February 3, 2014 • 37 mins
A recent Vanity Fair article detailed the potentially fatal side effects of certain types of birth control. Cristen and Caroline unravel the science of birth control risk factors, how to minimize birth control risk and what the Vanity Fair story leaves out.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how stupp
works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline, and we've talked about birth control
many times in the podcast, the different types of birth
control and the awesomeness of birth control in terms of
(00:25):
planning pregnancy, taking more control of your reproductive health and schedules.
But warning to listeners, this is not going to be
such a rosie podcast about birth control, right. We are
talking today about kind of the negative effects that some
birth control can have on you, um, depending on your age,
(00:47):
your health, all of these different factors. And we were
inspired to tackle this issue by a Vanity Fair article
that came out in December, actually was published in December
by Marie Brenner, and it was a pretty scary article,
and you know, krist and I were talking about it,
and we not only want to kind of talk with
(01:08):
you about what was in the article itself and some
of the scary issues surrounding birth control, but also take
more of a kind of panned out objective look at
some of these issues as well. Yeah, because when I
read the article, it was it took a moment for
it to sink in because it's it has a very
emotional undercurrent, painting the lives of these young women who
(01:30):
died due to health complications caused by hormonal birth control.
But then once I started thinking about it and thinking
about that emotional effect of the article had on me,
I realized that there were a lot of factual holes
in it as well. So first of all, let's just
talk about the focus of this fanity Fair piece that
(01:51):
they got a lot of people, not just us talking um.
It really focused on the birth control brand maneuver Ring, right,
And this is the type of combination hormonal birth control
that is very common in our country. It was developed
back in the nineties by organ On, which is the
Dutch drug company, and it hit our market in the
US in two thousand two. Another company, sharing Plow, bought
(02:13):
organ On in two thousand seven, and Mark, which you've
probably heard of, big pharmaceutical company, acquired sharing Plow in
two thousand nine. And new of a ring in the
United States has been prescribed forty four million times over
the past decade. And the reason too, why we're name
checking all of these pharmaceutical companies is not to bog
you down in the details, but point out that they
(02:35):
are big players in this sort of pipeline of information
from these drug manufacturers down to the doctors, down to
women who are taking and using drugs like maneuver ring,
which is if you're not familiar, it's a flexible, transparent
ring that is inserted into the vagina. You put it
(02:56):
in yourself and you wear it for three weeks. And
um it's mark did as a simpler type of birth
control because unlike a pill, you don't have to remember
to take it every day at the same time, right,
And so there's a lot of marketing push as behind
any drugs. Were not just harping on birth control here,
but there's a lot of marketing behind it that you know,
depicts women, young women out at the club or they're
(03:19):
super happy and they're running down the street with their friends.
It's like, it is clear that you want to be
the type of woman who uses Nuva ring as like
a liberating force in your life. Yeah, it has a
lot of great marketing behind it. Yeah, And I will
say a side note that I love marketing like that
that depicts women doing group activities on their period, like that,
(03:41):
that's just what we do whenever I get my period.
I call Carolina, go jogging, that's right, and I bring
the balloons. Yeah. I ride up on my bicycle, my
cruiser bike, and you're in a skirt, even though no
one ever rides backs and skirts. And then we release
the balloons at the end of our triumphant menstrual jog um.
But back to maneuvering. It is, by the way, the
(04:04):
only vaginal hormonal contraceptive approved by the FDA for use
in the United States, and that basically means it's the
only kind of birth control that you put inside your
vagina yourself, unlike an I U D that's implanted in
your uterus, correct, and some similar to the pill. Maneuver
ring is a combination hormonal birth control, meaning that it
(04:25):
contains estrogen and progestin and that prevents your ovaries from
producing mature eggs. And basically the hormone releases activated once
the ring is in your vagina, and it is supposed
to release a continuous low dose of hormones. But as
we will get into, part of the issue with maneuvering
is that subsequent studies show that there were dangerous spikes
(04:47):
in estrogen. Yeah, and so this Vanity Fair article by
Marie Brenner introduced readers to two main women who suffered
from what are called pulmon airy embolisms, which is a
sort of a fancy medical term for blood clots that
were thought to be related to the neeuver ring. And
the story kicks off with this anecdote about a young
(05:10):
woman named Erica Lanheart. Who I mean, it was a
tragic story. She was highly successful and she was on
her way to go to her parents house for Thanksgiving
in two thousand eleven and she just collapsed on the
floor of her apartment, couldn't Breathe had two heart attacks
in the ambulance on the way to the hospital and
(05:31):
the doctor. One of the first questions the doctor asked
her boyfriend was whether she was using birth control and
what kind it was, right, and so he did suspect
new verrang Um. Erica's mother confirmed, you know, by the
by phone that she was on new verrang The doctor
removed it, and Erica actually died on Thanksgiving Day and
(05:53):
her parents were told that she had had a double
pulmonary embolism. Yeah. And one thing that the article points
out is how at the royal service for Erica, her
parents because they were immediately so horrified at this new
v Ring connection. In the program for the memorial service,
(06:13):
it said cause of death or something along the lines
of cause of death pulmonary embolism neuver ring, right exactly.
And and the mother you know talks about Karen Langhart
talks about how she did a whole bunch of research
online and was horrified to find the number of lawsuits
that are going on around New ver Ring and the
hormones in neuver ring and the connection with blood clots
(06:36):
and young women. The story also talked about Megan Henry,
who sounds like the most athletic person in the world. Um.
She was actually out in Utah training for the Winter
Olympics when she started having trouble breathing, and her coach
and everybody said, oh, you're probably just you know, affected
by the altitude and all that stuff. And on a
flight to Florida, Megan almost collapsed. And a CT scan
(06:59):
that she had in Connecticut, so she's doing taking all
these flights, which is, you know, the worst thing you
can do if you have blood clots. During a CT scan,
it showed that she had dozens of clots in her lung.
She was immediately put on blood thinners and spent a
week in the emergency room. Yeah, and the doctor even
said that if she hadn't been in such supreme physical shape,
(07:23):
she probably would have died before that. But the story
is that if she ever decides to get pregnant, because
of the risk that pregnancy itself carries for blood clots,
she'll probably have to be on a painful round of
blood thinners. And so, clearly from the get go in
this Vanity Fair article, we have these two gripping and
horrifying stories about what's happened to these young women. And
(07:48):
so you know, the next question is, well, okay, I mean,
we we've heard that hormonal birth control can cause these
kinds of blood clots. Um. I remember the first time,
when I was probably eighteen or nineteen, when I talked
to my gynecologists about birth control, she immediately, you know,
when she was talking about she brought up blood clots
(08:08):
in my brain. At the time, I you know, I
didn't think anything of that. That we didn't seem like
something that could actually kill you. Um. And and also
you know, in your mind, you might be thinking, well,
this has been approved by the f d A, this
has got to be fine, right, I mean, you have
a side effect, there are risks, but there are risks
(08:29):
with anything we're putting in our bodies, right, right, And
that's that's kind of how my my view of it
was too exactly the same. It's like, clots happen to
other people. I'm relatively healthy, I'm young, I don't have
anything to worry about. But um, I don't think I
was quite made to understand the actual risks that can
that some birth control can carry, because I was put
(08:51):
on a type of birth control, Yasmin that has also
been implicated in thousands of lawsuits as well as its
generic forms, which I was also on, and so I
just thought, well, yeah, I'll be fine, No, no worries, right.
