side effects of birth control

Can a Man Weigh in on The Pill?

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After many months of intense research, I firmly believe the birth control pill stinks, but who am I to say? I’m not an M.D. or a PhD. Even worse, I’m not a woman.

At the risk of being counter-cultural, I’d like to be completely transparent. I’m a bald, middle-aged, Catholic, white man from Texas. Clearly, I’m not allowed to have an opinion on The Pill, but I do. And, I’m passionate about it!

Now that I’ve given you every label you could possibly need to dismiss what I’m about to share, I plead with you to hear me out. My passion for this subject is not driven by a moral or political agenda. I have no deep-seated desire to tell women what they should or shouldn’t do. In fact, I have only one agenda – to expose the very real dangers of hormonal contraceptives.

I’m telling you who I am up front because we live in a culture of extremes. We’ve lost the art of moderation. It seems we are all either Conservative or Liberal; Pro- or Anti-; Us or Them… Defined by extremes, there is no middle ground. Regardless of which side we’re on, when someone offers a different perspective, we assume they are ‘one of them.’

I never dreamed I would be a women’s health activist, but that’s what I’ve become. I’m not even sure that label can stick to me, but I’m eager to wear it, even if I have to clip it on with safety pins.

My Distaste for The Pill

My distaste for The Pill predated any religion or spirituality in my life. For that matter, it also predated being bald, middle-aged, and Texan.

My wife and I were young and deeply in love. Somehow, that fact came up in a discussion with her doctor. She had gone in with allergies, but came out with The Pill. That was fine by us. We hated condoms, and this sounded like the perfect solution. The doctor didn’t mention any side effects, and since it had been on the market for decades, she never thought to question its safety.

On about the fourth month, a little pamphlet fell out as she opened the package. I picked it up, and started reading. I was horrified. “Honey, did the doctor mention any of these side effects to you?”

“What side effects?”

We sifted through the complicated text, and discussed some of the warnings — breast and cervical cancer, strokes, and heart disease. They were especially disconcerting given her family history. She asked whether the doctor would have given it to her if he thought it was dangerous.

Ultimately, it was a long, thoughtful conversation that ended with me saying, “I can’t tell you what to do, but for me, if taking this pill means I get to spend even one less day with you at the end of our lives, it’s not worth it.”

It surprised me how much relief that statement brought her. The pills had apparently been making her feel crazy, and she decided to stop taking them immediately. Beyond my wife, my attitude about The Pill was indifferent. I never thought to ask my sisters if they had read the pamphlet, or if their doctors had warned them. It didn’t seem like my place.

Was it my place? Am I even allowed to talk about that with women beyond my wife? Where do my rights and responsibilities end?

Years passed. Then, a series of events brought me in contact with information that left me a little smarter than the average bear… at least where The Pill is concerned. When you’re privy to information that you know most women haven’t been told about The Pill, does your responsibility change? I think it does. I have sisters and nieces who suffered consequences because I didn’t discuss The Pill with them sooner. I believe anyone who learns the truth about The Pill should act on the urge to shout the news, and drown out the silence of the doctors.

My Focus on The Pill

As a writer and media producer, it was work that first inspired my pill quest. Writing requires a natural curiosity. Whether I’m developing a documentary or creating a marketing piece for a corporate client, I’m always looking for an interesting story.

A medical project early last year brought me in contact with one of the world’s leading authorities on a certain disease (I will be more specific about the disease in future posts). I sat in on a meeting as this revered doctor spoke to a group of young specialists about the basics of the disease.

He said, “We’ve known from the beginning that estrogen plays a key role… because 75- to 80-percent of diagnoses are women, and we know the role estrogen plays in a woman’s immune system.” He explained how environmental estrogens get into our system, and mimic natural estrogen.

My ‘interesting story’ radar went off even though it had nothing to do with the project at hand. I pulled out my phone. A quick Google search revealed that the incidence of this disease began climbing rapidly in the early 70’s.

I benefited from limited knowledge. All I knew of the disease was a time frame, and what triggered it – chemicals mimicking natural estrogen. The only example I could think of was birth control pills. Based on what the good doctor had said, I assumed the connection must be well known in the medical community, but was surprised I had never heard about it.

I struck up a conversation with him after the meeting, and asked exactly what role The Pill had played in all of this. He replied, “None at all.”

I was dumbfounded. “That seems impossible.” I wasn’t doubting him. In fact, I completely believed him, regardless how impossible it seemed. After all, he was the world-renowned authority.

He doubled down, “There hasn’t been any evidence linking The Pill to [the disease].”

The conversation continued for a while, but didn’t advance. It concluded with him saying, “Certainly, there are more questions than answers. And more research needs to be done.”

I walked away feeling confused – as if he had waved his hand and said, “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.”

That Nagging Feeling

I was still thinking about the encounter when I got back to my hotel room that evening. I pulled out my computer and did a search for the disease, plus “oral contraceptives.” Among the top results was an article about a new study that found women who take The Pill are 50% more likely to have this disease than nonusers.

I wondered whether the doctor had been unaware of this study. The question didn’t linger long. He was quoted halfway through the article. In black-and-white, the world-renowned authority told women they shouldn’t stop taking The Pill because of this study, and that they needed to weigh the benefits against a very small increased risk of developing the disease.

Had he lied to me? At best, he had certainly obfuscated the facts. Maybe he just thought it would be too deep for a simpleton, and it was easier to say that no connection existed.

During the next few weeks, I continued my search, and found several studies over the past 50 years that had linked The Pill to this disease. And for each study, it seemed there were always leading authorities who were eager to say the benefits still outweighed the risks. This was a pattern I observed frequently as I broadened my search to include other ailments.

