February 21st, 2010 by Chris Hitchcock
The American Psychiatric Association has pushed back their timeline for the 5th version of the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual. The new psychiatric bible was originally scheduled to come out in 2011, but has now been delayed to 2013 .
Initial drafts have been posted to the web page, but the controversial and provisional (that is, not yet officially accepted) diagnosis of premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) does not yet appear ready for comment. Which is a shame, because traditionally SMCR and its members have had a lot to say about PMDD, and we’re looking forward to the opportunity to consider and critique its new incarnation. Here’s a recent post as an example.
PMDD was first introduced in the DSM-III-R as Late Luteal Phase Dysphoric Disorder. The “late luteal” was meant to include cycling women who did not bleed, for example, those with a hysterectomy but preserved ovaries, but was criticized because “luteal phase” implies ovulation, and assessing ovulation was not part of the diagnosis.
Paula Caplan (e.g. this article) and other members of the SMCR were vocal in their challenge to the psychiatric label. Paula Caplan wrote a book about her experiences with the DSM process (They Say You’re Crazy), and the SMCR produced the following position statement: Continue reading...
Tags: American Psychiatric Association, APA Diagnostic and Statistics Manual, DSM, DSM-V
Posted in Activism, Health Care, Menstruation, PMDD, PMS, Pharmaceutical, ovulation | Comments Off
February 9th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
There are Tupperware parties, Passion Parties, Pampered Chef parties, and…Mirena IUD parties? Yes, apparently these events popped up early last year and were a joint effort from Bayer Pharmaceuticals and the mom marketing site Mom Central.
Here’s one mom blogger’s description of the Mirena party that she hosted:
Then tonight I hosted a party at my house with Mom Central. Mom Central had found me through this blog and asked me if I would be interested in hosting an event sponsored by Mirena. As I welcome any opportunity to sit down with some girlfriends with some free food and drink, I was happy to accept. Before the party started, I walked around nervously, terrified that only a couple of people would show up. We’re all so busy, and I worried that people would end up skipping a strange commercial-sounding event. But one by one, they rolled in and I began to relax.
We had an amazing evening, talking about sex, fashion, and living a simpler life. I realized that we don’t actually spend a lot of time talking about sex and relationships. We laughed a lot but also went home with some great tips.
Continue reading...
Tags: advertising, big pharma, Birth Control, blogging, drugs, economics, government agencies, guest post, IUD
Posted in Advertising, Birth Control, Law/Legal, Pharmaceutical | 3 Comments »
February 7th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Tags: asthma, drugs, hormone therapy, hormones, Menopause
Posted in Menopause, New Research, Pharmaceutical | Comments Off
January 20th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
A new meta-analysis of previous research on acetaminophen (also known as paracetamol outside the U.S.) vs. NSAIDs (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) for treatment of menstrual pain indicates that NSAIDs are more effective. NSAIDs include aspirin, ibuprofen, and naproxen sodium, which are all readily available over-the-counter in the U.S. The research pooled results from 73 randomized controlled trials comparing the effectiveness and safety of NSAIDs vs. placebo, vs. acetaminophen, and each other.
The results don’t indicate whether one NSAID is any better than any other for menstrual pain. Researcher Jane Marjoribanks, M.D., Cochrane Menstrual Disorders and Subfertility Group in Auckland, New Zealand, says they work by reducing prostaglandins, the substance manufactured by the uterine lining to help the uterus contract and expel menstrual fluid.
“Research has shown that women with dysmenorrhoea have high levels of prostaglandins, hormones known to cause cramping abdominal pain. …NSAIDs are drugs which act by blocking prostaglandin production.”
The study was published today in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.
Tags: cramps, drugs, Menstruation, pain
Posted in Dysmenorrhea, Menstruation, New Research, Pharmaceutical | 3 Comments »
January 5th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
As we have often noted here, one of the key reasons the marketing of hormone therapy for menopausal women has been so successful is the misguided belief that menopause is an estrogen-deficiency disease. Among other purported disadvantages of the decline in estrogen that accompanies normal aging was the belief that this decline caused muscle loss and other declines in physical functioning. (Muscle cells have receptors for estrogen, and recent research has linked higher blood levels of the hormone to greater muscle strength in elderly women.)
But the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) is still providing new information about the lack of benefits of HT. (For those who are new around here, the WHI is a large US clinical trial begun in 1991, in which thousands of postmenopausal women were randomly assigned to take either HT or placebo pills. The study was abruptly ended ahead of schedule in 2002, when researchers discovered that the women taking the hormones had higher risks of heart attack, stroke, breast cancer, and blood clots – the very conditions the drugs were assumed to prevent – than placebo users.) In a new study based on a subgroup of 2400 women to be published in a forthcoming issue of Menopause (February 2010), both the women using HT and the placebo groups showed similar dips in muscle strength and walking speed over six years. In other words, women get older and show physical indications of aging with or without hormone therapy.