And it's not just blood clots that can be potential
negative side effects to hormonal birth control. I mean, depending
(09:11):
on the type of birth control you're on, you could
be at risk for developing oh varian cysts, which goes
along with the marina I U d uh. If you
are using the patch, then one of the side effects
possible side effects is stroke. Um. Then with depo provera,
which is the shot, you might be at risk of
a loss of bone mineral density. And so we're not
saying all of this as to do, you know, to
(09:34):
encourage everyone listening to get off your birth control right now,
but rather to you know, let's let's educate ourselves a
little bit more about what the actual risks of these
side effects are, and particularly with this issue of the
pulmonary embolisms. And also some details that this Vanity Fair
article completely left out that maybe made these risks seem
(10:00):
riskier than they actually are. So yeah, let's let's give
you a rundown of that Vanity Fair piece. And some
of the studies they looked at. One of them was
the original study that organ on that Dutch drug company
did on neuver ring and the fact that they only
examined sixteen women. And now, I'm no researcher or a
(10:21):
medical doctor of any kind, as I feel like I've
hammered home on the podcast before, but that is an
incredibly small trial. Even so, during that trial they found
that two women had massive spikes of estrogen in the
first couple of days, to other women had unexplained spikes
of estrogen midway through. However, those spikes were not mentioned
(10:41):
in the thirty page summary that was submitted to the
FDA in two thousand one for neuver rings approval. And
one of the things they bring up is that, you know,
the f d A, it's not like they have a
ba jillion people working for them. If the stats, if
that information is not in that executive summary, and it's
buried somewhere in a seven page is probably not going
to come to light at least right away anyway. And
(11:04):
I will say one concerning thing in terms of birth
control testing, considering how for a lot of you know,
like oral contraceptives and types of birth control where the
way that you take it definitely influences the outcomes and efficacy.
The author notes how neub ring hasn't been tested outside
(11:27):
of factory conditions, which makes a difference for something like
the ring that you insert into the vagina and kind
of forget you said it and forget it um. But
that could be problematic since the package recommends that it
stays between sixty eight and seventies seven degrees fahrenheit or
for our listeners outside the United States, five degrees celsius um.
(11:49):
And so Brennard says, well, what could happen if it overheats,
say in the transport process, or if it's sitting, you know,
in your car for a long time, or you're carrying
it around in your purse and it kind of get
the temperature gets a little wonky. Um. So so that's
I think that's a valid concern to have in regard
to this testing, right. And so testing that came along
(12:13):
kind of way after the fact, after nub rank had
been on the market quite a bit found UH an
incredibly increased risk for venus thrombo embolism or vt E.
UH In the f d A released a report that
was commissioned by health insurance company Kaiser Permanente, and in
looking at nearly one million women, they found that women
(12:37):
using contraceptive rings or fifty six percent more likely than
women using a different hormonal contraceptive to suffer a v
t E or a life threatening blood clot And that's
one of the studies that has also mentioned in that
Bandy Fair article. Yeah, but it would have also been
helpful and informative if Brenner had gone back and talked to,
say the lead study author, Steve Sidney, who's the director
(12:59):
of Research Clinics a Kaiser Permanente Northern California, who After
this article came out and you know, people were like, well,
what are we actually at risk for all of this?
And they started this study, he said, actually, no, those
findings were not accurately reported on because that study was
not adjusted to account for only new birth control users.
(13:23):
And so when they adjusted for that to really focus
in on the maneuver ring, they found no increased blood
clot risk. So the numbers get a little muddy. And
that's also a problem that you're going to see two
with a lot of these studies on birth control risks,
is that you start tweaking methodologies and looking at different
(13:45):
numbers and looking at different populations of women who have
been on birth control for a while or haven't been
at all, and you start to get a lot of
conflicting information, right, I mean, just the following year, in
a study came out the British Medical Journal that found
that women using rings were ninety percent more likely to
have a VT than women using other forms of birth control. Yeah,
(14:09):
but then again, the methodology of that study has been
called into question because it didn't factor in very important
variables like family history of blood clots or obesity other
health issues. And you know, in the stories of Erica
Langhart and Megan Henry, tragic though they are, and you know,
they're seemingly quite healthy women. Obviously, Brennard did nothing though
(14:34):
to look into what their family histories might have been
as well. They're just you know, kind of put forward
as these sort of almost perfect specimens of young women.
But again, it's it's not as simple as just saying,
you know, this will kill you. And I mean, obviously,
since we're doing a podcast on this, obviously I have
(14:55):
no problem discussing very openly the risks of certain things
like birth control, like medication in general, but it is
important to discuss the full story right well. And and
that's a takeaway too for when you're sitting in the
doctor's office and they're about to hand you just a
sample a birth control, which is something that happened to me,
(15:16):
you know, at one point years ago, and I took
the sample and started using it. But you know, to
talk about, well, what is my family history and I
know precondition to blood clot issues, right, And the thing is, like,
I this got me thinking back to every doctor visit
I've pretty much ever had where they make you fill
out your family history. I have a family history of
heart disease. But that was never, ever, not once brought
(15:39):
up in any of my discussions about birth control with
my doctor, you know, anything about worrying about cardiovascular health anything.
It's just like, well, you're a young woman and you
want to have sex, so here's birth control. Go on
your marriy way. And you know, I'm I'm lucky that
nothing happened. But you know, I also didn't really know
(16:01):
what to ask at the time. Yeah, I wouldn't. I
wouldn't have known up until you know, a few days ago,
really digging into this kind of research of what to
ask for and also things that I need to do
and understanding more about my own family history. Right. So,
looking back at that British Medical Journal study talking about
(16:21):
vt S, they stated that in any given year, out
of ten thousand women who are not using a hormonal contraceptive,
and average of two point one would suffer a vt
E and that risk increases six and a half times
for a woman using the vaginal ring, and so that
number would go up from two point one out of
ten thousand women to seven point seven five out of
(16:44):
ten thousand. But in a follow up piece over women's
health kind of looking digging into these studies that were
cited in the Vanity Fair piece, they did note that
for comparison, if you're taking something like lavon or a gestrell,
which is an oral contrast to the blood clot risk
is elevated as well to six point two out of
(17:06):
ten thousand. Yeah, so there's no perfect solution. No, no
medicine is perfect. Um. But you know, these are risks
that you need to keep in mind. That is what
we are trying to hammer home. But the next question
then is why that increase in risks exists. What is
really going on with the chemistry of these hormonal contraceptives
(17:28):
that might be um increasing that blood clot risk and
the risk of other side effects as well, which we
will get into when we come right back from a
quick break and now back to the podcast. So, we
were talking a lot about the fact that a lot
of times with the vaginal ring and with oral contraceptives,
(17:48):
the fact of the matter is the risk for developing
blood clots that can be fatal is elevated. So what
is going on that, especially with the new ring. Why
is it that that that that risk is so concerning.
A lot of it has to do with the fact
that neuve, ring and certain other combined hormonal contraceptives use
(18:12):
newer generations of progestins. UH. These newer generation hormones tend
to have fewer androgenic side effects such as acne such
as you know, growth of hair on your face, but
they do come with a higher risk for v t S.
And it was back in around the eighties and nineties
(18:33):
that these third and fourth generation progestine had started getting
substituted for earlier ones in order to lessen effects like that.
