Matthew Cullinan Hoffman
PARIS, February 26, 2009 (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/feb/09022704.html) - The use of the contraceptive pill is plummeting among younger women, in response to growing awareness of its destructive health effects, reports a French bioethics site.According to the site "Genetique," the use of "the pill" among women aged 15 to 24 years old dropped from 43% in 2003 to 26% in 2007. The rate of childbirth among the same group increased at the same time. "The principal reason for this decrease is the attention paid by women to their health," says Genetique. "It is now proven that the pill suppresses libido and causes weight gain. The fear of cancer and sterility are equally responsible."According to numerous studies on the effects of the contraceptive pill, its use is also linked to increased risk of heart disease, hypertension, and stroke.Related LifeSiteNews coverage:
New Study Shows Contraceptive Pill Increases Risk of Heart Disease, Strokehttp://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/may/08050713.html
Massive Study Finds the Pill Significantly Increases Cancer Risk if Used more than Eight Yearshttp://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/sep/07091306.html
Birth Control Pill Linked to Hardening of the Arterieshttp://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/apr/08040807.html
Showing posts with label pill. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pill. Show all posts
Monday, March 9, 2009
Thursday, February 5, 2009
A Headache That Didn't Go Away
By Sandra G. Boodman
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, February 3, 2009; Page HE01
Valerie Novak fervently wished doctors would stop telling her the intense headache she'd endured for several weeks was a migraine. For one thing, neither the Georgetown University senior nor her close relatives had headaches, and migraines are frequently familial. None of the increasingly potent drugs doctors prescribed was doing much good. And the 22-year-old had lost 15 pounds in three weeks from bouts of severe vomiting.
"I was so frustrated and upset," recalled Novak of her ordeal last summer, which involved consultations with half a dozen doctors, several trips to area emergency rooms and two hospitalizations. Novak, who had always been healthy, said she feared the unrelenting pain in her left temple and associated symptoms were something "I'd have to live with for the rest of my life."
Her mother, Kathy Novak, a nurse practitioner in Bowie, was similarly skeptical of the diagnosis but grateful that doctors had ruled out more ominous possibilities, such as a brain tumor. When her middle daughter began complaining about double vision, Kathy took her to an ophthalmologist. His judgment led to an accurate diagnosis that had nothing to do with migraines but was instead a rare complication of a common item listed on Novak's medical records. Left untreated, it might have killed her.
An Arabic studies major who had been scheduled to graduate in December 2008, Novak said her headache began last summer while she was in Colorado visiting her boyfriend. When over-the-counter pain relievers failed to work, she consulted a Denver physician, who told her she probably had a migraine that would go away on its own.
Undaunted, she left for a two-week trip to visit an uncle in Egypt.
"I thought she might have a sinus infection, and I knew my brother would help her" if she got worse, her mother recalled. She said she did not know until weeks later how sick her daughter really felt. "She's strong, and she put up a good front," her mother said.
While in Cairo, Novak said, her headaches got worse, and she sometimes felt nauseated and had spells of vomiting, which worsened after a snorkeling trip. A doctor she saw in Cairo performed an MRI and concurred with the migraine diagnosis.
Back home in Howard County a few days before the start of the fall semester, Novak began feeling worse. Her primary care doctor prescribed Imitrex, a powerful anti-migraine drug, which, she said, did nothing to alleviate her pain and made her feel worse. She was prescribed Percocet and, when it failed, Dilaudid, an extremely powerful narcotic, which helped -- until it wore off.
Kathy Novak said neither she nor her nursing colleagues had heard of such an intractable migraine in someone who'd never had headaches. "I think I know migraines, and this isn't helping," she told Valerie's primary care physician. One night she took her daughter to a Maryland emergency room. After a CT scan found nothing, Valerie Novak was prescribed Decadron, an anti-inflammatory and anti-nausea drug given to chemotherapy patients. Nothing seemed to work for long.
Back at Georgetown, Novak tried to settle in to her dorm. She soon developed a new and alarming symptom: tingling in her left hand. On her first day of classes, she recalled, she was unable to concentrate because of the numbness that seemed to be moving up her arm and enveloping her tongue and one side of her face.
