10/19/2009 HPV Vaccine Approvals, and Visualizing Vaccine Safety By Norah Hazelton
On October 16, the FDA approved two HPV vaccines. Merck's Gardasil was approved for males age 9 through 26 to prevent HPV strains which cause genital warts. GlaxoSmithKline's Cervarix was approved for females age 10 through 25 to prevent HPV strains 16 and 18, the leading causes of cervical cancer. Gardasil has been available to girls and young women in the U.S. since 2006 and Cervarix has been available in Europe since 2007.
The approvals come on the heels of the news of a 14-year-old girl who died soon after receiving a dose of Cervarix last month in Great Britain. It has since been determined that the girl's death was not related to the vaccination, but there was a flood of stories with statistics about serious side effects and deaths associated with Cervarix and Gardasil.
One would think that with the way statistics are thrown around the news, we should have a pretty decent idea of what numbers mean. Unfortunately, with all of those digits flying every which way, it's hard for those of us who are visual learners to put those figures into perspective. Thankfully for us, David McCandless over at Information is Beautiful has set about to do just that.
Check out McCandless' post about HPV vaccine safety, which creates a visual perspective by creating circles of different sizes representing the number of HPV vaccine doses vs. side effects, serious side effects, and deaths within one year. He also places the odds of death from the HPV vaccine (145,000:1) into a conceptual context by placing it between dying in a train crash (115,000:1) and in a flood (317,000:1).
McCandless readily admits there are limits to his data representations, but if nothing else it's an interesting way to look at data.
10/7/2009 Contraceptives Making Headlines By Norah Hazelton
There is a lot going on in the world of contraceptives lately. Here's a quick run-down.
The Good:
Our Bodies, Our Blog has the scoop on the new generation of female condom. Six months after its FDA approval, FC2 is now available for purchase in the United States. The FC2 is available through distributors now and will be on the shelves of D.C. area CVS stores in December.
The New York Times reported that Bayer HealthCare is facing 74 lawsuits regarding the safety of the Yaz oral contraceptive pill. The plaintiffs allege that women taking Yaz are at greater risk for health problems such as stroke and blood clots than women taking other oral contraceptives. Recent studies have produced conflicting results concerning the risk of health problems with newer progestins. Bayer and the FDA are both reviewing the safety of Yaz and Yasmin with new studies of their own.
The "Contraception Makes You" Ugly:
HealthDay News reported on a recent study about the role of hormonal contraception in mate selection:
"Women who are ovulating tend to be attracted to so-called "manly men," those with more masculine facial features and traits of dominance and competitiveness, according to background information in the study. They also tend to prefer the man who is not like them, genetically speaking.
And men, given a choice, will gravitate towards an ovulating female rather than a non-ovulating female.
But women on the pill are more consistently in a state that mimics pregnancy, the authors stated."
Basically, women using hormonal contraception are less attracted to manly men, and men are less attracted to those women because they are not ovulating.
The authors of the study are quick to point out that "modern contraception has improved the quality of life worldwide." Dr. William Hurd, a reproductive endocrinologist not involved in the study, questioned the importance of the information gleaned from the study: "Just because you like someone with a square jaw in the middle of your cycle probably doesn't affect who you end up with."
9/23/2009 Recession Affecting Women's Childbearing Decisions By Norah Hazelton
A new report from the Guttmacher Institute shows that women's decisions about childbearing, contraceptive use, and reproductive health care are being influenced by the current recession. Fifty-two percent of women surveyed report being "financially worse off" than they were one year ago, and these women are more likely to report that their decisions are affected by the economy.
Nearly half of all women report wanting to delay or reduce their childbearing because of the economy. Some women report being more careful about contraception (29 percent) or are considering long-acting methods such as IUDs (12 percent), or sterilization in the event that they do not want more children (46 percent).
However, nearly one-in-four women reports having a harder time paying for contraception and twelve percent of women who report being financially worse off this year said that they sometimes did not use birth control in order to save money. Additionally, "nearly one out of four women report having put off a gynecological or birth control visit to save money." The report states that such measures "could put [women] or their families at risk.... Women who use these short-term money-saving strategies are at risk for long-term negative consequences, including unintended pregnancy."
The report also notes that the recession seems to be affecting women's choices about childbearing and contraception across a wide range of income levels.
9/16/2009 Reproductive Health and Health Care Reform By Norah Hazelton
Sorting out the truth from the noise on reproductive health care in the reform process is no easy task. Here a couple of the latest bits that will hopefully answer some of your questions:
Dana Goldstein of The American Prospect wrote about the Finance Committee bill's stance on abortion at Tapped:
"On abortion, [Baucus'] mark-up is clear: The basic health care package he envisions does not cover most abortions:
'Federal funds continue to be prohibited from being used to pay for abortions unless the pregnancy is due to rape, incest, or if the life of the mother is in danger.'