But on the downside, even though you might have less
issues dealing with acne and unwanted hair growth, they do
come along with that greater risk. And this is coming
(18:53):
out of a study publishing the Journal of General Internal
Medicine in n which found that the risk of v
to E appears to be one point five to two
point seven fold greater end users of those third generation
for justice compared with second generation oral contraceptives. Now that's
important to point out that that's looking at the oral contraceptives,
(19:14):
not the ring, right, And when you compare women taking
these oral contraceptives with non users, women who use third
generation oral contraceptives may have a four point eight to
nine point four fold greater risk of venus thrombo embolism.
And because of what's happened in the case of someone
like Erica Langhart who died as a result of the
(19:35):
complications from the maneuver ring, there are a lot of
lawsuits happening in multiple states against drug companies in regard
to that venous thrombo embolism caused by the third and
fourth generation of birth controls. And so, I mean, again,
going back to that Vanity Fair piece, it focuses a
(19:55):
lot on the attorney who is he's a mass tour
lawyer who is out to really bring merk like to justice.
I guess at least that's what he might say. And
I mean he offered a very stern warning to his
daughter's at one point. Yeah, he told Vanity Fair that
(20:19):
he called his daughter's up and told them not to
ever use any third or fourth generation birth control saying
it could kill you. But you know what I gotta say,
I will trust a mass tort lawyer as far as
I can throw him or the bench with his face
on it outside of the bus stop. Not to say
that this guy is that guy, but it's like there
(20:40):
that was one other issue with the Vanity Fair piece,
where when you when you paint lawyers who go go
after these massive settlement cases as sort of save your figures, right,
I mean, because on the one side, you have drug
compnis that don't want to tell the truth about the
(21:02):
risks of their drugs, and that's terrible. You know, you
have a bigger budget for marketing at Mark than you
do for research and development. So that's that's the bad
on the one side. But the bad on the other
side is that it's not that Schalnik, the lawyer that
they talked to, It's not that he's not trying to
help women. He he is trying to help women. But
(21:22):
you also have to look at these attorneys as making
a living, trying to make a living going into these
very expensive cases knowing that they have the potential to
make a lot of money too, I mean, because these
are billion with a B dollar settlements that they're going
after and really caught in the middle. Two of all
of this is you know the elephant in the room,
(21:43):
which is the f d A, which is just sitting
there like, well, what can we do? Yeah? Well, so
also coming from that Vanity Fair piece, they talk about
how They are more than fift hundred federal lawsuits pinning
in federal court and about two thousand more filed in
state courts over these drugs, and the complaints show that
the drug manufacturers failed to warn the public about the
(22:06):
dangers of blood clots. Now, anybody who's ever taken birth control,
you know, especially that first time you bring it home
from the doctor, you unfold that huge, you know, Bible
page thin sheet of paper that you know not only
shows you the how the chemicals are structured, but it
tells you every possible risk and it's it's terrifying, but
(22:28):
you know it's it's in there, but it's not necessarily
displayed as no, really you have to worry about this well,
and in a way this might make me, this might
sound horrible, but sometimes might pull out those biblical packets
of information. It's almost like seeing those giant terms of
use agreement on the Internet where you just automn You're like,
(22:49):
I'm just gonna scroll the bottom, click I agree, and
then so I can get into my iTunes account. It's
the same kind of thing. I don't think we're pulling
out the you know, the magnifying glass you need to
read the teeny din it print, even though we should well,
you know, and I have on different medications I've taken,
I will pull that thing out and and read over it.
But it's the same kind of thing. Is when you
(23:10):
it's exactly the same as the terms of use on
iTunes or whatever, because you just look at it and
you're like, well, okay, yeah, I mean there's nothing I
can do. Well your doctor prescribed it to you. It's like, okay,
well this could cause you know, blood clots and etcetera, etcetera.
You know, or you know, my internet provider is going
(23:31):
to be looking at my my internet use like it's
the same same kind of thing. You know, you you
accept the risk well. And speaking of the risk of
blood clots, set is one thing we haven't explicitly mentioned,
which is the reason why they're so dangerous is because
they can travel to different parts of your body and
relocate in places like the lungs, which is what happened
(23:53):
to Megan Henry. That's why the clots can be such
a life threatening issue. Which was something that like I said,
when I was, you know, a teenager and my doctor
said blood clots, I didn't bat an eyelash right. And
while the absolute risk of getting blood clots is small,
the chance of getting it over a lifetime is small,
(24:16):
it is significant enough to keep in mind because all
combination estrogen and progestine birth control products do carry that
increased risk for stroke and blood clots in the veins,
although it is lower for oral contraceptives than for the
patch or the ring. Yeah, but no matter what kind
of birth control you are using, when you factor in
(24:38):
things like if you're smoking, if you are obese, if
you do have heart disease risk factors, you know, that's
when you really need to well, first of all, quit smoking, yeah, um,
But beyond that then you really need to pay attention
to um whether or not you're taking something that does
have even though smaller, but nevertheless elevated risks with them. Right. Well,
(25:03):
I mean one thing that experts recommend is switching from
an estrogen containing contraceptive to pro justin only contraceptives like
mini pills, I U D s or just barrier contraceptive methods. Yeah,
and that's in the case of you know, that's not
across the board. That's in the case if you do
have one, it's elevated risk factor, correct. Yeah, then you
should probably stay away from the estrogen. Yeah, so we've
(25:25):
been digging and digging into these risk factors, really putting
birth control under the microscope, because the fact of the
matter is is that I don't think enough people do
know about this. Um. I don't think that a lot
of us are as aware as we could be or
should be about the questions, even just to ask at
(25:46):
the doctor's office, right exactly. I mean I didn't know
to ask any questions. I didn't know that I should
be concerned. I thought since I was a perfectly healthy person,
you know, there would be no reason for me to
even bring it up. But your doctor is not necessarily
going to bring it up either. Marie Brenner, the Vanity
Fair reporters sent two young women out to college clinics
(26:08):
and plan parenthood clinics to seek the newver ring, and
none of the healthcare providers that these women talked to
you mentioned the increased VTE risk. And so right there
is an example of how, again I feel like we've
said this before, you need to be an advocate for
your own healthcare. And so what we're seeing is a
(26:30):
medication that has potentially awful side effects, and women aren't
necessarily being told the full story. Yeah, And of course
marketing that's coming out of the pharmaceutical companies like Mark
who want to sell these products to us are only
going to minimize the risk when you have the contrast.
For first of all, it is strange to me that
(26:52):
drug marketing like commercials like that are allowed on television.
I feel like that's half of the problem, or not
half of the problem, but a chunk of the problem them. Um,
because you'll see, you know, the gagglea gals going out
having a great time on the birth control because it's
changed their life for the better. And then the fast
talking like low voice comes into the the end, being
(27:14):
like this birth control could actually really screw up your life.
If you're not paying at junchmen, you need to know
your family. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And um, the thing is,
I mean marketing. You know, these these drug companies know
that they know the risk, they know they have to
tell you the risk, but they're gonna do as much
as they can to downplay because when you have a
case like ortho Eva, they came majorly under fire. They
(27:38):
were in the line of fire before Nuva ring was
and so because of litigation. They ended up having to
put a huge warning on their packages about the increased
danger of vt s and when they did that, their
sales plummeted eight percent. And I will say, you know,
I realized this is anecdote, but I met a few girls.
(28:00):
This was years ago when the patch had recently come
on the market, and you know, girls were like trying
it out because you're You're like, oh, are you on
the one where you don't get a period? Are you on?
