[sean_patel]

> One volunteer did not recover within 4 years since his last injections.

That's a really STEEP Price to Pay for an "experiment". Anyone know how much the participants were compensated for taking part in the study? No amount of money would make me do something like this. But that's just me.

[milkytron]

To answer you question, I do not know what they were compensated. But I suppose if you already had the amount of children you wanted and were considering the ole snip snip, this might have been a considerable option. Maybe it's what they wanted? I do agree though that if this were a young man, I sincerely hope they made some frozen samples before committing to this study.

[evandijk70]

There's also the risk that the drug is not as efficient as expected, and you end up with an unwanted pregnancy, so participating in this trial is never a no-brainer.

[morsch]

Presumably they were strongly advised to use a second method of birth control.

[evandijk70]

I looked up the study, and it seems that participants were not allowed to use a second method of birth control:

"Couples enrolled in the efficacy phase were asked to rely only on these injections for contraception."

And there were four pregnancies during the study (from the abstract of the study):

During the efficacy phase of up to 56 weeks, 4 pregnancies occurred among the partners of the 266 male participants, with the rate of 1.57 per 100 continuing users (95% CI, 0.59 – 4.14)

[morsch]

Thanks for the correction.

[askmike]

in that case they wouldn't really test whether it works or not..

[sangnoir]

I don't think they were measuring the efficacy on the basis of whether or not the participants conceived - that measure is affected by too many variables. Sperm count is the more reliable metric with reasonable granularity for measuring the effect.

[tveita]

It's supposed to lower sperm count, which you could easily verify with a sample.

[toredash]

I -THINK- you didn't answer his question

[pc86]

> I -THINK- you didn't answer his question

Q: Anyone know how much the participants were compensated for taking part in the study?

A: To answer you question, I do not know what they were compensated.

Yes they did.

[lightbyte]

"I do not know" is not normally acceptable as an answer. The OP still does not know whether the participants were compensated.

[madaxe_again]

If this was a side effect their pool was almost certainly vasectomy candidates, and rather than there being compensation, they probably didn't need to pay for their treatment.

[dogma1138]

Vasectomy still allows for IFV at a later date, intertifility doesn't.

[Benjamin_Dobell]

> One volunteer did not recover within 4 years since his last injections.

It didn't say his sperm count was actually zero.

Generally IVF is still possible when the male is classified as "infertile" by traditional measures (i.e. extremely low sperm count or dysfunctional sperm).

[flukus]

I assume they would have at least flipped the bill for freezing sperm first.

[at-fates-hands]

As someone who did Phrama testing in college to help pay my way through school, compensation would be determined by how long the study went on, which the article failed to say:

"It was a pretty big study; they gave shots to 320 men every eight weeks, in different countries around the world."

Every eight weeks, but for how long?

In my experience, it would probably be in the neighborhood of a few thousand dollars, but not much more. For the participants, even that much money to take some pills over the course of say a few months would probably be seen as easy money.

But then again, there's those pesky side effects.

FYI: All the drugs I tested were already FDA approved and were not considered in a "trial" phase.

[gnaritas]

Sounds better than a vasectomy for men who want that. Good drug, wrong market perhaps.

[kbart]

I'm not sure that 1/320 probability of success is good for that either..

[PakG1]

Just gotta figure out how to increase the efficacy. :)

[JoeAltmaier]

...if it had anything to do with the study at all. What's the normal rate for infertility to develop in this demographic?

[serge2k]

maybe they just picked guys who already had kids.

If you are considering a vasectomy anyway then it's not nearly the same problem.

[Retra]

Four years of infertility is probably one of the easier things you should be able to do in life.

[flukus]

It might be permanent infertility.