Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum New pill would eliminate menstruation

A new birth control pill that stops menstruation completely is expected to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration next month. Lybrel eliminates monthly mensuration, unlike other birth control pills that mimic the body's natural 28-day menstrual cycle or pills that allow four menstrual periods a year, The New York Times said Friday. The drug's maker, Wyeth, said nearly two-thirds of women it surveyed expressed an interest in giving up their periods. Wyeth said it expects FDA approval in May. The newspaper said studies have found no extra health risks associated with pills that stop menstruation. Some doctors, however, say there has not been enough research conducted on long-term effects. Source: Click Here. And when it fails women will find out they are pregnant when? While I sympathise, in a sense, with women on this. This has all the hallmarks of a really bad idea.

Dan, your link refers back to your posting here on SAGG. Can you fix it?

I have personally suffered greatly from primary dysmennorhea and endometriosis, to say nothing of PMS. I would gladly give up having periods. That's just one woman's opinion, however. In the mean time I'll pray for menopause.

Amaranth

A woman holds the complete complement of unfertilized eggs in her body, from birth.
From puberty onwards they constantly grow and mature, until ready to calve-off.
Presumably with this new pill they stay dormant, immature, part mature, and fixed, within the womans body?

Unlike male sperm, which if unused, are being continually re-absorbed into the body, naturally.

Hopefully, its the "dormant and fixed" part, that requires proper long term evaluation.

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"You will never find a real Human being - even in a mirror." .....Mike Kremer.
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Fixed. Thanks for catching that Rose.

What you see when links don't work properly is a result of coding this site and something Kate might wish to address. When someone doesn't put in the link address ... it substitutes SAGG rather than putting up a proper 404 error message.

Wyeth have past form that makes them untrustworthy.

"During the retrial, the jury was told that Wyeth knew for decades that HRT could cause breast cancer but failed to warn patients."

http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/articles/00701/prempro-promotion.html

Seriously, how long and how many do you test for something like this? This will be adopted by an incredible amount of women. What might we see in ten to twenty years of manipulating the body to such an extent.

You won't catch me taking it - I'll lay a wager on that.

Blacknad.

Blacknad wrote:
"You won't catch me taking it - I'll lay a wager on that."

Having a gender identity crisis there or just stating the obvious? <g>

Long overdue! Believe me Blacknad (whom I presume is male) if you were female you would welcome it too.

There is a group of researchers who feel that modern women in fact menstruate too often. The adult human female body is designed to be pregnant or lactating. Both these states suspend or delay ovulation and thus bleeding. Nowadays women are pregnant rarely, compared to previous generations. This argument obviously does not take the dangers of childbirth into consideration, but merely addresses the consequences of menstruating 100s of times as opposed to only a few dozen. An obvious consequence is that many modern women are in fact anaemic for most of their lives.

It is a little known fact that women on the pill can achieve this same result by skipping the dud week of pills put in there by the manufacturers to allow women to have a period and so be 'normal'. As for the pregnancy thing DA, it is more than likely that this sort of pill would have a contraceptive effect by its very nature.

Well it was designed to be a contraceptive so I would certainly hope so Ellis. But that little comment you made about skipping the placebos reminds me of something that actually happened back in the '60s.

And this is something I know for a fact due to having spent years in the industry.

Some of the smartest coeds on the planet, Stanford University, were enrolled in a test of the pill and became pregnant at a rate higher than previously observed in any other trial. Their sin ... they liked the color of the placebos better and took them first.

Oops!

A short detour -


Regarding drug commerce:

Colour is, apparently, an important factor in the industry. About 35yrs ago, I read that colour sells drugs. Some drug colours were found to have special appeal to female clinicians, others to male clinicians. Drug advertisement brochures circulated to them were designed to take account of this.

Regarding actual clinical effects of drug colour:

"...the available evidence suggests that green and blue may have more sedative effects and red and orange may have more stimulant effects. Research contributing to a better understanding of the effect of coloured medication is certainly warranted. "

- BMJ [British Medical Journal] 1996;313:1624-1626 (21 December)

The above corresponds to the effect of colours in the work place:

In a study done in December of 1999, Nancy J. Stone and Anthony J. English tested the affects of color in the work place and it's correlation to performance. What they found was "a red office is more stimulation and may cause vigor, anger or tension" However it was found to increase performance. It was found that blue in an office may "cause greater depression, as well as sadness, fatigue or relaxation" and that "workers in white offices complained of more head aches and instances of nausea" (muohio.edu).

http://www.uhh.hawaii.edu/academics/hohonu/writing.php?id=73