Re: Are there documents of lasting health consequences of birth control. Yes in adults. Birth control can cause or increase the severity of hypertension and blood clots in some but not all users. Google any of the brand name pill and see the list of potential side effects. As for side effects of homone based birth control for developing teens. Since the practive of giving hormone based birth control to very young teens, is new, it could be a few years before a side effect/trend gets documented. Look at how long it took to document the link between hormone replacement therapy and breast cancer.

"So, they studied it for 7 years, that doesn't make it unsafe after 7 years, it means they ran out of funding. Also, it seems a bit less than conclusive if all they're suggesting is long term studies."

Um...

You are looking at this completely wrong.

The problems are built up over time, just like the second study that showed there was a 60% increase beyond 7 years (6 times more than before 7 years) in many cancers.

But there are many different studies that show that the seven year period is the beginning of the damages to the female body. Why? Because you can't take hormone therapy for extended periods of time, regardless of the hormone. Its not safe.

San:

Then you are severely retarded and inept.

Hey, we DO have something in common, because neither of the studies you cite say anything about your mythical 7-year cutoff!

Your first study cites complications after 6 months of birth control use. Weird given that with tens of millions of women currently using oral contraceptives we aren't seeing a massive effect. But hey, it warrants more study.

The link between cancer and the pill is far from clear:

<link>

So, keep trying!! Remember, you're trying to prove that you didn't just make up your 'fact' about a 7 year cutoff for birth control pills, good luck!

Otherwise... still bullshit.

Regardless of what any of you can demonstrate empirically or otherwise regarding bad health effects of the pill, this argument simply doesn't matter. The whole thing is a red herring. If injecting women's bodies with hormones is a bad thing, then it is an argument for a safer pill, tougher FDA oversight and the like. That we should be afraid of Big Pharma has no impact on whether when push comes to shove the participant in sexual activities has the right to the ultimate decision over birth control. As I've pointed out on the XX forum we should state the problem as follows: given girl X is having intercourse, who should have the final say in the attendant reproductive rights and medical issues the girl or her parents?

As you scan through this thread replying to this post or that, all the while thinking you know with whom you are dealing, make sure you don't miss this (10/22/2007 8:05 PM):

San:

"Actually, the HPV vaccine DOES prevent cervical cancer. Not all cases, not 100%, but it has been proven to prevent it under certain circumstances."

Funny, it prevents it at the same rate of not being a whore does.

Surprise surprise.

From the CDC's STD Facts - Human papillomavirus (HPV)

Q: "How do people get genital HPV infections?"

A: "The types of HPV that infect the genital area are spread primarily through genital contact. Most HPV infections have no signs or symptoms; therefore, most infected persons are unaware they are infected, yet they can transmit the virus to a sex partner. Rarely, a pregnant woman can pass HPV to her baby during vaginal delivery. A baby that is exposed to HPV very rarely develops warts in the throat or voice box."

What San has just done is to call every last woman who ever has had, or ever will have, unprotected genital contact (i.e. intercourse, which is the only completely natural way that any of us could exist) a whore. Further, because of the risk, however slight, that a pregnant woman may pass the virus on to her baby, San is saying that even if a given woman was impregnated through IVF (or some other method besides intercourse), that woman is still a whore (even if she is a virgin, which is, to say the least, an odd theory).

"Every last woman" would, of course, necessarily include San's mother. Since San himself has just called his own mother a whore, and I daresay San cannot find any links refuting the charge he has just made, I submit that we must, for lack of any evidence to the contrary, conclude that San's mother is indeed a whore. Unless San can provide satisfactory proof that his mother is not a whore, I suggest that he should not comment on any other subject, as such a person has nothing of substance to contribute.

"Honey, I know you would never plan to have sex, so we want you to start taking the pill on a daily basis."

Help us out. How does this Plan B:

1. Express any trust in your relationship with your daughter.

2. Communicate anything but approval for having sex. Alter the scenario a little bit. You tell your daughter she is never to drive the car until she is 17. You then hand her a set of keys for the car for her very own and then buy her a booster cushion and foot blocks for the car so that if plan A fails (asking her not to drive the car) she will be safe if she does drive the car. Or you tell your daughter that she should not take drugs, but then you tell her there is a packet of heroin in a drawer because if she does take drugs, you want her to take drugs which you know are safe and not contaminated.

This planning for failure is nothing but ingenuous hypocrisy. There are people who give their kids booze because they know they will drink anyway. They salve their consciences by taking away the car keys of all the kids at these parties. Do parents like this:

1. Really believe the kids will only drink at the parent's house?

2. Think kids don't have extra car keys? "Hey, let's go get some more chips. Mom and Dad went to bed hours ago."

Hi Jade - Long time no see (that's if you're the same jade as before....if not, no worries.)

No, there are no harmful long term health effects associated with oral contraceptives. Every once in a while someone will claim that they don't know what might happen years down the road. This is nonsense. Millions of women have taken these drugs on a long term basis. They are some of the safest drugs on the market, having been tested repeatedly, all over the world, for over forty years.