I you d like you always gonna compare like what
kind of birth control you're on? And horror stories I
heard from women on the patch. Uh, and it just
it's not it awful really, Yeah, just just more of
(28:22):
the side effects of insane kind of levels of moodiness
and sudden weight gain, drastic skin problems, all of that
more andrew genic stuff. Um, you know that we might
think about more because I know in my mind too,
there have been times when I was younger when I
would go to get birth control and that was the
(28:44):
number one thing I wanted to know, is it gonna
make me gain weight and we'll clear up my skin,
because that'd be nice. And these companies, you know, will
even go so far as to instruct drug reps on
how to minimize the risks of things like neuve ray
when they are talking to doctors. So I'm not saying
that your doctor is stupid or your doctor is ignorant
(29:05):
and not willing to find out information, but the people
from whom they are getting information might have been instructed
to not tell them the full story. And so let's
though arm our listeners with some knowledge some some practical
things that they can do aside from possibly panicking about
(29:26):
what kind of birth control around. Because the moral of
the story is not to panic or to flush your
birth control down the toilet. It's simply to consider going
to your doctor with some questions such as what are
the different methods of birth control? How effective are they?
Rather than just sitting there and saying hand me a
sample please, right, yeah, how effective are they? Especially based
(29:49):
on my lifestyle and my health risks? Um, you want
to know maybe what medical conditions can birth control effect.
Maybe you're not getting on birth control for actual pregnancy prevention,
but to handle certain other medical issues that women face. Um,
you want to ask your doctor about your how your
family health history will affect the type of birth control
(30:11):
you should use, and of course, as we have said,
you want to enquire about side effects, yeah, and I mean,
and if you want to know about specific side effects
if this if hearing about this issue with the vt
S is concerning as specifically about that you know, um
and outside of the doctor's office too, highly recommend the
(30:31):
website bedsider dot org, which is a really user friendly
resource for learning about the different methods of birth control.
They have a ton of comprehensive um information on the
kind of a lifestyle stuff. The um efficacy risks all
of that, well, Christen, one thing that we only very
(30:55):
briefly touched on earlier on the podcast and have not
covered is just the fact that blood clots are not
solely tied to taking birth control. Yeah. And this was
another gaping whole in that Vanity Fair article, which is
that the fact of the matter is that if you're
concerned about this blood clot issue, which is a valid
(31:16):
thing to be concerned about, birth control statistically isn't the
likeliest culprit pregnancy is right, And the first month after
giving birth is actually the highest risk time of all
to develop blood plots. Yeah, I mean, and this is
one reason why in all of the interviews with doctors
(31:39):
that I read in in regard to this vanity Fair piece,
all of them were essentially saying, whoa, whoa, calm down,
it's not that bad. Don't get rid of your birth control.
For instance, in the words of Jane Mincin, who's a
board certified O b g N and a clinical professor
at Yale School of Medicine, the increased risk, if there
is an increased risk, is very very small. Your risk
(32:01):
of a blood clot is much higher if you get
pregnant inadvertently, right. But in the meantime, then it's also
good to educate yourself and be knowledgeable of how to
keep your body in a healthy working condition up until
the point if you do choose or desire or can
get pregnant. Right, And so I think this I hope
(32:24):
that this episode serves as a good motivating factor for
people to really dig deep and learn about their own
health and their own health risks and their family history.
You know, the better educated you are, the better you
can keep your health in good condition. Yeah, I mean.
(32:45):
And the title of this podcast is can your birth
control kill you? And the answer is, yeah, it can.
The chances of that are very very very very slim.
One statistic I saw it was that it's as likely
as getting struck by lightning. Um, it's much likelier to happen,
in fact, if you get pregnant. But also just in
(33:05):
my adulthood, Caroline, I've also just too many stories from
girlfriends of mine, like women I meet when you talk
about birth control, of having issues, not life threatening issues,
but having issues of doctors who didn't really spend time
and just handed them something and it kind of reached
some havoc on their bodies. And I think that's something
(33:26):
that we need to talk more about where it's like, yeah,
we're totally pro birth control, but we're also pro women's
self and pro in in your words, you know, being
advocates for your own health right and what works for
you won't necessarily work for me, and so I think
it is completely worth it to take that extra time
to read up on different forms of medication that you
(33:48):
might be taking. Yeah, so I have a feeling this
is probably sparked some thoughts and a lot of listeners
and we definitely want to hear from you. So if
you want to send us a letter about it, mom
stuff discovery dot com um for your longer thoughts, But
if you want to get in touch with us right away,
you can always tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or
message us on Facebook. And we've got a couple of
(34:10):
messages to share with you in fact right now. Well,
I've got a letter here about our ode to Dolly
Parton a little while ago. Is from Piper, who writes,
first off, thank you so much for dedicating an episode
to such a wonderful woman. I would certainly consider her
(34:31):
a feminist icon, based solely on the fact that when
I was exposed to her as a child, just listening
to her music and hearing her speak made me feel
that as a woman, I could also fight against the
odds that breasts unfortunately bring us from time to time,
hers a little more at times, I'm sure. Also, I
think she should be included in some sort of Christian
sainthood because she's also such a great example of what
(34:52):
Christianity should really be. Saying that, I've been an atheist
for a few years now, but if more people acted
the way Dolly Parton does every day, there may be
more Christians in the world. Second, my boyfriend and I
have decided to name all of our pets after Strong women.
So yes, I do have a cat named Dolly Parton.
The other is named after my favorite photographer, Diane Arbus.
(35:13):
So from Dolly Arbus, my boyfriend and myself, thank you
so much for this episode. And thank you Piper and
that your boyfriend and kitty cats. I want to meet
Dolly Parton a cat, Yeah, as a pick and a
pick of Diane Arbus. Okay, well, I have a letter
here from Rose that is also about our Dolly Parton episode.
(35:34):
She says, from age eighteen to age twenty five, I
was a stripper, and now at age twenty nine, I'm
a law student. This means that in my less than
thirty years, I have spent some time on opposite ends
of the feminism spectrum, from naked show girl to professional
educated woman. I tell you this not to brag about
my versatility, but to explain why Dolly means so much
to me. I've heard a lot of no, and a
(35:55):
lot of you shouldn't and a lot of how could you?
But Dolly is just a big heart full of yes.
When I think of Dolly, I think that I can
be any kind of woman I want, and I can
be many different kinds of woman. Simultaneously and within one
little life. She is sexy and beautiful and over the top,
and she's also efficient and talented and intelligent and above
all ambitious. I hope I don't sound trite when I
(36:17):
say that Dolly helps me believe in myself. I think
she touches a lot of people this way. People who
come from having very little can relate to her asking
people who had to make the hard choice between family
and career, and people who is stuck to a loving
marriage despite a changing world. People who look the way
they dream of looking, even if that's not how some
people think they should look. People with old fashioned values,
(36:37):
and people on the fringes. Dolly is the patron saint
of the can do spirit and of basic human kindness.
I have read her book, and I have seen her
in concert, and as I type this on the ferry
on my way to school, I am listening to her
greatest hits on my headphones. Dolly means a lot to me,
and I couldn't be more pleased that you wonderful Gal
has been an entire episode on her. I think there's
no better way to close this letter than with my
(36:58):
favorite Dolly quote. You see someone without a smile, give
him yours. So thank you for your letter, Rose, and
thanks to everybody who's written into his mom. Stuff at
Discovery dot com is where you can write us, and
if you haven't gone there already, you need to bookmark
the one place on the Internet where you can find
all stuff Mom never told you, podcast videos, blogs, and
(37:20):
all of our social media outlets in one convenient place.
