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Birth Control via App Finds Footing Under Political Radar

nytimes.com

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Re: Birth Control via App Finds Footing Under Political Radar

#91

Post by exstudent2 »

llamataboot wrote: post #48
exstudent2 wrote: post #42

This is really good news for women (and men in long term relationships with women). The amount of hoops you have to jump through to get birth control is ridiculous. Have you ever been in a planned parenthood? It's basically the DMV (with an equal level of cleanliness). Women have to make at least yearly visits to this place to get absurd and intrusive medical evaluations just to get the pill. Birth control should be…

I agree that birth control should be available over the counter, but any PP I have ever been in has been clean, friendly, efficient, and dedicated to making sure people have access to whatever reproductive health services they need. source: I'm a man, and I go to PP for STD tests, and other men's reproductive and sexual health issues.

That absolutely has not been my experience in major US metropolitan areas. They've been universally gross.

Re: Birth Control via App Finds Footing Under Political Radar

#92

Post by mreams »

intopieces wrote: post #77
tcj_phx wrote: post #2

There is a problem with birth control that the media doesn't like to talk about. While millions of women take birth control, almost all of them eventually (or immediately) hate the side effects. So most women take these awful drugs only because they are seen as the best way to prevent pregnancy. Cruising over to reddit's /r/birthcontrol now, this submission was from 16 hours ago: > So because I was losing hair after…

Almost all? I think you might be falling victim to selection bias. Not many women cruise over to /r/birthcontrol to talk about how they've been on it for years without any side effects.

Seconded. My birth control works great for me, so I don't have any particular need to talk about it unless directly asked. If I was unhappy with it, I'd be much more likely to complain about it and ask other people for advice.

Re: Birth Control via App Finds Footing Under Political Radar

#93

Post by erroneousfunk »

rayiner wrote: post #20
eli wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, though I was under the impression that the reasons birth control still requires a prescription is not entirely based in science.

Birth control pills double the risk of ischemic stroke,[1] and the risk factors are dependent on individual medical factors. Copper IUDs, which avoid some of the symptoms some women experience with hormonal birth control, can increase the risk of ectopic pregnancy when women get pregnant while using it.[2] One can weigh the cost/benefit of making contraceptives more easily available versus the increased safety of med…

But the risk of ischemic stroke is still tiny, and the risk of stroke (among many, many other things) is still much higher during pregnancy, which birth control, obviously, helps to prevent. In fact, for a sexually active and fertile woman, birth control will help lower the risk of ischemic stroke, overall.

There are plenty of other OTC medicines which are far more dangerous than birth control. Tylenol, cough syrup, Bronkaid/sudafed/ephedrine, benadryl... Aspirin alone causes thousands of (some sources say more than 10,000) deaths a year. Birth control carries a relatively small risk of problems (especially for non-smokers and/or women under 35), but has a much larger benefit.

And the copper IUD does not, strictly speaking, increase the risk of ectopic pregnancy. It's a matter of survivorship bias. They prevent pregnancies from occurring, but are slightly more effective for pregnancies that implant inside the uterus. 2% of all pregnancies (without an IUD) are ectopic. If a woman does get pregnant with an IUD, she is more likely to have the type of pregnancy that the copper IUD is less effective at preventing -- an ectopic pregnancy (According to Wikipedia, 3-4% of all pregnancies that occur with an IUD are ectopic). However, overall, comparing sexually active fertile women with IUDs and without IUDs, the IUD drastically prevents ectopic pregnancies, and, of course, pregnancies in general.

Re: Birth Control via App Finds Footing Under Political Radar

#94

Post by tcj_phx »

mreams wrote: post #92
intopieces wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all? I think you might be falling victim to selection bias. Not many women cruise over to /r/birthcontrol to talk about how they've been on it for years without any side effects.

Seconded. My birth control works great for me, so I don't have any particular need to talk about it unless directly asked. If I was unhappy with it, I'd be much more likely to complain about it and ask other people for advice.

AFAIK, there are no long-term (30+ year) studies comparing women who have never-used, briefly-used, and long-term-used hormonal drugs to suppress their menstrual cycle. The Women's Health Initiative found that prescription horse piss (PREMARIN, made from PREgnant MARes' urIN) was not good for women's health.

I have personally used non-prescription Progesterone USP to recover from a head injury, so I'm inclined to believe the heretical scientists who heckle the birth control peddlers.