Questions About The Pill

Those early searches left me with two burning questions that drove me to dig deeper:

  • Are doctors being forthright with women about hormonal contraceptives so that they can make truly informed decisions?
  • Why is the medical community always eager to downplay studies that find risks associated with birth control pills?

Answers to the second question tend to dance around the political landscape. So, for the purposes of my posts on Hormones Matter, I will focus more on the answers to the first question. However, I do think it’s important to lay a little more foundation to explain how I formed my opinions.

In my next post, I will tell you how a feminist, a crusty old reporter, and a 102-year old man fueled my continued interest.

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In the Name of The Pill

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In the Name of The Pill*

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The FDA approved The Pill despite it not being proven safe. Today, it has been linked to everything from blood clots and cancer to lupus and Crohn’s disease — and still has not been proven safe.
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Last updated on October 21, 2023 at 9:38 pm – Image source: Amazon Affiliate Program. All statements without guarantee.

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Look Beyond Access – Demand Safe Birth Control

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Fair warning, this may get ugly. I’m mad. Bayer just announced the next in a long line of dangerous hormonal birth control options the Skyla IUD. Though not much different from the currently embattled and lawsuit ridden Mirena (which tends to dislodge and cause hemorrhage among other things) and likely not much safer than their oral contraceptives – the Yasmin line ($700 million in lawsuit settlements and counting) – women’s health and feminist groups are jumping on the support bandwagon. Now younger women can get a (dangerous) IUD too (Skyla happens to be just a hair smaller than Mirena), yippee.

Wake up, ladies. Medical devices and pharmaceuticals are not shiny new iPads. We cannot blindly support and recommend each and every new product in this market.

The fight to give women access to birth control as a point of equality is dead on and much needed, but ignoring the safety issues and not demanding safer birth control options is just downright negligent. Advertising these birth control options without understanding the serious dangers makes us pawns of pharmaceutical industry and complicit in the deaths and injuries of the women who use these devices and medications.

Women need birth control options. I support that – wholeheartedly. I am a child of the 80s-90s when access to oral contraceptives was unquestioned. Access to birth control allowed me to compete against guys in my chosen sport, allowed me to date, to pursue academic and career goals without worrying about pregnancy.  Easy access to oral contraceptives also, unbeknownst to me, elevated my blood pressure to dangerously high levels, caused progressively worse vertigo and syncope to the point of multiple hospitalizations, tests and desperation. I stopped taking oral contraceptives and all of the symptoms resolved. It wasn’t until years later that I understood the connection.

Like so many others, my physicians and I were blind to the legitimate dangers of hormonal birth control. Sure we’ve all read the package inserts (which are really the tip of the adverse event iceberg), but in a sort of cognitive dissonance we dismiss the side-effects as happening to someone else or as something to be tolerated in exchange for our freedom. Physicians often downplay the dangers hormonal birth control, even today, as more research comes to light.

Imagine, pregnancy versus possible death from cardiac arrest, stroke or a myriad of other adverse events; that is the choice we make daily when using hormonal birth control. We shouldn’t have to make that choice. As educated women and modern feminists we must be able to distinguish between fighting for the absolute right to have access to birth control from a stance that says all birth control options are good and safe. The later is most certainly not the case.

Not all contraceptives are created equal. Some really and truly, should not be on the market. Even among the safer birth control options, there are dangers. We should be fighting for more research, for better and safer birth control options and not promoting each new pill or device that comes on the market. Just because it’s new and the makers say it is safe does not make it so. The pharmaceutical industry has a long history of publishing only positive results for their products (here, here, here) and paying physicians to promote their products. If ever there were a buyer beware, it would be here – with birth control.

Finally, we should be boycotting companies like Bayer who continue to put women’s lives at risk. We boycotted Rush Limbaugh and the Koch brothers for their anti-women statements, why are we not as aggressive when it comes to companies that seriously injure women?  At the very least, we should not be promoting their latest, greatest assault on women’s health. Bayer is the maker of the Yasmin line of birth control, arguably the most dangerous line of oral contraceptives on the market. Bayer is also the maker of Mirena, the hormonal IUD with on-going class action lawsuits due to serious adverse events. Skyla is almost equivalent to Mirena and is simply repackaging and re-branding of that old, soon to be off-patent, dangerous IUD. It is neither new nor innovative and it remains to be seen whether it is any safer.  What are we doing ladies?

Post Script: Hormones MatterTM is taking the safety of birth control into its own hands. We find it unacceptable that the adverse events of many birth control options are poorly understood, that medication interactions are not investigated and that oral contraceptives (like many other medications in women’s health) are regularly prescribed for uses for which there are no data to support their efficacy. We are conducting our first of many studies on oral contraceptives and women’s health issues. If you have ever used oral contraceptives, whether you had any side-effects or not, please take the Oral Contraceptives Survey. Another woman’s life may depend upon it.

About us: We are an unfunded company, committed to improving women’s health through research. We believe so strongly in the need for better research that rather than wait for funding, we’re doing the research anyway.  We are crowdsourcing this research and would be much appreciative if you would also share the link throughout your social media networks.  To take another health survey, click: Take a Health Survey.

To suggest a survey, help create a survey, write a guest post or otherwise get involved: info@hormonesmatter.com

Real Risk Study: Birth Control and Blood Clots

Lucine Health Sciences and Hormones Matter are conducting research to investigate the relationship between hormonal birth control and blood clots. If you or a loved one have suffered from a blood clot while using hormonal birth control, please consider participating. We are also looking for participants who have been using hormonal birth control for at least one year and have NOT had a blood clot, as well as women who have NEVER used hormonal birth control. For more information or to participate, click here.