Stuff Mom Never told you dot com for more on
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
works dot com
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how stupp
works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline, and we've talked about birth control
many times in the podcast, the different types of birth
control and the awesomeness of birth control in terms of
(00:25):
planning pregnancy, taking more control of your reproductive health and schedules.
But warning to listeners, this is not going to be
such a rosie podcast about birth control, right. We are
talking today about kind of the negative effects that some
birth control can have on you, um, depending on your age,
(00:47):
your health, all of these different factors. And we were
inspired to tackle this issue by a Vanity Fair article
that came out in December, actually was published in December
by Marie Brenner, and it was a pretty scary article,
and you know, krist and I were talking about it,
and we not only want to kind of talk with
(01:08):
you about what was in the article itself and some
of the scary issues surrounding birth control, but also take
more of a kind of panned out objective look at
some of these issues as well. Yeah, because when I
read the article, it was it took a moment for
it to sink in because it's it has a very
emotional undercurrent, painting the lives of these young women who
(01:30):
died due to health complications caused by hormonal birth control.
But then once I started thinking about it and thinking
about that emotional effect of the article had on me,
I realized that there were a lot of factual holes
in it as well. So first of all, let's just
talk about the focus of this fanity Fair piece that
(01:51):
they got a lot of people, not just us talking um.
It really focused on the birth control brand maneuver Ring, right,
And this is the type of combination hormonal birth control
that is very common in our country. It was developed
back in the nineties by organ On, which is the
Dutch drug company, and it hit our market in the
US in two thousand two. Another company, sharing Plow, bought
(02:13):
organ On in two thousand seven, and Mark, which you've
probably heard of, big pharmaceutical company, acquired sharing Plow in
two thousand nine. And new of a ring in the
United States has been prescribed forty four million times over
the past decade. And the reason too, why we're name
checking all of these pharmaceutical companies is not to bog
you down in the details, but point out that they
(02:35):
are big players in this sort of pipeline of information
from these drug manufacturers down to the doctors, down to
women who are taking and using drugs like maneuver ring,
which is if you're not familiar, it's a flexible, transparent
ring that is inserted into the vagina. You put it
(02:56):
in yourself and you wear it for three weeks. And
um it's mark did as a simpler type of birth
control because unlike a pill, you don't have to remember
to take it every day at the same time, right,
And so there's a lot of marketing push as behind
any drugs. Were not just harping on birth control here,
but there's a lot of marketing behind it that you know,
depicts women, young women out at the club or they're
(03:19):
super happy and they're running down the street with their friends.
It's like, it is clear that you want to be
the type of woman who uses Nuva ring as like
a liberating force in your life. Yeah, it has a
lot of great marketing behind it. Yeah, And I will
say a side note that I love marketing like that
that depicts women doing group activities on their period, like that,
(03:41):
that's just what we do whenever I get my period.
I call Carolina, go jogging, that's right, and I bring
the balloons. Yeah. I ride up on my bicycle, my
cruiser bike, and you're in a skirt, even though no
one ever rides backs and skirts. And then we release
the balloons at the end of our triumphant menstrual jog um.
But back to maneuvering. It is, by the way, the
(04:04):
only vaginal hormonal contraceptive approved by the FDA for use
in the United States, and that basically means it's the
only kind of birth control that you put inside your
vagina yourself, unlike an I U D that's implanted in
your uterus, correct, and some similar to the pill. Maneuver
ring is a combination hormonal birth control, meaning that it
(04:25):
contains estrogen and progestin and that prevents your ovaries from
producing mature eggs. And basically the hormone releases activated once
the ring is in your vagina, and it is supposed
to release a continuous low dose of hormones. But as
we will get into, part of the issue with maneuvering
is that subsequent studies show that there were dangerous spikes
(04:47):
in estrogen. Yeah, and so this Vanity Fair article by
Marie Brenner introduced readers to two main women who suffered
from what are called pulmon airy embolisms, which is a
sort of a fancy medical term for blood clots that
were thought to be related to the neeuver ring. And
the story kicks off with this anecdote about a young
(05:10):
woman named Erica Lanheart. Who I mean, it was a
tragic story. She was highly successful and she was on
her way to go to her parents house for Thanksgiving
in two thousand eleven and she just collapsed on the
floor of her apartment, couldn't Breathe had two heart attacks
in the ambulance on the way to the hospital and
(05:31):
the doctor. One of the first questions the doctor asked
her boyfriend was whether she was using birth control and
what kind it was, right, and so he did suspect
new verrang Um. Erica's mother confirmed, you know, by the
by phone that she was on new verrang The doctor
removed it, and Erica actually died on Thanksgiving Day and
(05:53):
her parents were told that she had had a double
pulmonary embolism. Yeah. And one thing that the article points
out is how at the royal service for Erica, her
parents because they were immediately so horrified at this new
v Ring connection. In the program for the memorial service,
(06:13):
it said cause of death or something along the lines
of cause of death pulmonary embolism neuver ring, right exactly.
And and the mother you know talks about Karen Langhart
talks about how she did a whole bunch of research
online and was horrified to find the number of lawsuits
that are going on around New ver Ring and the
hormones in neuver ring and the connection with blood clots
(06:36):
and young women. The story also talked about Megan Henry,
who sounds like the most athletic person in the world. Um.
She was actually out in Utah training for the Winter
Olympics when she started having trouble breathing, and her coach
and everybody said, oh, you're probably just you know, affected
by the altitude and all that stuff. And on a
flight to Florida, Megan almost collapsed. And a CT scan
(06:59):
that she had in Connecticut, so she's doing taking all
these flights, which is, you know, the worst thing you
can do if you have blood clots. During a CT scan,
it showed that she had dozens of clots in her lung.
She was immediately put on blood thinners and spent a
week in the emergency room. Yeah, and the doctor even
said that if she hadn't been in such supreme physical shape,
(07:23):
she probably would have died before that. But the story
is that if she ever decides to get pregnant, because
of the risk that pregnancy itself carries for blood clots,
she'll probably have to be on a painful round of
blood thinners. And so, clearly from the get go in
this Vanity Fair article, we have these two gripping and
horrifying stories about what's happened to these young women. And
(07:48):
so you know, the next question is, well, okay, I mean,
we we've heard that hormonal birth control can cause these
kinds of blood clots. Um. I remember the first time,
when I was probably eighteen or nineteen, when I talked
to my gynecologists about birth control, she immediately, you know,
when she was talking about she brought up blood clots
(08:08):
in my brain. At the time, I you know, I
didn't think anything of that. That we didn't seem like
something that could actually kill you. Um. And and also
you know, in your mind, you might be thinking, well,
this has been approved by the f d A, this
has got to be fine, right, I mean, you have
a side effect, there are risks, but there are risks
(08:29):
with anything we're putting in our bodies, right, right, And
that's that's kind of how my my view of it
was too exactly the same. It's like, clots happen to
other people. I'm relatively healthy, I'm young, I don't have
anything to worry about. But um, I don't think I
was quite made to understand the actual risks that can
that some birth control can carry, because I was put
(08:51):
on a type of birth control, Yasmin that has also
been implicated in thousands of lawsuits as well as its
generic forms, which I was also on, and so I
just thought, well, yeah, I'll be fine, No, no worries, right.