She called the student health center and was sent to a nearby emergency room. After a full work-up, she was told -- again -- that she had a migraine. Shortly afterward she was in the office of a neurologist with vomiting so severe that she was unable to keep Jell-O down. The neurologist admitted her to a Montgomery County hospital where she spent four days. "All I did was sleep and throw up," she recalled.
At the hospital, an infectious-disease specialist ruled out meningitis without doing a spinal tap, in part because Novak had never had a fever. Lyme disease and West Nile virus were also discarded as possibilities. A brain MRI, the Novaks were told, showed nothing. Novak's symptoms, including the facial and arm numbness, and intolerance of bright light and noise, were "strongly suggestive of migraine headache," a doctor wrote on her chart. She was given a pain patch and released.
Back home with her parents, unable to go to class, Novak recalled that her "eyesight was getting wonky, with really, really weird double vision." Alarmed, her mother made an appointment with an ophthalmologist, hoping he might have an explanation that didn't involve migraines.
After dilating Novak's eyes, the eye specialist immediately spotted something alarming: Her optic nerves were dangerously swollen. "This is not a migraine," he told Novak. "You have increased intracranial pressure."
The unrelenting headache as well as the numbness, tingling and vomiting were caused by a rise in pressure in the brain. The condition, which can result from a head injury or meningitis, is considered a medical emergency; increased pressure caused by a buildup of fluid can permanently damage the central nervous system by restricting blood flow to vessels that supply the brain. In Novak's case, the double vision was caused by pressure on her cranial nerve.
The ophthalmologist's first thought, given Novak's age and history, was pseudotumor cerebri, a rare condition sometimes called a false brain tumor, that affects women between ages 20 and 45. Valerie's illness had nearly all the hallmarks but lacked one critical variable: She was not overweight or obese, as are most of those with the condition.
The ophthalmologist immediately sent Novak to Greenbelt neurologist Roger Whicker. She immediately began taking a drug to reduce the pressure and underwent another MRI and other testing, which revealed the actual cause of the illness and changed the diagnosis to sagittal sinus thrombosis, or SST, caused by a blood clot in her brain.
The probable cause, doctors concluded after performing tests that ruled out a clotting disorder, was the birth control pills she had been taking for more than four years. Luckily, Whicker said, her brain tissue appeared undamaged, which means she did not have a stroke.
SST often starts with a headache, according to a November 2008 article in eMedicine, an online medical textbook.
Some patients suffer seizures, while others can lapse into a coma if the condition is not treated. Double vision, deafness and facial weakness may also occur. Causes include infection or trauma; pregnancy and birth control pills can increase the risk.
A 1970 report in the Journal of Neurosurgery describes the case of a 27-year-old woman who developed SST after six months on birth control pills. She required treatment for multiple blood clots and seizures as well as surgery to relieve the pressure on her brain. Neurosurgeons reported that her only risk factor appeared to be oral contraceptives.
Whicker said that Novak's is the third case of SST he has seen in his career; the other two patients, he said, had not taken birth control pills. The neurologist said he can't explain why an MRI taken days earlier failed to reveal the potentially lethal clot. "It can be overlooked," he said.
Novak spent nine days in the hospital, where she was given blood thinners to break up the clot. Her double vision receded quickly, while the headaches diminished in severity and became less frequent.
Forced to withdraw for the semester, she spent the fall living with her parents and making regular visits to the neurologist. A few weeks ago she moved back into the dorm at Georgetown and is scheduled to graduate in May.
"I'm feeing pretty good," she said last week, although she still sometimes gets headaches and will remain on a blood thinner for a few more months. Whicker has told her she can never again take birth control pills.
Kathy Novak says she is unsure why so many doctors concluded Valerie's problem was migraines. She is philosophical about the missed opportunities: the spinal tap that would have revealed her daughter's elevated intracranial pressure and the widespread failure to consider the possible role of birth control pills, which doctors were told she was taking.
"I'm just thankful she's okay, with no deficits," she said of her daughter. "I think it could have been a lot worse."
