Posted on 07/18/2007 1:35:10 AM PDT by neverdem
IN May the Food and Drug Administration approved a new birth control pill, Lybrel. It is as effective at preventing pregnancy as the other pills already out there (about 98 percent) but boasts one advantage: Women who take it will never get their periods.
Lybrel is landing on pharmacy shelves this month. And now war has been declared on menstruation.
Already the first few volleys in this battle have been exchanged. Gird yourselves, women, for a barrage of advertising and research highlighting the debilitating effects of periods and the joys of menstrual suppression.
After all, periods and their mood swings are bad for family values (who wants to have a stay-at-home mom when she’s so darn cranky?), bad for women’s health (women were never meant to menstruate so much; natural selection designed their bodies for back-to-back pregnancies and breast-feeding), bad for the fashion industry (how can beige be the new black if women won’t wear it all month?) and bad for the economy (everybody knows women take to their beds at the merest whisper of “cramps,” fueling the nation’s employee-absentee rate). Western civilization, it seems, hinges on our ability to wrangle our messy cycles to the ground and stomp ’em out once and for all.
Sound absurd?
In a presentation by Lybrel’s maker, Wyeth, to investors and analysts last October, Dr. Ginger D. Constantine, the company’s therapeutic director for women’s health, laid the groundwork. Citing company-backed studies, she reported that menstruating women feel less effective at work and take more sick days. Not only that, but they don’t exercise and they wear dark clothes more often, she said.
Suddenly, news articles are weighing the pros and cons of our monthly cycles. And while it’s great that the American news media are, for a moment, challenging the culture of concealment that...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I’m not a guy and I will tell you this.
For years I had horrible periods, flow like a river, high back pain, breakthrough bleeding, you name it.
Artifical hormones were not something I considered putting into my body. Look at this.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/07/09/health/main514513.shtml
Carefully consider what you are doing to yourself in the long term.
I have very unpleasant periods, but usually only one or two between babies ... because I tell my husband, “Being pregnant is better than THIS!”
It’s been almost 18 months since Vlad was born, and nothing’s been happening. It’s probably the running!
Geez! Seems like only yesterday that he was born.
Did I tell you that my namesake was born in Cleveland?
Bailey Anastasia joined her three brothers on July 3rd.
(Aunt Sta says as she beams!)
Four hours of labor and two pushes.
Her mom was meant to breed.....
18 months on the 30th (and I’ll be 41 on Sunday :-).
Congratulations on the new niece!
Uh, I thought this was a bad thing healthwise.
Given your large family I will take your word for the latter ... but to be honest, I can't see how you can "experience regular pregnancies" without having a period. Are you suggesting that those regular pregnancies can be timed and planned to occur exactly on your first post-breastfeeding ovulation?
What will be the long-term effect of this hormone on those who drink the processed water?
It’s not unusual for women who have a healthy reproductive system and regular marital relations to conceive on the first ovulation after childbirth. This can happen they’re breastfeeding and ovulate two years later, and within weeks of delivery, if they don’t breastfeed.
I think we already messed with Mother Nature when we instituted monogamy, and condemned sex outside of it. (By the way, if you think the earth and everything on it are only 6000 years old, please stop reading here.)
What was the 'natural' state of a human female before agriculture? After she had attained the age necessary to have menses (a number which has dropped significantly for centuries now, generally believed to be attributable to better nutrition) she would have either been pregnant or breastfeeding most of the time. Don't even factor menopause into this, because prehistoric women (and men) didn't often live that long. Of course, I'm operating on the assumption that women did not have a lot of choice when it came to a man wanting to initiate sexual activity.
Normal menstrual periods would have been quite rare, and probably a sign of relative infertility. Look at all of the ancient religious teachings that describe a woman as being 'unclean' during this time, and you can see that there was some sort of preexisting cultural basis for avoiding such a woman.
Limiting a human female to having sexual relations with only one man insured that she would have menstrual flows before relations began, and whenever he was unavailable to impregnate her. Menstrual periods are a fairly recent occurrence, in the history of humans, in my opinion. This drug just restores the situation that existed prior to civilization's establishment of rules for female sexual activity.
What scientific fact do you base that statement on? I have to ask, because I find it unlikely that the most incredibly advanced organism in the known universe would intentionally bleed once a month for no good reason. Whether by design or evolution, it's an extraordinary waste and process must yield some major advantages in the maintenance of health throughout the time when a woman is viable and capable of reproducing. I don't believe that a pharmaceutical company is asking the deeper questions here beyond an immediate solution.
Also, did you read the part where I stated: "From the perspective of healing, I welcome reasonable exploration of this as a resolution." I don't believe anyone should suffer needlessly, and I do know many women who complain severely about their "monthly" problem. I'd voice the same concerns to them.
Look, if you want to take what amounts to a "beta" test drug available on a national basis, be my guest. As with any "new drug", I'd urge caution and careful observation.
We are finding that as time passes, these "miracle drug based solutions" offer as many concerns as they do benefits.
I'm simply offering a voice of reason.
And your name is an oxymoron. There can never be "Too much coffee." As a home roaster, there can never be enough.
If you want men to sit back and let women pop some new drugs because they offer an easy solution, I'm sure there's plenty of them over at DUh.
But as long as your on this board, you're going to find people who are willing to question these things.
So yeah, another guy chimes in. Thank God...
So are you saying women should get hysterectomies at the moment they are done having children? That doesn’t make sense. Why not castrate men who want no more kids while you’re at it?
“Well, I’m hoping you’re being humorous here.”
Please explain.
“Well, I’m hoping you’re being humorous here.”
Please explain.
Man Contracts Flesh-Eating Bacteria At Texas Beach
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
There was a study out in the past few years which claimed the birth control pill over time trained the body like a vaccine to become immune to pregnancy. This probably accounts for the large increase in fertility treatments for women, especially in young women.
This is the first thing that came to my mind about this new drug - osteoporosis.
You are exactly right.
I thought this was going to be an article on menopause.
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