Researcher Also Predicts a Monthly Birth Control Pill : Anti-Fertility Vaccine Expected by 2010

Women in the next century will prevent pregnancy either by using an anti-fertility vaccine or by taking a monthly pill, the developer of the birth control pill says.

Dr. Carl Djerassi said the vaccine, which would make women immune to sperm, probably will not be in wide use until the year 2010.

Studies on the vaccine are under way at Ohio State University and in New Delhi, India, he said. The first clinical work on the vaccine began in Finland two years ago.

“One type of an anti-fertility vaccine will establish antibodies to the sperm of a woman’s husband,” Djerassi told the annual scientific assembly of the California Medical Assn. in Anaheim recently.

Protein Antibodies Sought

But for women who have more than one sexual partner, Djerassi said scientists hope to develop a vaccine that will produce antibodies against human chorionic gonadatropin, a protein the body manufacturers shortly after conception occurs. The body’s immune system would then expel the fertilized egg.

“It would be roughly a 20- to 25-year period before this vaccine will be available to millions of people around the world,” said Djerassi, developer of the birth-control pill and a researcher at Stanford University. “But before this can happen, we will have to figure out how to turn it off.”

Preliminary evidence shows that such a vaccine would probably remain effective in a woman’s system for three to five years, which presents a problem for those who decide that they would like to become pregnant during that period, Djerassi said.

“In some cases, it may never wear off,” he said.

Djerassi also told doctors at the assembly that a post-coital pill taken once a month will be another birth-control method in the future. The pill would produce a menstrual period whether the woman was pregnant or not.

‘Most Important’

“The most important thing we need is a post-coital rather than pre-coital method,” he said. “The only post-coital method we have now is abortion, which is birth control but it isn’t contraceptive. Post-coital methods would have there biggest impact on teen-age pregnancies.”

Djerassi, who is conducting research on such a pill, said scientists are trying to avoid the use of high dosages of estrogen.

Estrogen pills, like the current morning-after pill used in such emergencies as rape and incest, have too many side effects, he said.

“The discouraging thing is that neither of these methods (post-coital and vaccine) will be available in this country by the year 2000,” he said. “At that time things will not be much different from today.”