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, February 3, 2009; Page HE01
Valerie Novak fervently wished doctors would stop telling her the intense headache she'd endured for several weeks was a migraine. For one thing, neither the Georgetown University senior nor her close relatives had headaches, and migraines are frequently familial. None of the increasingly potent drugs doctors prescribed was doing much good. And the 22-year-old had lost 15 pounds in three weeks from bouts of severe vomiting.
"I was so frustrated and upset," recalled Novak of her ordeal last summer, which involved consultations with half a dozen doctors, several trips to area emergency rooms and two hospitalizations. Novak, who had always been healthy, said she feared the unrelenting pain in her left temple and associated symptoms were something "I'd have to live with for the rest of my life."
Her mother, Kathy Novak, a nurse practitioner in Bowie, was similarly skeptical of the diagnosis but grateful that doctors had ruled out more ominous possibilities, such as a brain tumor. When her middle daughter began complaining about double vision, Kathy took her to an ophthalmologist. His judgment led to an accurate diagnosis that had nothing to do with migraines but was instead a rare complication of a common item listed on Novak's medical records. Left untreated, it might have killed her.
An Arabic studies major who had been scheduled to graduate in December 2008, Novak said her headache began last summer while she was in Colorado visiting her boyfriend. When over-the-counter pain relievers failed to work, she consulted a Denver physician, who told her she probably had a migraine that would go away on its own.
Undaunted, she left for a two-week trip to visit an uncle in Egypt.
"I thought she might have a sinus infection, and I knew my brother would help her" if she got worse, her mother recalled. She said she did not know until weeks later how sick her daughter really felt. "She's strong, and she put up a good front," her mother said.
While in Cairo, Novak said, her headaches got worse, and she sometimes felt nauseated and had spells of vomiting, which worsened after a snorkeling trip. A doctor she saw in Cairo performed an MRI and concurred with the migraine diagnosis.
Back home in Howard County a few days before the start of the fall semester, Novak began feeling worse. Her primary care doctor prescribed Imitrex, a powerful anti-migraine drug, which, she said, did nothing to alleviate her pain and made her feel worse. She was prescribed Percocet and, when it failed, Dilaudid, an extremely powerful narcotic, which helped -- until it wore off.
Kathy Novak said neither she nor her nursing colleagues had heard of such an intractable migraine in someone who'd never had headaches. "I think I know migraines, and this isn't helping," she told Valerie's primary care physician. One night she took her daughter to a Maryland emergency room. After a CT scan found nothing, Valerie Novak was prescribed Decadron, an anti-inflammatory and anti-nausea drug given to chemotherapy patients. Nothing seemed to work for long.
Back at Georgetown, Novak tried to settle in to her dorm. She soon developed a new and alarming symptom: tingling in her left hand. On her first day of classes, she recalled, she was unable to concentrate because of the numbness that seemed to be moving up her arm and enveloping her tongue and one side of her face.
She called the student health center and was sent to a nearby emergency room. After a full work-up, she was told -- again -- that she had a migraine. Shortly afterward she was in the office of a neurologist with vomiting so severe that she was unable to keep Jell-O down. The neurologist admitted her to a Montgomery County hospital where she spent four days. "All I did was sleep and throw up," she recalled.
At the hospital, an infectious-disease specialist ruled out meningitis without doing a spinal tap, in part because Novak had never had a fever. Lyme disease and West Nile virus were also discarded as possibilities. A brain MRI, the Novaks were told, showed nothing. Novak's symptoms, including the facial and arm numbness, and intolerance of bright light and noise, were "strongly suggestive of migraine headache," a doctor wrote on her chart. She was given a pain patch and released.
Back home with her parents, unable to go to class, Novak recalled that her "eyesight was getting wonky, with really, really weird double vision." Alarmed, her mother made an appointment with an ophthalmologist, hoping he might have an explanation that didn't involve migraines.
After dilating Novak's eyes, the eye specialist immediately spotted something alarming: Her optic nerves were dangerously swollen. "This is not a migraine," he told Novak. "You have increased intracranial pressure."