And it's not just blood clots that can be potential
negative side effects to hormonal birth control. I mean, depending
(09:11):
on the type of birth control you're on, you could
be at risk for developing oh varian cysts, which goes
along with the marina I U d uh. If you
are using the patch, then one of the side effects
possible side effects is stroke. Um. Then with depo provera,
which is the shot, you might be at risk of
a loss of bone mineral density. And so we're not
saying all of this as to do, you know, to
(09:34):
encourage everyone listening to get off your birth control right now,
but rather to you know, let's let's educate ourselves a
little bit more about what the actual risks of these
side effects are, and particularly with this issue of the
pulmonary embolisms. And also some details that this Vanity Fair
article completely left out that maybe made these risks seem
(10:00):
riskier than they actually are. So yeah, let's let's give
you a rundown of that Vanity Fair piece. And some
of the studies they looked at. One of them was
the original study that organ on that Dutch drug company
did on neuver ring and the fact that they only
examined sixteen women. And now, I'm no researcher or a
(10:21):
medical doctor of any kind, as I feel like I've
hammered home on the podcast before, but that is an
incredibly small trial. Even so, during that trial they found
that two women had massive spikes of estrogen in the
first couple of days, to other women had unexplained spikes
of estrogen midway through. However, those spikes were not mentioned
(10:41):
in the thirty page summary that was submitted to the
FDA in two thousand one for neuver rings approval. And
one of the things they bring up is that, you know,
the f d A, it's not like they have a
ba jillion people working for them. If the stats, if
that information is not in that executive summary, and it's
buried somewhere in a seven page is probably not going
to come to light at least right away anyway. And
(11:04):
I will say one concerning thing in terms of birth
control testing, considering how for a lot of you know,
like oral contraceptives and types of birth control where the
way that you take it definitely influences the outcomes and efficacy.
The author notes how neub ring hasn't been tested outside
(11:27):
of factory conditions, which makes a difference for something like
the ring that you insert into the vagina and kind
of forget you said it and forget it um. But
that could be problematic since the package recommends that it
stays between sixty eight and seventies seven degrees fahrenheit or
for our listeners outside the United States, five degrees celsius um.
(11:49):
And so Brennard says, well, what could happen if it overheats,
say in the transport process, or if it's sitting, you know,
in your car for a long time, or you're carrying
it around in your purse and it kind of get
the temperature gets a little wonky. Um. So so that's
I think that's a valid concern to have in regard
to this testing, right. And so testing that came along
(12:13):
kind of way after the fact, after nub rank had
been on the market quite a bit found UH an
incredibly increased risk for venus thrombo embolism or vt E.
UH In the f d A released a report that
was commissioned by health insurance company Kaiser Permanente, and in
looking at nearly one million women, they found that women
(12:37):
using contraceptive rings or fifty six percent more likely than
women using a different hormonal contraceptive to suffer a v
t E or a life threatening blood clot And that's
one of the studies that has also mentioned in that
Bandy Fair article. Yeah, but it would have also been
helpful and informative if Brenner had gone back and talked to,
say the lead study author, Steve Sidney, who's the director
(12:59):
of Research Clinics a Kaiser Permanente Northern California, who After
this article came out and you know, people were like, well,
what are we actually at risk for all of this?
And they started this study, he said, actually, no, those
findings were not accurately reported on because that study was
not adjusted to account for only new birth control users.
(13:23):
And so when they adjusted for that to really focus
in on the maneuver ring, they found no increased blood
clot risk. So the numbers get a little muddy. And
that's also a problem that you're going to see two
with a lot of these studies on birth control risks,
is that you start tweaking methodologies and looking at different
(13:45):
numbers and looking at different populations of women who have
been on birth control for a while or haven't been
at all, and you start to get a lot of
conflicting information, right, I mean, just the following year, in
a study came out the British Medical Journal that found
that women using rings were ninety percent more likely to
have a VT than women using other forms of birth control. Yeah,
(14:09):
but then again, the methodology of that study has been
called into question because it didn't factor in very important
variables like family history of blood clots or obesity other
health issues. And you know, in the stories of Erica
Langhart and Megan Henry, tragic though they are, and you know,
they're seemingly quite healthy women. Obviously, Brennard did nothing though
(14:34):
to look into what their family histories might have been
as well. They're just you know, kind of put forward
as these sort of almost perfect specimens of young women.
But again, it's it's not as simple as just saying,
you know, this will kill you. And I mean, obviously,
since we're doing a podcast on this, obviously I have
(14:55):
no problem discussing very openly the risks of certain things
like birth control, like medication in general, but it is
important to discuss the full story right well. And and
that's a takeaway too for when you're sitting in the
doctor's office and they're about to hand you just a
sample a birth control, which is something that happened to me,
(15:16):
you know, at one point years ago, and I took
the sample and started using it. But you know, to
talk about, well, what is my family history and I
know precondition to blood clot issues, right, And the thing is, like,
I this got me thinking back to every doctor visit
I've pretty much ever had where they make you fill
out your family history. I have a family history of
heart disease. But that was never, ever, not once brought
(15:39):
up in any of my discussions about birth control with
my doctor, you know, anything about worrying about cardiovascular health anything.
It's just like, well, you're a young woman and you
want to have sex, so here's birth control. Go on
your marriy way. And you know, I'm I'm lucky that
nothing happened. But you know, I also didn't really know
(16:01):
what to ask at the time. Yeah, I wouldn't. I
wouldn't have known up until you know, a few days ago,
really digging into this kind of research of what to
ask for and also things that I need to do
and understanding more about my own family history. Right. So,
looking back at that British Medical Journal study talking about
(16:21):
vt S, they stated that in any given year, out
of ten thousand women who are not using a hormonal contraceptive,
and average of two point one would suffer a vt
E and that risk increases six and a half times
for a woman using the vaginal ring, and so that
number would go up from two point one out of
ten thousand women to seven point seven five out of
(16:44):
ten thousand. But in a follow up piece over women's
health kind of looking digging into these studies that were
cited in the Vanity Fair piece, they did note that
for comparison, if you're taking something like lavon or a gestrell,
which is an oral contrast to the blood clot risk
is elevated as well to six point two out of
(17:06):
ten thousand. Yeah, so there's no perfect solution. No, no
medicine is perfect. Um. But you know, these are risks
that you need to keep in mind. That is what
we are trying to hammer home. But the next question
then is why that increase in risks exists. What is
really going on with the chemistry of these hormonal contraceptives
(17:28):
that might be um increasing that blood clot risk and
the risk of other side effects as well, which we
will get into when we come right back from a
quick break and now back to the podcast. So, we
were talking a lot about the fact that a lot
of times with the vaginal ring and with oral contraceptives,
(17:48):
the fact of the matter is the risk for developing
blood clots that can be fatal is elevated. So what
is going on that, especially with the new ring. Why
is it that that that that risk is so concerning.
A lot of it has to do with the fact
that neuve, ring and certain other combined hormonal contraceptives use
(18:12):
newer generations of progestins. UH. These newer generation hormones tend
to have fewer androgenic side effects such as acne such
as you know, growth of hair on your face, but
they do come with a higher risk for v t S.
And it was back in around the eighties and nineties
(18:33):
that these third and fourth generation progestine had started getting
substituted for earlier ones in order to lessen effects like that.
But on the downside, even though you might have less
issues dealing with acne and unwanted hair growth, they do
come along with that greater risk. And this is coming
(18:53):
out of a study publishing the Journal of General Internal
Medicine in n which found that the risk of v
to E appears to be one point five to two
point seven fold greater end users of those third generation
for justice compared with second generation oral contraceptives. Now that's
important to point out that that's looking at the oral contraceptives,
(19:14):
not the ring, right, And when you compare women taking
these oral contraceptives with non users, women who use third
generation oral contraceptives may have a four point eight to
nine point four fold greater risk of venus thrombo embolism.
