John Guillebaud

Emeritus Professor of Family Planning and Reproductive Health, University College London (he was the first clinical professor in the world with this title).
John Guillebaud was born at Buye, Burundi, brought up in Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya, and continues to make regular training and support visits for healthcare professions in Africa (Central and South).

Ex-Medical Director, Margaret Pyke Centre for Study and Training in Family Planning, he is Research Director on the Board of the Elliot-Smith Clinic, Churchill Hospital, Oxford, where he is involved in studies of the world’s first non-hormonal male pill that produces ‘dry’ ejaculation but normal orgasmic sensations for the man.

He is author/co-author of c 300 publications on environmental sustainability, birth control for women and for men, reproductive health and population - and of eight books, which are available in 10 languages including Chinese and Japanese. Recently updated editions are available of “Contraception: Your Questions Answered”, “Contraception Today”, the “Oxford Handbook of Reproductive Medicine and Family Planning” and “The Pill – the Facts”. He also consults as requested on an ad hoc basis both internationally (eg WHO) and nationally (eg Department for International Development).
While still a 2nd year med student he attended a lecture on human population and the future, given by the Biologist Colin Bertram. This talk launched his concern for global environment issues and established the direction of his career, recognizing that contraceptives are just as much icons for the environment as was/is his Brompton cycle. As was well said by UNICEF:
“Family planning could bring more benefits to more people at less cost than any other single technology now available to the human race” James Grant, UNICEF Annual Report, 1992.

This choice of contraception for both genders as his specialty and life’s work, necessitating higher degrees in both surgery and gynaecology, was ultimately driven by fear: that humankind, through ever increasing consumption and pollution per person multiplied by the increasing number of persons, would put this uniquely life-sustaining but finite planet in jeopardy. He is the originator of the Environment Time Capsule Project (1994-2044) as described at www.ecotimecapsule.com,