The unrelenting headache as well as the numbness, tingling and vomiting were caused by a rise in pressure in the brain. The condition, which can result from a head injury or meningitis, is considered a medical emergency; increased pressure caused by a buildup of fluid can permanently damage the central nervous system by restricting blood flow to vessels that supply the brain. In Novak's case, the double vision was caused by pressure on her cranial nerve.
The ophthalmologist's first thought, given Novak's age and history, was pseudotumor cerebri, a rare condition sometimes called a false brain tumor, that affects women between ages 20 and 45. Valerie's illness had nearly all the hallmarks but lacked one critical variable: She was not overweight or obese, as are most of those with the condition.
The ophthalmologist immediately sent Novak to Greenbelt neurologist Roger Whicker. She immediately began taking a drug to reduce the pressure and underwent another MRI and other testing, which revealed the actual cause of the illness and changed the diagnosis to sagittal sinus thrombosis, or SST, caused by a blood clot in her brain.
The probable cause, doctors concluded after performing tests that ruled out a clotting disorder, was the birth control pills she had been taking for more than four years. Luckily, Whicker said, her brain tissue appeared undamaged, which means she did not have a stroke.
SST often starts with a headache, according to a November 2008 article in eMedicine, an online medical textbook.
Some patients suffer seizures, while others can lapse into a coma if the condition is not treated. Double vision, deafness and facial weakness may also occur. Causes include infection or trauma; pregnancy and birth control pills can increase the risk.
A 1970 report in the Journal of Neurosurgery describes the case of a 27-year-old woman who developed SST after six months on birth control pills. She required treatment for multiple blood clots and seizures as well as surgery to relieve the pressure on her brain. Neurosurgeons reported that her only risk factor appeared to be oral contraceptives.
Whicker said that Novak's is the third case of SST he has seen in his career; the other two patients, he said, had not taken birth control pills. The neurologist said he can't explain why an MRI taken days earlier failed to reveal the potentially lethal clot. "It can be overlooked," he said.
Novak spent nine days in the hospital, where she was given blood thinners to break up the clot. Her double vision receded quickly, while the headaches diminished in severity and became less frequent.
Forced to withdraw for the semester, she spent the fall living with her parents and making regular visits to the neurologist. A few weeks ago she moved back into the dorm at Georgetown and is scheduled to graduate in May.
"I'm feeing pretty good," she said last week, although she still sometimes gets headaches and will remain on a blood thinner for a few more months. Whicker has told her she can never again take birth control pills.
Kathy Novak says she is unsure why so many doctors concluded Valerie's problem was migraines. She is philosophical about the missed opportunities: the spinal tap that would have revealed her daughter's elevated intracranial pressure and the widespread failure to consider the possible role of birth control pills, which doctors were told she was taking.
"I'm just thankful she's okay, with no deficits," she said of her daughter. "I think it could have been a lot worse."
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
It is wise to be wary of the pill
Shanahan, A. (2009 Jan. 10). It's wise to be wary of the pill. The Australian. Retrieved: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,24891709-7583,00.html
THIS week news of an important report was published in L'Osservatore Romano which, if you will excuse the painful pun, should have been a godsend to eager environmentalists. After all these people are great doomsayers and the contents of the report was the stuff of science fiction horror stories.
According to the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, an alarming rise in male infertility in developed nations is possibly caused by the quantities of synthetic female hormones, particularly estrogen, in the food chain and water. These quantities are directly attributable to increased use of the contraceptive pill and hormone replacement therapy.
The original report published in German has been widely publicised but mysteriously, the only response to this terrible scenario, which seems to be with us just as surely as global warming, were a couple of letters in this publication and in The Sydney Morning Herald that could have come straight from a 19th-century Old Bigot's handbook of insults. They hysterically decried the whole thing as a Vatican misogynistic plot. Never mind that it didn't come from the Vatican. But apparently, in some people's minds, any taint of Catholicism is enough to justify screaming "ignorant, stupid, unscientific" and of course predictably "misogyny".