Re: Birth Control via App Finds Footing Under Political Radar

#95

Post by intopieces »

aianus wrote: post #68
cperciva wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the strict Libertarian view, yes. The consensus among medical ethicists, however, is that medical professionals have a duty to avoid allowing patients to come to harm, and that this duty takes priority even over the patient's wishes; wanting to cut your arm off may be your own business, but you won't find a surgeon offering to sell you tools for that purpose.

This attitude is incredibly patronizing and "harm" is very subjective. I feel like having a child is 100x more harmful to me than never having one, but urologists in the US almost unanimously disagree and refuse to perform vasectomies on the childless.

I thought vasectomies were reversible? If only we could get that gel they have in India.

Re: Birth Control via App Finds Footing Under Political Radar

#96

Post by bpchaps »

noir_lord wrote: post #88
bpchaps wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have significant social anxiety and see a doctor about it. Yet, buying condoms is up there in the top ten most uncomfortable things I know of. Your thoughts on this are way, WAY too simplistic. It's incredibly aggravating to see you being upvoted for this nonsense. Maybe in a perfect world with perfect self-understanding, but that's not the world we live in.

I have a friend with social anxiety, I used to buy an extra box when I bought mine though now he gets them online so that's been useful for him, I've never cared, grew up with a single mum so if I went shopping I'd buy sanitary towels etc as part of the weekly shop.

Thanks for being a good person. The small things like this matter. :)

Re: Birth Control via App Finds Footing Under Political Radar

#97

Post by az0xff »

mamon wrote: post #84

On one level you are right: this will probably lead to some people harming themselves with medication obtained without proper medical advice. On another level: we should not protect people from themselves. If someone is stupid enough to do something harmfull to him/herself we should let them. Natural selection will do the rest.

This comment completely glosses over the cases of people who can be pushing the button but can be affected by circumstances that they really can't control (like a mental illness). To say that they deserve to die for the sake of "natural selection" is insensitive and frankly disturbing.

Re: Birth Control via App Finds Footing Under Political Radar

#98

Post by srtjstjsj »

kaitai wrote: post #70
srtjstjsj wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> get absurd and intrusive medical evaluations just to get the pill. ? An annual gyno exam is a general best practice, whether birth control is involved or not.

That does not seem to be an evidence-based recommendation. Pap smears are recommended every 3-5 years, pelvic exams are not recommended by the American College of Physicians for healthy asymptomatic adult women, HPV test is recommended every five years in adult healthy women. Pap smears and pelvic exams more frequently than every five years are associated with a high false positive and false negative rate, incidental…

Pap and HPV are only two of several elements of well care. Since GPs often don't do gyno, but gynos can do GP care, a gyno often serves as a woman's GP.

http://www.acog.org/About-ACOG/ACOG-Departments/Annual-Women...

Re: Birth Control via App Finds Footing Under Political Radar

#99

Post by tn13 »

cperciva wrote: post #7
tn13 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What she wants to do is her business. If she wants to use an app or a voodoo magician for health I frankly think it is no body's business to tell her otherwise. Even third world countries have birth control off the shelf.

That's the strict Libertarian view, yes. The consensus among medical ethicists, however, is that medical professionals have a duty to avoid allowing patients to come to harm, and that this duty takes priority even over the patient's wishes; wanting to cut your arm off may be your own business, but you won't find a surgeon offering to sell you tools for that purpose.

The medical ethicists can apply their ethics on their own self and not on others. A doctor should be free to refuse to treat a patient if it goes against his/her ethics. Giving few men power over other people's health seems evil to me.

Re: Birth Control via App Finds Footing Under Political Radar

#100

Post by JoBrad »

tcj_phx wrote: post #80
JoBrad wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Almost all of them eventually (or immediately) hate the side effects Any source on this? My wife took birth control because of ovarian cysts. She had issues with the first few types, but we eventually found one that has worked for nearly a decade, with no issues. I know of several other women with this same experience. Reddit (or any other forum used for complaints) is hardly a good example to support this.

> but we eventually found one that has worked for nearly a decade, with no issues. Surely you'd agree that fixing the cause of ovarian cysts would be better than putting women on maintenance medication? > Reddit (or any other forum used for complaints) is hardly a good example to support this. Women who share their negative experiences are the Canaries in Medicine's coal mine. The few who are overtly harmed should wa…

The cysts were the reason for her taking birth control to begin with, not the cause of the cysts. And cysts aren't something that it's easy (or perhaps even possible) to find a "fix" for.
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