Private insurance companies can choose to offer plans that provide additional, elective abortion coverage -- as 87 percent of employer-provided plans already do -- but they must "segregate" public funds from paying for the procedure. This means that if an insurer wants to cover abortion, it must create a special fund to do so, made up of money garnished from premimums and co-pays. Government-provided affordability credits will not be able to contribute toward the cost of abortions. This is a bureaucratic headache for insurers, and it certainly has the potential to dissuade abortion coverage. The House bill continues to be much more progressive on reproductive health, as it sets up a public plan that would most likely include abortion as part of primary care.
There's a lot to love about Glee, Fox's new show about a glee club whose members are, for the most part, at the very bottom of an Ohio high school's social hierarchy: a lovable neurotic redhead; an oh-so-spiteful Jane Lynch; the not-quite-so-merry band of misfits; and the sometimes great, sometimes terrible, but always catchy music. But my favorite thing so far? The student glee club leader's rant against abstinence-only programs!
Our spunky heroine, Rachel, attends a meeting of the school's celibacy club to get closer to her crush–a far more popular fellow glee-clubber who also happens to be the captain of the football team. He's also dating the head cheerleader, organizer of the celibacy club. Thanks to Feministing's excellent post about this, here's a transcript of her outburst during a particularly absurd exercise with a balloon:
Rachel: You know what? This is a joke. Did you know that most studies have demonstrated that celibacy doesn't work in high schools? Our hormones are driving us too crazy to abstain. The second we start telling ourselves that there's no room for compromise we act out. The only way to deal with teen sexuality is to be prepared. That's what contraception is for.
Quinn: Don't you dare mention the "C" word.
Rachel: You want to know a dirty little secret that none of them want you to know? Girls want sex just as much as guys do.
Male student: Is that accurate?
Promoting contraception and women's sexual agency? Yes! Once again, leave it to a comedy to make a serious and important point about teen sexuality. Primetime dramas, I think you've got a little catching up to do.
By the way, you can watch Glee on Hulu. I recommend it, but don't blame me when you have "Don't Stop Believin'" playing on loop in your head.
9/2/2009 A Handy Guide to Contraception Myths By Norah Hazelton
Going through the news this morning, I found a press release on Catholic.org on a series of videos contrasting natural family planning (NFP) with contraception. Turns out, it can be used as a great educational tool about contraceptive myths!
Amazing how much misinformation they managed to cram into 73 seconds, isn't it?
Let's take it one point at a time starting from "Well, mine's worry free from fertility altering chemicals":
If you want a contraceptive method that is "worry-free from fertility altering chemicals," condoms are a great option. I don't know exactly what they mean by "worry-free," though, because long-term fertility isn't altered by most forms of contraception.
"Or that you didn't take the pills in the right order"
Do they think women are complete idiots, or have they just never seen a pill pack before? Most of them are marked with a handy-dandy "Start here," or an arrow, followed by additional arrows pointing the way to go from there. It's not exactly rocket science, and besides that, NFP isn't exactly simple. If someone can't figure out the order to take their pills in, I'm guessing they'd also have trouble tracking their fertility.
"Or that your wife might get a bit testy from hormone manipulation."
So, women taking the pill are not only stupid, but moody. Gotcha. Never mind that research says contraceptive pills don't affect most women's premenstrual mood.
"Or that your libido might decrease."
Lots of medications and other factors can have an impact on your sex drive, so why pick on hormonal contraception? Sometimes solving the problem is as easy as switching to a different type of pill. Non-hormonal methods, such as condoms and copper IUDs, have not been shown to have any effect on libido.
There are several other videos in the series, all of which are equally ridiculous, though some of them are much less straightforward. For example, orange soda as a metaphor for "unnatural" contraception just doesn't work too well.
My personal favorite video involves the guy playing Contraception running from Misogyny, Divorce, Abortion and Infertility, and NFP accuses him of having been "friends" with them for over 40 years:
They take a lot of license with some facts here, and completely ignore others. We already covered the infertility myth, so let's consider some of the other accusations. It might be true that people who use contraception have a higher divorce rate than people who use NFP, but what about the fact that people with a moral opposition to contraception often also have a strong opposition to divorce? When it comes to misogyny, that first video sure seemed to be reeking of it when they talked about "testy" hormonal women and insinuating women aren't smart enough to take the pill in order. As far as abortion goes, when there are fewer unintended pregnancies, there are fewer abortions. According to the Guttmacher Institute, women "who practice contraception consistently and correctly account for only 5% of unintended pregnancies," despite making up two-thirds of the population at risk for unintended pregnancies.
