Talk:Reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance

How

How does this work exactly? It doesn't sound like real science at first glance... — Omegatron 14:39, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I'm not a regular Wiki user... so I'm not familiar with the technical side of things here... but isn't everything explained if you actually go and read the articles? The Ottawa U professor in Canada lives in my neighbourhood, and I contacted him over email. He went to India and performed the procedure there, but can't get funding to start trials in Canada. The articles talk about him. Sure it sounds too good to be true but I can only be so skeptical as I'm not a doctor.... but I want to know why we are not hearing MORE about it. etc etc. I just thought the dispute banner at the top of the page was weird.. so I had so say something...

oh... and I want to add... I'd like to see a DOCTOR dispute it, rather than you simply saying "it sounds bogus".... haven't you ever watched shows like Ripley's Believe it or Not?? and I mean it in the nicest way. Some things on Ripleys amaze me... and seem to stump the experts too, but they are true. — vaalea 29Nov05

Yes, me too found it weird, certainly for just that, although the article does sound a bit like an advertisment.

If you have issue with the way the article is phrased that is a valid complaint, however the article does come with supplemental links that explain in more detail how it works and why, so the use of the dispute banner here just seems like random mudslinging. There are articles about this in scientific journals and a simple google search will bring up even more references.

http://www.media.uottawa.ca/mediaroom/news_details-e.php?nid=254

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18124294.600

http://www.reproduction-online.org/cgi/content/abstract/122/3/431

1. It doesn't matter if the info is in the external links. It needs to be in the article.
2. i don't watch tv. i don't even have one.  :-) and i certainly wouldn't expect to get any reliable information from it. even supposedly reliable science/history channels skew or exaggerate facts for ratings. i'm not saying it looks bogus from a medical standpoint. i'm saying the article's description looks bogus from a biology/physics standpoint.
3. it reads just like an advertisement. — Omegatron 00:44, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

---

Better descriptions:

and is composed of a styrene malic anhydride (SMA) complexed with the solvent DMSO.

RISUG has two contraceptive effects: partial blockage of the vas and molecular-level electrical charges. The positive and negative charge mosaic on RISUG's surface causes the membranes of passing sperm to rupture, rendering them incapable of fertilizing an egg. [1]

The animal studies and phase I and phase II clinical trials with the injectable contraceptive RISUG, a specific copolymer of styrene with maleic anhydride dissolved in 60 mg solvent of dimethyl sulphoxide, have indicated that the new technique is safe and efficacious. A phase III clinical trial with this preparation has been initiated to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the drug in a large number of subjects. All the subjects will be followed up for six months following treatment to study the immediate and long term adverse effects, semenology and pregnancy protection. A total of 16 subjects have been enrolled in the study. [2]

A polymer, stryrene maleic anhydride, is injected into the vas deferens, forming a coating around the inside of this tubule; SMA lowers the pH of the environment just enough to kill sperm passing through. SMA can be flushed out with an injection of dimethyl sulfoxide or allowed to dissolve at a time which can be set for anywhere between two months and five years. SMA has been tested for ten years in rats and monkeys and is now in human trials in India; it has been said to show excellent effectiveness and reversibility, with no toxicity or teratogenicity. [3]

Work by the present inventors on injecting styrene maleic anhydride in a solvent vehicle of dimethyl sulphoxide has been reported in Contraception 1993 : 48 October. Such a publication discloses in vitro pH-lowering effect but does not discuss the effect on the fertilizing ability of sperms.

a polymer which is an active compound and affects fertilizing ability of sperms, and the acrosin and hyaluronidase enzymes.

The manner in which the contraceptive of the present invention works has still not been fully ascertained, except that in distinction to what has been disclosed in the aforesaid publication, just a lowering of the pH does not provide the necessary results and that other properties are required of the contraceptive.