And because of what's happened in the case of someone
like Erica Langhart who died as a result of the
(19:35):
complications from the maneuver ring, there are a lot of
lawsuits happening in multiple states against drug companies in regard
to that venous thrombo embolism caused by the third and
fourth generation of birth controls. And so, I mean, again,
going back to that Vanity Fair piece, it focuses a
(19:55):
lot on the attorney who is he's a mass tour
lawyer who is out to really bring merk like to justice.
I guess at least that's what he might say. And
I mean he offered a very stern warning to his
daughter's at one point. Yeah, he told Vanity Fair that
(20:19):
he called his daughter's up and told them not to
ever use any third or fourth generation birth control saying
it could kill you. But you know what I gotta say,
I will trust a mass tort lawyer as far as
I can throw him or the bench with his face
on it outside of the bus stop. Not to say
that this guy is that guy, but it's like there
(20:40):
that was one other issue with the Vanity Fair piece,
where when you when you paint lawyers who go go
after these massive settlement cases as sort of save your figures, right,
I mean, because on the one side, you have drug
compnis that don't want to tell the truth about the
(21:02):
risks of their drugs, and that's terrible. You know, you
have a bigger budget for marketing at Mark than you
do for research and development. So that's that's the bad
on the one side. But the bad on the other
side is that it's not that Schalnik, the lawyer that
they talked to, It's not that he's not trying to
help women. He he is trying to help women. But
(21:22):
you also have to look at these attorneys as making
a living, trying to make a living going into these
very expensive cases knowing that they have the potential to
make a lot of money too, I mean, because these
are billion with a B dollar settlements that they're going
after and really caught in the middle. Two of all
of this is you know the elephant in the room,
(21:43):
which is the f d A, which is just sitting
there like, well, what can we do? Yeah? Well, so
also coming from that Vanity Fair piece, they talk about
how They are more than fift hundred federal lawsuits pinning
in federal court and about two thousand more filed in
state courts over these drugs, and the complaints show that
the drug manufacturers failed to warn the public about the
(22:06):
dangers of blood clots. Now, anybody who's ever taken birth control,
you know, especially that first time you bring it home
from the doctor, you unfold that huge, you know, Bible
page thin sheet of paper that you know not only
shows you the how the chemicals are structured, but it
tells you every possible risk and it's it's terrifying, but
(22:28):
you know it's it's in there, but it's not necessarily
displayed as no, really you have to worry about this well,
and in a way this might make me, this might
sound horrible, but sometimes might pull out those biblical packets
of information. It's almost like seeing those giant terms of
use agreement on the Internet where you just automn You're like,
(22:49):
I'm just gonna scroll the bottom, click I agree, and
then so I can get into my iTunes account. It's
the same kind of thing. I don't think we're pulling
out the you know, the magnifying glass you need to
read the teeny din it print, even though we should well,
you know, and I have on different medications I've taken,
I will pull that thing out and and read over it.
But it's the same kind of thing. Is when you
(23:10):
it's exactly the same as the terms of use on
iTunes or whatever, because you just look at it and
you're like, well, okay, yeah, I mean there's nothing I
can do. Well your doctor prescribed it to you. It's like, okay,
well this could cause you know, blood clots and etcetera, etcetera.
You know, or you know, my internet provider is going
(23:31):
to be looking at my my internet use like it's
the same same kind of thing. You know, you you
accept the risk well. And speaking of the risk of
blood clots, set is one thing we haven't explicitly mentioned,
which is the reason why they're so dangerous is because
they can travel to different parts of your body and
relocate in places like the lungs, which is what happened
(23:53):
to Megan Henry. That's why the clots can be such
a life threatening issue. Which was something that like I said,
when I was, you know, a teenager and my doctor
said blood clots, I didn't bat an eyelash right. And
while the absolute risk of getting blood clots is small,
the chance of getting it over a lifetime is small,
(24:16):
it is significant enough to keep in mind because all
combination estrogen and progestine birth control products do carry that
increased risk for stroke and blood clots in the veins,
although it is lower for oral contraceptives than for the
patch or the ring. Yeah, but no matter what kind
of birth control you are using, when you factor in
(24:38):
things like if you're smoking, if you are obese, if
you do have heart disease risk factors, you know, that's
when you really need to well, first of all, quit smoking, yeah, um,
But beyond that then you really need to pay attention
to um whether or not you're taking something that does
have even though smaller, but nevertheless elevated risks with them. Right. Well,
(25:03):
I mean one thing that experts recommend is switching from
an estrogen containing contraceptive to pro justin only contraceptives like
mini pills, I U D s or just barrier contraceptive methods. Yeah,
and that's in the case of you know, that's not
across the board. That's in the case if you do
have one, it's elevated risk factor, correct. Yeah, then you
should probably stay away from the estrogen. Yeah, so we've
(25:25):
been digging and digging into these risk factors, really putting
birth control under the microscope, because the fact of the
matter is is that I don't think enough people do
know about this. Um. I don't think that a lot
of us are as aware as we could be or
should be about the questions, even just to ask at
(25:46):
the doctor's office, right exactly. I mean I didn't know
to ask any questions. I didn't know that I should
be concerned. I thought since I was a perfectly healthy person,
you know, there would be no reason for me to
even bring it up. But your doctor is not necessarily
going to bring it up either. Marie Brenner, the Vanity
Fair reporters sent two young women out to college clinics
(26:08):
and plan parenthood clinics to seek the newver ring, and
none of the healthcare providers that these women talked to
you mentioned the increased VTE risk. And so right there
is an example of how, again I feel like we've
said this before, you need to be an advocate for
your own healthcare. And so what we're seeing is a
(26:30):
medication that has potentially awful side effects, and women aren't
necessarily being told the full story. Yeah, And of course
marketing that's coming out of the pharmaceutical companies like Mark
who want to sell these products to us are only
going to minimize the risk when you have the contrast.
For first of all, it is strange to me that
(26:52):
drug marketing like commercials like that are allowed on television.
I feel like that's half of the problem, or not
half of the problem, but a chunk of the problem them. Um,
because you'll see, you know, the gagglea gals going out
having a great time on the birth control because it's
changed their life for the better. And then the fast
talking like low voice comes into the the end, being
(27:14):
like this birth control could actually really screw up your life.
If you're not paying at junchmen, you need to know
your family. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And um, the thing is,
I mean marketing. You know, these these drug companies know
that they know the risk, they know they have to
tell you the risk, but they're gonna do as much
as they can to downplay because when you have a
case like ortho Eva, they came majorly under fire. They
(27:38):
were in the line of fire before Nuva ring was
and so because of litigation. They ended up having to
put a huge warning on their packages about the increased
danger of vt s and when they did that, their
sales plummeted eight percent. And I will say, you know,
I realized this is anecdote, but I met a few girls.
(28:00):
This was years ago when the patch had recently come
on the market, and you know, girls were like trying
it out because you're You're like, oh, are you on
the one where you don't get a period? Are you on?
