...In recent months, at Michigan State University, East Lansing, the price of Ortho Evra, a birth-control skin patch by Johnson & Johnson, more than doubled to $50 for a month's prescription from $20 last year. At the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo, a low-estrogen pill also by J&J, rose to $52 recently -- from $16 last year. The University of Texas at Austin now charges more than $50 for Organon Inc.'s popular NuvaRing, a monthly vaginal device, from $12.
To save money, at the University of Iowa, about three-fourths of students on Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo -- a pill that has no generic form -- have switched to a less-expensive option.
Such changes concern health professionals, who fear that switching is going to lead to unintended pregnancies by women who are less likely to consistently take a daily pill. "One of the seminal concepts in contraceptive medicine is when a woman is using a method correctly and successfully, the last thing you want to do is change her from that," says Lee Shulman, board chairman of the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals. "You don't want to change her unless there is an absolute medical necessity to do so."
He says even switching from one type of daily pill to another can pose new risks for side effects and discomfort, potentially leading women to stop taking it.
Susan Maly, a 22-year-old student at the University of Iowa, says she struggled with switching pills recently. When she went to her college health center to get a refill on her Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo prescription a few months ago, she was distressed to find out that it had gone up to $54 from about $18. Starting this month, she has switched to a cheaper generic pill that has higher levels of estrogen than the Lo brand.
"That was an issue for me," says Ms. Maly, but she says she will see how things work out for a couple of months. Initially, she says she felt some heartburn side effects from the new pill, but that has since gone away. She finds the dramatic price increase "unfair" to women who have come to rely on birth control, and feel comfortable with the brand they are on
"This is the one thing that many females on campus are getting from student health," says Ms. Maly. "It felt like we were a target."
...Health professionals say it's particularly critical for college women to have access to cheap contraception. Two-thirds of college students reported having at least one sexual partner in the prior 12 months, according to a fall 2006 survey of more than 23,000 students by the American College Health Association. Condoms have been available free on many campuses, and are considered the best form of contraception for preventing sexually transmitted infections.
"Maybe, if more people switch from hormonal methods to condoms, we may see a positive outcome of fewer STI's," says Mary Hoban, a project director for the American College Health Association. "But from a contraceptive standpoint, we may see more unintended pregnancy. It's a double-edged sword."
About 40% of sexually active college women reported relying on pills and other prescription forms of birth control, according to the ACHA data.
Ping!
That's some pretty serious birth control, there...
When that girl says no, she means no! Better listen, or kaBOOOOM!
Why should taxpayers fund promiscuity?
Contraceptives need to be handles by the individual, after all, isn’t it a PERSONAL matter what goes on in the bedroom? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm? Consequences are also PERSONAL.
There’s a big time agenda, here. These girls could concentrate on their studies but they’re getting pulled into a hoax, and willingly. To begin with their not being told the truth about the abortofacient properties of birth contro pills, but they don’t want to know anyway.
It’s outrageous what we Americans allow the drug companies to get away with.
“In recent months, at Michigan State University, East Lansing, the price of Ortho Evra, a birth-control skin patch by Johnson & Johnson, more than doubled to $50 for a month’s prescription from $20 last year. “
Young women have died from Ortho Evra, and J&J is getting sued over it.
I wonder if MSU could get sued for killing their own student this way?
Get a freaking job and buy your own damned birth control.
Bunch of whining candy assed spoiled kids...make me wanna puke the lot of them.
L
Our culture, and world culture, is still reeling from that event and we are still only at the beginning of the shockwaves. It's not clear to me that modern culture will survive the pill in any recognizable form. For example, it is the single factor most responsible for the demographic assault Islam is making on the rest of the world. Our great-granddaughters may well wear burkhas because of the pill.
As for the "cheaper-in-the-long-run" morons, I would point out that sending bank robbers bagsful of money is "cheaper in the long run" too: no police, no courts, no trials, no jails, no parole department, no welfare to the criminal's family... need I go on?
Just saying.
There is no reason the federal government should be subsidizing birth control for college students.
Interesting how the gummit will pay boys and girls(through discounts) to be sexually promiscuous, but the elderly on medicare (that they paid for all their lives) can’t get false teeth for under $3,000 so they can eat a meal without choking.
{shakes head}
Good if you stop selling the abrogation of bad choices some will stop choosing to pursue those bad choices (premarital sex that may result in pregnancy, which they would then use this “pill” for abortion!).
BRING BACK PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY!
We lead adolescents right up to the point of intercourse having taught them nothing more than how to "protect" themselves with a thin layer of rubber and some hormone pills – anything more would be too judgemental, and we loudly excuse our shameless counsel by asserting that they'd just do it anyway. By even cursory reflection we must realize that we are doing nothing at all to prepare their minds for this experience – though hardly anyone would suggest that the psyche of an adolescent can easily cope with the vulnerabilities and misjudgements of an early sexual relationship. We are also abdicating our responsibility to take seriously their moral development, and substituting a misleading practicality in its stead. It is considered an act of miraculous forbearance (or an indication of social incompetence) if our children wait until college before having their first sexual encounter. -Udolpho.com
So drink a couple less Latte’s and skip one kegger. Quit your bitchin woman. We don’t owe you cheap birth control pills.