Strange then that in 1998 women's groups and environmentalists formed an alliance in Japan against the legalisation of the contraceptive pill. Apparently some Japanese women and environmentalists, including the Women's Network for Ecology, were worried enough about the effect of introducing synthetic hormones in a country that relies on very intensive agriculture and aquaculture to campaign against its legalisation. That is aside from widespread suspicion among Japanese women that there is a definite link between the use of the pill and breast cancer in their Western sisters.
The evidence that synthetic hormones can have grotesque environmental effects has actually been around for a long time and it is mounting. As long ago as the 1980s, studies were done in the US which showed the effects of estrogen pollution on wildlife, famously alligators in Florida with deformed genitals. But more recently, in February 2008, the University of Cardiff published a study that claimed a link between sexual deformities in birds around sewerage outlets of large British cities and the increased amount of estrogen finding its way into rivers and estuaries.
Recently during research for a story on the viability of using recycled water in Canberra, I came across several papers that pointed to the problem of estrogen in recycled water. Indeed, according to Canberra Hospital professor Peter Collignon, an opponent of recycling sewage water into the potable supply, estrogen can be more of a problem in recycled water than microbes because it cannot be filtered out and we simply do not know how well it breaks down. Just as the Romans drinking from lead cups unwittingly caused infertility in themselves, perhaps we are seeing after 30 years of contraceptive pill use the long-term effects of introducing artificial estrogen into our wider environment. So you see this is not just a preoccupation of the misogynistic old Vatican.
But how can it be misogynistic to point out that artificial hormones can have a bad effect on men as well as women? And who exactly are the misogynists? Is it the people warning of the possible dangers of long-term exposure to artificial estrogen for both sexes, or the hysterical letter writers and doctors who seem to be saying, "There dear, just go ahead and take your pill and everything will be all right?"
As a woman I think Australian women ought to think again about this great biochemical boon to the human race, or perhaps I should say to men. Australian women have one of the highest rates of contraceptive pill use in the world. Most women feel obliged to use it as soon as they become sexually active and the average time women stay on the pill is 10 years. That is 10 years of suppressing one's normal hormonal cycle and replacing it with artificial hormones with all the physical and psychological ramifications, including the decline of libido.
However, even though we have the highest rate of breast cancer in the world, and there is a lot of research pointing to the pill as at least a partially causative factor, many doctors (even some of my own acquaintance) have no compunction in prescribing it to girls who have just reached puberty. In fact one doctor I know told me she feels legally obliged to give it to any sexually active girl, no matter what age. Furthermore, not only is long-term pill use implicated in infertility and sexually transmitted disease, what is worse is it has not prevented our abortion rate from being one of the world's highest.
There are so many reasons for being wary of the contraceptive pill. Why are we not questioning its prevalence?
The reason is, of course, that it is the sacred cow of the sexual revolution. One imaginative letter writer claimed the Catholic view of the pill was that it was "the great Satan", and actually that is not a bad description. It was marketed as an instrument of sexual freedom, and it has provided that, particularly for men. But one might ask if for women it has been the means of sexual liberation or just a way of turning us into empty vessels for sex? Is it like the sexual revolution itself: a pretty and alluring package that turns out to be - for both sexes - like a series of empty boxes, one inside the other. At the end, there is nothing but an empty box.
The environmental effects of the pill on men may in fact gradually reveal the extent of the damage to our whole society, something that Francis Fukuyama points out in his essay, The Great Disruption: that we can't just introduce something such as this for 30 years and not expect unforeseen consequences, moral, social and, of course, physical. But tragically it will be young men and boys who suffer before women will also free themselves of this burden.
THIS week news of an important report was published in L'Osservatore Romano which, if you will excuse the painful pun, should have been a godsend to eager environmentalists. After all these people are great doomsayers and the contents of the report was the stuff of science fiction horror stories.
According to the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, an alarming rise in male infertility in developed nations is possibly caused by the quantities of synthetic female hormones, particularly estrogen, in the food chain and water. These quantities are directly attributable to increased use of the contraceptive pill and hormone replacement therapy.