After irradiation, the copolymer is precipitated by adding petroleum ether (60/80 grade) and then washed for removal of traces of monomers, homopolymers and maleic anhydride. The copolymer is dried and dissolved in 1,2 dichloro ethane for removal of styrene monomer. The polymer solution was filtered and filterate precipitated. The precipitated copolymer is washed, dried and stored. [4]

Biophysical basis of the mechanism of action of a new injectable male contraceptive RISUG
Dr Koel Chaudhury and Prof. Sujoy K. Guha
School of Medical Science &\1 Technology, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. [5]

disputed "Advantages" section shrunk

Due to a lack of activity regarding improving the tone of the Advantages section, all comments in that section that did not cite their source were removed. 128.83.68.58 21:36, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi. I'm not a doctor so couldn't begin to comment on the content. Uncited material, unless obviously ludicrous is flagged as requiring citation . The article can be flagged as containing unverified / contoversial research. You can request for comment WP:RFC if people have not responded 3tmx 21:46, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

another advertisement like sentence

Once this form of contraception is released into the market, it could displace the use of condoms.

It's used in a totally different way and does not protect from STDs, so I can't just accept the above statement as a fact —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.78.167.76 (talk) 12:40, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Really, you can't logically see how a male contraceptive could ever be used by anyone as an alternative to condoms? Nachturnal (talk) 15:38, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

That phrase is not meant as an advertisement, as it's not even a benefit. It's describing an epidemiological detriment of the new method. 24.12.229.145 (talk) 05:42, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Out of Date

It looks like the article has circa-2006 information. More recent developments can be found at the MCIP's page. (Perhaps we could get permission to just use their article). Vectro (talk) 15:44, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

The Controversy section is obviously circa 2002-2006, however the rest of the page seems current, perhaps because nothing has really changed given the slow pace of development and testing. Mwenechanga (talk) 20:56, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Faulty explication of chemistry

Whoever wrote the following doesn't likely doesn't understand what the word hydride really means. Hydrolysis of an anhydride does not generally produce a hydride, it produces a diacid. "One explanation is that the polymer is an anhydride, and hydrolizes in the presence of water in the spermatic fluid. Due to the breaking of a cyclic group, the polymer becomes a hydride and has a positive charge." 50.156.1.102 (talk) 04:24, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

VasalGel

Someone added the claim "RISUG is similar but not identical to Vasalgel," but the article cited says that it is the exact same procedure, renamed for trademark and marketing purposes. Can anyone cite a source for that claim? Mwenechanga (talk) 01:33, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't know why they cited that article, but I can give another source. From http://www.parsemusfoundation.org/vasalgel-faqs/:

Q: Is Vasalgel the same as RISUG?

A: They’re related, but no. Although Vasalgel and RISUG® are based on the same concept of using a polymer gel injected into the vas deferens, the formulations are not the same. And RISUG has been developed and tested in India over multiple decades, while Vasalgel is being developed in the United States to conform to the latest FDA and international codes of production and safety.

Luke Powell (talk) 15:38, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

The purpose of Vasagel seems to be to completely block the passage of sperm through the vas deferens. I am basing this on the link above (http://www.parsemusfoundation.org/vasalgel-faqs/) where they state that "We expect that Vasalgel will be as effective as a vasectomy. In a one-year rabbit study, we saw no sperm, starting shortly after implantation, which is a very good sign". I find no mention of Vasagel destroying/inactivating the sperm but letting it pass, as seems to be the main point of RISUG. We seem to be talking about two different methods of contraseption with only superficial similarities (administration by injection into the vas deferens). There is a separate page for obstructing the vas deferens, maybe Vasagel should be moved there? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vas-occlusive_contraception

213.113.212.31 (talk) 18:14, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

If the above is true, then the namespace "Vasalgel" should not redirect to this article, which is currently what it does. The redirect was created by Miracle Pen back in 2011. KDS4444 (talk) 04:30, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Never mind, I did it myself. KDS4444 (talk) 20:34, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Kidney problems

"though there are also unconfirmed reports of kidney problems"

Article in THE HINDU newspaper claiming kidney side effects: http://www.thehindu.com/2002/10/23/stories/2002102302860900.htm

2014 published scientific article in the Indian Journal of Medical Research disproving such claims: http://www.icmr.nic.in/ijmr/2014/nov_supplement/1111.pdf

I recommend the sentence be deleted as no citation is provided originally and the article in THE HINDU does not rise to medical referencing standards.

amosabo ^t@lk; 09:58, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

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Radiation

The way the Mechanism of Action section is currently written reads as if 0.2 MGray is applied to the scrotum. This is clearly not true, maybe it can be written better? cannywizard (talk) 21:38, 26 February 2018 (UTC).