If anything, effects are overwhelmingly positive. Oral contraceptives have been proven to reduce the incidence of ovarian cysts and fibroids or slow their growth. These drugs are also used in the treatment of endometriosis. In all of the above cases, the pill actually protects fertility.

By slowing or stopping the progress of these conditions, use of horomonal birth control allows women to give birth that otherwise would have been rendered infertile long before they were ready to be parents. Keep in mind that the only real cure for these conditions is hysterectomy.

Periodically, a statistical study "proves" that these drugs "cause cancer" or infertility. These have all and without exception been proved to be nonsense. Always check to see who funded the research. One notorious, headline-grabbing analysis in the 1980s famously "proved" that women on horomonal birth control get breast cancer at about the same rate as the rest of the population.

First, there is no link between HRT and breast cancer. It has been in use even longer than horomonal birth control (since the late 1940s) and the rates of breast cancer have never been proven to increase with its use. Any study of an increase in breast cancer rates over time must include obesity and overweight as a factor. That link has been proven and the population has been getting steadily fatter for decades.

As far as birth control is concerned, the risk of blood clots and hypertension are seen primarily in those who either smoke or are obese. Even then they are vanishingly rare. A healthy lifestyle is enough to prevent these problems. Since fewer and fewer people smoke, the risk of clots is steadily declining.

One discovery I made regards generic birth control. Some brands have a fail rate as high as 25%. This has less to do with the amount of drug they contain as the fillers they use to make up the pills. Frequently they are constructed so that they do not dissolve completely or contain large amounts of lactose and so are not processed correctly to deliver the drug into the bloodstream.

'Actually, the HPV vaccine DOES prevent cervical cancer. Not all cases, not 100%, but it has been proven to prevent it under certain circumstances."

Are you sure about that? How has it been proven? Because someone that they felt was high risk for cervical cancer did not get it because they gave them the vaccination doesn't really prove anything. If the vaccine was administered and the person didn't have cervical cancer prior to that, how can anyone prove that the person would actually have contracted cervical cancer? And how do we prove that the person who has the vaccine and still contracts cervical cancer would have gotten it if they didn't get the vaccine? Just because someone is high risk for some disease does not mean that they will actually contract that disease.

That is the problem with these preventative medicine studies, people take it on faith that the person would have gotten the disease if they wouldn't have taken the preventive medicine and since they did it must have worked.

My father and his brother had to have bypasses due to angina, and it is a hereditary disease. Two of their uncles also died young from heart problems . Now since my health has always been much like my fathers does that mean that if I take all the preventive measures and never develop angina it means that the only reason I didn't is because of the preventive measures or could it be that I would never have gotten it anyway?

How refreshing - you disagree, you have a fair point (which you didn't have to lie to make), and you didn't even have to call anyone a retard or douche bag. Well done!

I don't think, though, that your comparison is apt. Driving isn't the same as sex. When I was 13, did I want to drive a car? Sure. It would have been cool and liberating, I guess, but it wasn't a big deal.

Did I want to have sex, or some sexual experience (not that I really knew what that meant)? Hell yes, I did. I really really really did. I was a 13 year old with exploding hormones. I didn't have sex until a few years later, but not because of some moral code, because of lack of opportunity.

If you don't give me a spare set of keys, what happens? Do I hotwire the car? Steal someone else's car?

What happens if you don't give me knowledge/access to birth control? I already HAVE the "car" in this case... you can't take it away from me. At least teach me how to use the seat belts.

Of possible outcomes for my daughter on her 18th birthday I'd rank them:

#1 - Minimal sexual activity, no sex.

#2 - Sex. No pregnancy, no STD.

#3 - (very very distant 3rd) Sex, pregnancy/abortion or STD.

I'd take 1 or 2, 3 would be a pretty crushing blow. I just believe denial of education and access to birth control is the surest route to #3.

"Hey, we DO have something in common, because neither of the studies you cite say anything about your mythical 7-year cutoff!"

So, the 6 times difference between 1-7 years and 7+ years in chance of having cancer does not make you understand that the 7 year period is a magic number when determining length of Birth Control use?

Sure looks like you can't read.

"If injecting women's bodies with hormones is a bad thing, then it is an argument for a safer pill, tougher FDA oversight and the like. "

There are no "safer pills". You are screwing up the body to stop menstration. It doesn't matter what you do, all chemical changes ARE bad.

All drugs have side effects. They are not good for children.

"yet they can transmit the virus to a sex partner. "

And how does this mean there isn't a whore involved?

"No, there are no harmful long term health effects associated with oral contraceptives."

HAHAHAHAHA.

Just like they claimed there weren't harmful effects giving men testosterone shots!

You are giving them hormones! The whole concept leads to inherent harm!

"I just believe denial of education and access to birth control is the surest route to #3."

So, not giving children access to guns or knowledge that guns can kill people is then the surest route to children murdering via guns?

Thats what your logic says.