that there are cultural, religious, and political groups the world over which feel that "abstinence only" is the only approach to take when it comes to STDs.

The technology used to create the HPV vaccine is pretty neat - and this is one of the first medical advances to PREVENT cancer that I recall seeing. Sure, chemo and radiation might help once you've got it, and we all know that behavioral changes will prevent skin or lung cancer, but this is the first 'magic shot' for cancer prevention. Hooray for science.

~Elphie