The original report published in German has been widely publicised but mysteriously, the only response to this terrible scenario, which seems to be with us just as surely as global warming, were a couple of letters in this publication and in The Sydney Morning Herald that could have come straight from a 19th-century Old Bigot's handbook of insults. They hysterically decried the whole thing as a Vatican misogynistic plot. Never mind that it didn't come from the Vatican. But apparently, in some people's minds, any taint of Catholicism is enough to justify screaming "ignorant, stupid, unscientific" and of course predictably "misogyny".
Strange then that in 1998 women's groups and environmentalists formed an alliance in Japan against the legalisation of the contraceptive pill. Apparently some Japanese women and environmentalists, including the Women's Network for Ecology, were worried enough about the effect of introducing synthetic hormones in a country that relies on very intensive agriculture and aquaculture to campaign against its legalisation. That is aside from widespread suspicion among Japanese women that there is a definite link between the use of the pill and breast cancer in their Western sisters.
The evidence that synthetic hormones can have grotesque environmental effects has actually been around for a long time and it is mounting. As long ago as the 1980s, studies were done in the US which showed the effects of estrogen pollution on wildlife, famously alligators in Florida with deformed genitals. But more recently, in February 2008, the University of Cardiff published a study that claimed a link between sexual deformities in birds around sewerage outlets of large British cities and the increased amount of estrogen finding its way into rivers and estuaries.
Recently during research for a story on the viability of using recycled water in Canberra, I came across several papers that pointed to the problem of estrogen in recycled water. Indeed, according to Canberra Hospital professor Peter Collignon, an opponent of recycling sewage water into the potable supply, estrogen can be more of a problem in recycled water than microbes because it cannot be filtered out and we simply do not know how well it breaks down. Just as the Romans drinking from lead cups unwittingly caused infertility in themselves, perhaps we are seeing after 30 years of contraceptive pill use the long-term effects of introducing artificial estrogen into our wider environment. So you see this is not just a preoccupation of the misogynistic old Vatican.
But how can it be misogynistic to point out that artificial hormones can have a bad effect on men as well as women? And who exactly are the misogynists? Is it the people warning of the possible dangers of long-term exposure to artificial estrogen for both sexes, or the hysterical letter writers and doctors who seem to be saying, "There dear, just go ahead and take your pill and everything will be all right?"
As a woman I think Australian women ought to think again about this great biochemical boon to the human race, or perhaps I should say to men. Australian women have one of the highest rates of contraceptive pill use in the world. Most women feel obliged to use it as soon as they become sexually active and the average time women stay on the pill is 10 years. That is 10 years of suppressing one's normal hormonal cycle and replacing it with artificial hormones with all the physical and psychological ramifications, including the decline of libido.
However, even though we have the highest rate of breast cancer in the world, and there is a lot of research pointing to the pill as at least a partially causative factor, many doctors (even some of my own acquaintance) have no compunction in prescribing it to girls who have just reached puberty. In fact one doctor I know told me she feels legally obliged to give it to any sexually active girl, no matter what age. Furthermore, not only is long-term pill use implicated in infertility and sexually transmitted disease, what is worse is it has not prevented our abortion rate from being one of the world's highest.
There are so many reasons for being wary of the contraceptive pill. Why are we not questioning its prevalence?
The reason is, of course, that it is the sacred cow of the sexual revolution. One imaginative letter writer claimed the Catholic view of the pill was that it was "the great Satan", and actually that is not a bad description. It was marketed as an instrument of sexual freedom, and it has provided that, particularly for men. But one might ask if for women it has been the means of sexual liberation or just a way of turning us into empty vessels for sex? Is it like the sexual revolution itself: a pretty and alluring package that turns out to be - for both sexes - like a series of empty boxes, one inside the other. At the end, there is nothing but an empty box.
The environmental effects of the pill on men may in fact gradually reveal the extent of the damage to our whole society, something that Francis Fukuyama points out in his essay, The Great Disruption: that we can't just introduce something such as this for 30 years and not expect unforeseen consequences, moral, social and, of course, physical. But tragically it will be young men and boys who suffer before women will also free themselves of this burden.
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