femalenetwork.com

Let’s face it: We spend an awful lot of our time waiting. Waiting in bathroom lines. Waiting for that hot Kenneth Cole leather clutch to go on sale at the end of the season.


Usually, our patience pays off. But when it comes to some of those promising medical breakthroughs we’ve been hearing about for the past decade—uh, birth control for men, anyone?—we have to wonder: Are we ever gonna see this stuff? To get some answers, we dished with researchers and other experts to find out what’s really going on behind lab doors—and more important, when we might be able to see some payoff.

Male birth control
Here’s the scoop: Our ultimate fantasy is to see him pregnant and squeezing out a pumpkin-headed 10-pounder. But for now, we’ll settle for daily Pill popping. European pharmaceutical companies have already created a chemical that suppresses the hormone responsible for sperm production. When frisky male rats were given the drug, they started shooting blanks; when they stopped nibbling their contraceptive-laced cheese, sperm production came back.
More good news: EU researchers have developed a kind of temporary vasectomy. Instead of snipping the tubes that carry sperm to the penis, a doctor implants a clip that pinches them shut. “Think of it as an IUD for men,” says Manny Alvarez, M.D., adjunct professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the New York University School of Medicine.
ETA >>5 years for the Male Pill
Scientists are working on a human formula, which will go through trials -before being submitted for approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). As for the clip in the U.S., look for it in one year: Human trials are in progress to make sure sperm flow returns after the clip is removed.

HIV vaccine
Here’s the scoop: Scientists have been trying to fi nd a cure for HIV/AIDS for more than 25 years, but it’s tricky: “Every time the virus is transmitted, it undergoes small changes,” says Patricia Fast, chief medical officer at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI). This means that no two people are infected with exactly the same strain of HIV, making it nearly impossible to create a universal antidote. But what if we could prevent people from getting infected altogether? That’s the goal of more than 30 human trials being conducted around the world by universities, private labs, governments, and the IAVI.
Because it’s not safe to use a vaccine made from a killed or weakened strain of HIV (as scientists do with the flu virus), “study participants are injected with a small, basic component of the virus that is present in every strain,” Fast says. That way, your body can learn how to fi ght it off without your getting sick. Then, if you were exposed to the real thing, your immune system would recognize the virus and knock it out.
ETA >>Unclear.
Once vaccine enters late-stage testing, it takes about five years to determine whether it’s likely to succeed. After that, more testing is required before it can be licensed for global use.

Condomless STD prevention
Here’s the scoop: Ribbed or not, condoms don’t really exist for anyone’s pleasure. But what if you could protect against STDs without a spontaneity-sucking latex barrier? A new gel (brand name: Amphora) coats your vaginal walls, killing STDs on contact but leaving your
body’s natural bacteria alone. Inserted up to 12 hours before sex with a device that covers the cervix, it does double duty as a contraceptive. Amphora’s release will
be a banner moment for women whose partners won’t roll on a Trojan: “It will fi nally put the power to protect against STDs into the woman’s hands,” says Alfred Shihata, M.D., chief medical officer of Instead, the company testing Amphora.
ETA >>3 years
Clinical trials are expected to take up to two more years. If they’re successful, an OTC product could get the FDA greenlight by 2011.