Let me just add that I have no problem with natural family planning. I think it's a good option for people in monogamous relationships who don't want to, or can't, use hormonal methods of contraception and would prefer not to use a barrier method. NFP can be very effective when used consistently and correctly (failure rates range between 2 and 9 percent, depending on the source), but it takes a while to get started and you have to know your body well. As I wrote in yesterday's post, it's all about finding out what's best for you and your partner and the more options available, the better.
The bottom line is that people should be able to make their own decisions about their family planning methods and they should have access to accurate, scientifically-based information. Propaganda like these videos, which only cite extremely biased sources if any at all, do not work in good faith to educate people, but rather let their ideology distort the facts.
9/1/2009 Marketing Male Contraception By Norah Hazelton
Being a woman is pretty wonderful for a variety of reasons, but one thing I really appreciate is having a wide variety of contraceptive options available to me. I like that if I'm forgetful, there are options besides a daily pill; I could use the patch, an implant, shots, or the ring. If I wanted something I could get once and basically forget about for years, there are IUDs – even a non-hormonal version if I want to avoid certain side effects. Having all of these different options available is wonderful because, not accounting for barriers to access, it allows each woman to choose the method that is right for her. Men should have that same flexibility, but that appears to be a long way off.
Lisa Campo-Engelstein wrote an article describing the various factors that are standing in the way of more options for male contraception. Basically, it has not been a priority in the past and gender stereotypes are still playing a major role in what research is done and where money is spent. Controlling reproduction is still very much seen as a woman's job (though it's often men who decide what options are available in the first place, but that's a topic for another post). We're all too well aware of the fact that policy is often based on ideology rather than science, but, at the very least, shouldn't science be based on science? Unfortunately, until men are "expected to resume reproductive responsibility," as Campo-Engelstein says, even having more options for male contraception won't balance the scales.
Having a variety of contraception options available to women is great, but that alone is not good enough. Because men have so few options, Amy Benfer at Broadsheet says women are dealing with a vast majority of the burden: the cost; the doctor's visits; the side effects. It would be great if men were able to assume some of that responsibility, but talking about easing women's burdens is probably not the way to do that, especially if we actually want men to use something after it's developed.
Perhaps any major push for male contraception should be met with an equally major marketing campaign – for the concept, not the product. The marketing could even come first, more like a PSA campaign. Part of it could be educating men about the possibility of other contraceptive options, and another part could feature men who want to see those options become a reality. While reducing the burdens on women is important, messages that appeal to self-interest generally do better than asking people to help others, so empowerment might be a good focus. It might seem kind of silly to talk about the need to empower men, but they really do have a lot less personal control over reproduction than women do at this point.
Campo-Engelstein's article makes it clear that something has to be done to change the game of contraceptive research, maybe we need to start coming at it from a new angle. So, men, I think it's time that you start demanding control over your own body. Your body, your choice!
8/28/2009 Knowing all of your options By Allison Conyers, Director of Communications
The end of this article, Shotgun Adoption, about CPC's and adoption coercion got me thinking about choices this morning. The piece ends with the story of the Gregory family.
A young enlisted soldier and his girlfriend had an unintended pregnancy and the woman's parents took her to a Crisis Pregnancy Center where they convinced her that adoption would be the best choice for her child. The soldier and his mother did not want to relinquish his rights and ended up paying $9,000 in legal fees to fight for his son.
Fortunately this family had the resources to fight for the child, and today the couple shares custody. But what happens when you don't have extra thousands of dollars around--to fathers who don't think they have the right to fight for their children or the many mothers who may be considering adoption based on misinformation given to them by CPC's.
People need real information about all of their options and not just the ones that CPC's support. Does anyone have real choices without access to all of the information? Check out Shotgun Adoption by Kathryn Joyce. She's also written extensively about the Quiverfull Movement.
8/26/2009 Happy Birthday, Women's Suffrage! By Rachel Fey, Manager of Government Relations and Public Policy
Today we mark Women's Equality Day and celebrate the ratification of the 19th amendment, which gave women the vote in 1920. With words so controversial at the time that it was very nearly defeated, the 19th amendment affirmed that the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
These days we take that right largely for granted, focusing on more subtle, yet just as devastating inequalities. We fight for the right to plan our families. We fight for all women (and men!) to have access to quality reproductive health care and family planning services, regardless of income. We recognize that having the right to such care is nothing without the ability to access it, and NFPRHA members fight tirelessly to provide this access despite limited funding, resources, workforce, etc. As Alice Paul said, when you put your hand to the plow, you can't put it down until you get to the end of the row.
As many articles have mentioned today, women's equality is not yet a full reality. Women today still earn only 78 cents for every dollar a man earns. For minority women, the ratios are even worse. But despite these inequalities, there is reason to be hopeful. We have seen the passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, the lifting of the Global Gag Rule, and the confirmation of the first Latina woman to serve on the Supreme Court.
On a day when we mourn the loss of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who was a tireless champion of women's rights and health care access, perhaps it is best to use his words as inspiration " for all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
