This is a huge pet peeve of mine.
If you’ve been online today, you’ve probably seen this image or one like it floating around. Some guy at the iStock studio went in, and they told him, “Okay, stand and look like someone shit in your cereal. And you’re 5. And the cereal was Count Chocula and it’s after Halloween, so that’s the last bowl you’re getting for a whole year, fucker!”
And the words underneath say something like “News: Men Huge Pussies.”
And maybe, if you’re like me, you clicked through three or four articles until you found the actual study being referred to. It probably took you a while if you’re like me (drunk), but it’s out there: http://press.endocrine.org/doi/pdf/10.1210/jc.2016-2141
Here’s the bit that I think is missing from the headline:
An independent Data Safety and Monitoring Committee (DSMC) was established by WHO/RHR and CONRAD before the start of the trial. At the scheduled meeting on January 17, 2011, the committee reviewed the interim analysis data and de- termined the study met all criteria for continuation. As part of WHO/RHR’s continuing monitoring review of all its ongoing studies, the department’s Research Project Review Panel (RP2), an external peer-review committee, met in March 2011, re- viewed the same data and determined that, for safety reasons, recruitment should be stopped and enrolled participants should discontinue receiving injections and be transitioned to the re- covery phase. Sperm recovery and other data collection and anal- yses were to continue. This decision was based on RP2’s review of study AEs and conclusion that the risks to the study partici- pants outweighed the potential benefits to the study participants and to the increased precision of the study outcome findings from having the full cohort contribute to the final analysis.
What are the bullet points?
- An external committee observing the study discontinued the study. Not the participants.
- This study was not discontinued because they “couldn’t handle it.” It was discontinued because “the risks to the study participants outweighed the potential benefits to the study participants.” I bolded the terms there because something that people need to understand is that when you’re testing on humans, you have to consider them humans. Although the benefit might be great to the world at large, that’s not how we roll.
- The other half of the decision is that the risks outweighed the added precision that would come from the longer results. So, this third party decided that the potential risks did not justify the increase of data accuracy that would be collected by completing the study.
Finally, not in this portion, but in another, 75-80% of the male participants of the study rated their feelings as satisfied or very satisfied, and they said they would use this option if it were available to them. Interestingly enough, their female partners, though generally in favor, rated it a few points lower than the men who were taking the injections.
What does this all mean and why is it important?
It means that the news is fucking it up, once again. This is not a story of men being whiny babies. Sorry. It’s just not.
Why is it important? Because these stories and the way we talk about them without investigating is intensely disrespectful to the folks who chose to participate in this study. They signed on, they climbed aboard, and they did something that, for some, had longterm side effects, and they went ahead and did it. I’m not saying that these dudes are Ruth Bader Ginsberg, but I am saying that they’ve done a lot more for male contraception than I have, and probably more than just about anyone else I know with the exception of anyone who’s had a vasectomy, I guess.
But that’s not a fun story. The fun story is making fun of men.
There are plenty of fuck-ups out there who we can make fun of. Plenty of grown men who don’t act like it. But I have to be honest, I think it’s pretty uncool to slap this headline on the people who participated in this study, and the headline from the picture above is, frankly, a lie.
That’s where we are today. You can make up a lie so long as it’s an entertaining one. Fuck science, this’ll get clicks.