I you d like you always gonna compare like what
kind of birth control you're on? And horror stories I
heard from women on the patch. Uh, and it just
it's not it awful really, Yeah, just just more of
(28:22):
the side effects of insane kind of levels of moodiness
and sudden weight gain, drastic skin problems, all of that
more andrew genic stuff. Um, you know that we might
think about more because I know in my mind too,
there have been times when I was younger when I
would go to get birth control and that was the
(28:44):
number one thing I wanted to know, is it gonna
make me gain weight and we'll clear up my skin,
because that'd be nice. And these companies, you know, will
even go so far as to instruct drug reps on
how to minimize the risks of things like neuve ray
when they are talking to doctors. So I'm not saying
that your doctor is stupid or your doctor is ignorant
(29:05):
and not willing to find out information, but the people
from whom they are getting information might have been instructed
to not tell them the full story. And so let's
though arm our listeners with some knowledge some some practical
things that they can do aside from possibly panicking about
(29:26):
what kind of birth control around. Because the moral of
the story is not to panic or to flush your
birth control down the toilet. It's simply to consider going
to your doctor with some questions such as what are
the different methods of birth control? How effective are they?
Rather than just sitting there and saying hand me a
sample please, right, yeah, how effective are they? Especially based
(29:49):
on my lifestyle and my health risks? Um, you want
to know maybe what medical conditions can birth control effect.
Maybe you're not getting on birth control for actual pregnancy prevention,
but to handle certain other medical issues that women face. Um,
you want to ask your doctor about your how your
family health history will affect the type of birth control
(30:11):
you should use, and of course, as we have said,
you want to enquire about side effects, yeah, and I mean,
and if you want to know about specific side effects
if this if hearing about this issue with the vt
S is concerning as specifically about that you know, um
and outside of the doctor's office too, highly recommend the
(30:31):
website bedsider dot org, which is a really user friendly
resource for learning about the different methods of birth control.
They have a ton of comprehensive um information on the
kind of a lifestyle stuff. The um efficacy risks all
of that, well, Christen, one thing that we only very
(30:55):
briefly touched on earlier on the podcast and have not
covered is just the fact that blood clots are not
solely tied to taking birth control. Yeah. And this was
another gaping whole in that Vanity Fair article, which is
that the fact of the matter is that if you're
concerned about this blood clot issue, which is a valid
(31:16):
thing to be concerned about, birth control statistically isn't the
likeliest culprit pregnancy is right, And the first month after
giving birth is actually the highest risk time of all
to develop blood plots. Yeah, I mean, and this is
one reason why in all of the interviews with doctors
(31:39):
that I read in in regard to this vanity Fair piece,
all of them were essentially saying, whoa, whoa, calm down,
it's not that bad. Don't get rid of your birth control.
For instance, in the words of Jane Mincin, who's a
board certified O b g N and a clinical professor
at Yale School of Medicine, the increased risk, if there
is an increased risk, is very very small. Your risk
(32:01):
of a blood clot is much higher if you get
pregnant inadvertently, right. But in the meantime, then it's also
good to educate yourself and be knowledgeable of how to
keep your body in a healthy working condition up until
the point if you do choose or desire or can
get pregnant. Right, And so I think this I hope
(32:24):
that this episode serves as a good motivating factor for
people to really dig deep and learn about their own
health and their own health risks and their family history.
You know, the better educated you are, the better you
can keep your health in good condition. Yeah, I mean.
(32:45):
And the title of this podcast is can your birth
control kill you? And the answer is, yeah, it can.
The chances of that are very very very very slim.
One statistic I saw it was that it's as likely
as getting struck by lightning. Um, it's much likelier to happen,
in fact, if you get pregnant. But also just in
(33:05):
my adulthood, Caroline, I've also just too many stories from
girlfriends of mine, like women I meet when you talk
about birth control, of having issues, not life threatening issues,
but having issues of doctors who didn't really spend time
and just handed them something and it kind of reached
some havoc on their bodies. And I think that's something
(33:26):
that we need to talk more about where it's like, yeah,
we're totally pro birth control, but we're also pro women's
self and pro in in your words, you know, being
advocates for your own health right and what works for
you won't necessarily work for me, and so I think
it is completely worth it to take that extra time
to read up on different forms of medication that you
(33:48):
might be taking. Yeah, so I have a feeling this
is probably sparked some thoughts and a lot of listeners
and we definitely want to hear from you. So if
you want to send us a letter about it, mom
stuff discovery dot com um for your longer thoughts, But
if you want to get in touch with us right away,
you can always tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or
message us on Facebook. And we've got a couple of
(34:10):
messages to share with you in fact right now. Well,
I've got a letter here about our ode to Dolly
Parton a little while ago. Is from Piper, who writes,
first off, thank you so much for dedicating an episode
to such a wonderful woman. I would certainly consider her
(34:31):
a feminist icon, based solely on the fact that when
I was exposed to her as a child, just listening
to her music and hearing her speak made me feel
that as a woman, I could also fight against the
odds that breasts unfortunately bring us from time to time,
hers a little more at times, I'm sure. Also, I
think she should be included in some sort of Christian
sainthood because she's also such a great example of what
(34:52):
Christianity should really be. Saying that, I've been an atheist
for a few years now, but if more people acted
the way Dolly Parton does every day, there may be
more Christians in the world. Second, my boyfriend and I
have decided to name all of our pets after Strong women.
So yes, I do have a cat named Dolly Parton.
The other is named after my favorite photographer, Diane Arbus.
(35:13):
So from Dolly Arbus, my boyfriend and myself, thank you
so much for this episode. And thank you Piper and
that your boyfriend and kitty cats. I want to meet
Dolly Parton a cat, Yeah, as a pick and a
pick of Diane Arbus. Okay, well, I have a letter
here from Rose that is also about our Dolly Parton episode.
(35:34):
She says, from age eighteen to age twenty five, I
was a stripper, and now at age twenty nine, I'm
a law student. This means that in my less than
thirty years, I have spent some time on opposite ends
of the feminism spectrum, from naked show girl to professional
educated woman. I tell you this not to brag about
my versatility, but to explain why Dolly means so much
to me. I've heard a lot of no, and a
(35:55):
lot of you shouldn't and a lot of how could you?
But Dolly is just a big heart full of yes.
When I think of Dolly, I think that I can
be any kind of woman I want, and I can
be many different kinds of woman. Simultaneously and within one
little life. She is sexy and beautiful and over the top,
and she's also efficient and talented and intelligent and above
all ambitious. I hope I don't sound trite when I
(36:17):
say that Dolly helps me believe in myself. I think
she touches a lot of people this way. People who
come from having very little can relate to her asking
people who had to make the hard choice between family
and career, and people who is stuck to a loving
marriage despite a changing world. People who look the way
they dream of looking, even if that's not how some
people think they should look. People with old fashioned values,
(36:37):
and people on the fringes. Dolly is the patron saint
of the can do spirit and of basic human kindness.
I have read her book, and I have seen her
in concert, and as I type this on the ferry
on my way to school, I am listening to her
greatest hits on my headphones. Dolly means a lot to me,
and I couldn't be more pleased that you wonderful Gal
has been an entire episode on her. I think there's
no better way to close this letter than with my
(36:58):
favorite Dolly quote. You see someone without a smile, give
him yours. So thank you for your letter, Rose, and
thanks to everybody who's written into his mom. Stuff at
Discovery dot com is where you can write us, and
if you haven't gone there already, you need to bookmark
the one place on the Internet where you can find
all stuff Mom never told you, podcast videos, blogs, and
(37:20):
all of our social media outlets in one convenient place.
Stuff Mom Never told you dot com for more on
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
works dot com
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