Advantages

This is a copy of a section I took out of the article.[6]

--

Some of the advantages, according to Guha, are:

• Effectiveness - There has been only one unplanned pregnancy among partners of the 250 volunteers who have been injected RISUG — apparently due to an improperly administered injection. Out of the 250 volunteers who have been injected RISUG, 15 received the injection more than 10 years ago.
• Convenience - There is no interruption before the sexual act.
• Cost - The shot itself costs less than the syringe used to administer it, and its long term effectiveness would make it theoretically only a four or five time cost, in the entire lifetime of someone who chose to continue to be on it.
• Outpatient procedure - Patients can leave the hospital immediately after an injection and resume their normal sex lives within a week.
• Duration of effect - A single 60 mg injection can be effective for at least 10 years.
• Reduced side effects - After testing RISUG on more than 250 volunteers, neither Guha nor other researchers in the field report have reported any adverse side effects other than a slight scrotal swelling in some men immediately following the injection which goes away after a few weeks. Because semen, including inactive sperm, still exits the body following ejaculation, patients do not experience the pressure or granulomas that sometimes result after a vasectomy procedure.
• Reversibility - The contraceptive action appears to be completely reversible by flushing the vas deferens with an injection of dimethyl sulfoxide or sodium bicarbonate solution. (The sodium bicarbonate solution cannot be used as the solvent in the initial injection since it would neutralize the positive charge effect). Although this reversal procedure has been tried only on non-human primates, it has been repeatedly successfully. Unlike in a vasectomy (see blood-testis barrier), the vas deferens is not completely blocked, the body does not have to absorb the blocked sperm, and sperm antibodies are not produced in large numbers, making successful reversal much more likely than with a vasovasostomy.

--

What I can source with appropriate resources that says these are advantages, I'll put back in. GBFEE (talk) 18:41, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Why wouldn't these be advantages? 73.8.2.185 (talk) 08:25, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Safety section

The whole section seems to be not well sourced

"The thoroughness of carcinogenicity and toxicity testing in clinical trials had been questioned" - questioned by whom? The cited article in the Wire mentions that someone sent a Xerox copy to the ICMR. The sentence in the Wiki makes it seem that the concerns were raised by someone competent not a supposedly anonymous letter.

"[...] he went to the Supreme court and the next round of clinical trials resumed afterwards" the two actions aren't as related as this sentence makes it seem. Again, it suggests that it was a Supreme Court decision that made it so that the trials resumed and doesn't mention the highly relevant fact that the Supreme Court didn't even consider the case nor does the wiki mention what exactly was Guha's petition. The precise information is also lacking in the The Wire article.

"WHO and Indian researchers say that the studies were not done according to recent international standards." again, which researchers say that? And shouldn't the citation for this be an original source like a WHO report not an article in Wired?

I'm not a Wikipedia editor so I may be wrong about some things but this section (and the article as a whole) doesn't inspire confidence in its validity. I understand that primary sources are also scarce and the information about the drug is also quite sketchy but I recon this should be reflected in the article. As it is I don't find the information about the procedure provided here to be reliable

31.61.224.21 (talk) 14:45, 18 August 2022 (UTC) (I'm not sure how I should sign this contribution but seem to remember something about 4 tildes being a shortcut to a ip signature or something. Sorry if this is not correct)

Dubious "edits"

How can we ensure that there aren't influential "contributors" here who suppress inconvenient facts on behalf of third-parties who have vested interests in presenting a certain narrative or maintaining certain (false) perceptions about a topic or subject?

For example, why would this edit have been removed:

Never before in the history of pharmacology has there been a substance which has undergone the same kind of scrutiny and protracted evaluation process as RISUG has and, as such, is singularly unique, even though its effectiveness as a contraceptive was established decades ago.

On a related note, there has been a years-long campaign on this article to promote the false perception that men consider contraception to be a "women's issue" and are too lazy, reticent, etc. to take personal responsibility for their own fertility when there is evidence to the contrary, the contents of which has also been scrubbed from this page in the past. 73.8.2.185 (talk) 16:07, 14 June 2023 (UTC)