Tags: hormone therapy, hormones, Menopause, postmenopause, WHI
Posted in Menopause, New Research, Pharmaceutical | 4 Comments »
January 1st, 2010 by Chris Hitchcock
The bioidentical hormone therapy industry has been getting a bad rap lately in the US, and this press release is an example of why. Among other things, the writer confuses estrogen and progesterone, in one paragraph saying their product is a “safe and scientifically-proven, all-natural estrogen delivery cream[]“, and in the next describing it as a “natural progesterone cream” (emphasis is mine). Moreover, the press release springboards from another estrogen-positive press release that claims that estrogen may be the cure for female depression, citing an ob/gyn author of a book, and promoting a soon-to-be-launched web page.
So, in one breath the product is an estrogen delivery cream that will help with low estrogen, but in the next breath (on the linked product page) it is argued that it will help with estrogen that is too high (which is more accurate). The product website emphasizes that it is “without dangerous pharmaceuticals”:
This remarkable product contains NO risky synthetic estrogens or progestins. [Product] Cream is similar to the progesterone your body naturally produces, so there are no worries about dangerous interactions or nasty side effects.
Continue reading...
Tags: bioidentical hormone therapy, critical thinking, estradiol, hormone therapy, Menopause, postmenopause, progesterone
Posted in Health Care, Menopause, Pharmaceutical | 3 Comments »
December 27th, 2009 by Elizabeth Kissling
New research from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston finds that nearly half of women using depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA), commonly known as the birth control shot, will experience high bone mineral density (BMD) loss in the hip or lower spine within two years of beginning the contraceptive. Women who smoke, have inadequate calcium intake, and have never given birth are at higher risk of BMD loss.
The study, published in the January 2010 issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology, followed 95 DMPA users for two years. In that time, 45 women had at least five percent BMD loss in the lower back or hip. A total of 50 women had less than five percent bone loss at both sites during the same period. The researchers followed 27 of the women for an additional year and found that those who experienced significant BMD loss in the first two years continued to lose bone mass.
“These losses, especially among women using DMPA for many years, are likely to take an extended period of time to reverse,” says first author Dr. Mahburbur Rahman, assistant professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology and Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Women’s Health.
The researchers note that while this study will help physicians counsel women with modifiable risk factors who wish to use DMPA, prevention of bone loss while using the contraceptive and reversibility of BMD loss are still not well understood and further research is needed.
DMPA, an injected contraceptive given every three months, is used by more than two million women in the U.S.; nearly one-quarter of them teens. DMPA is popular with young women because it is less expensive than many other forms of birth control, has a low failure rate, and does not require daily use.
[Via Red Tent Sisters]
Tags: bone health, contraceptives, DMPA, drugs
Posted in Birth Control, New Research, Pharmaceutical | 1 Comment »
December 24th, 2009 by Chris Hitchcock
A recent press release from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists announces that Hormonal Contraceptives Offer Benefits Beyond Pregnancy Prevention. This is in the same vein as similar articles published over the years about “non-contraceptive benefits of the pill” – a laundry list of the many benefits women may obtain by using hormonal contraception. It’s not clear how they should be used by practicing obgyn’s. One use is certainly as additional talking points to convince women who are cautious or reluctant to replace their body’s own menstrual physiology with a pharmaceutical product.
I haven’t been able to read the full document (for some reason my university access seems to only find the first page of the full document), but it appears that, like previous reviews I have read, it is a biased list, including benefits but not risks. Perhaps what is most in common is the sense that a spontaneous menstrual cycle is somehow suspect, that fluctuations over time are unnatural, and that pharmaceutical control is a good solution. Continue reading...
Tags: ACOG, adolescents, birth control pill, Dysmenorrhea, heavy bleeding, menstrual cramps, Menstruation, NSAIDs, off-label use, oral contraceptives, pain, PMS
Posted in Birth Control, Dysmenorrhea, Health Care, Menorrhagia, Menstruation, PMS, Pharmaceutical | 2 Comments »
December 23rd, 2009 by Elizabeth Kissling
Guest Post by Holly Grigg-Spall, freelance writer (”Sweetening the Pill“)
In the summer of this year, I was researching for a feature for Easy Living magazine on the potential side effects of the birth control pill and when searching for a news hook for the piece, I found out about the preparation of a NHS scheme which would allow oral contraceptives to be distributed from pharmacies without a prescription. At that time, all of the doctors I interviewed expressed concerns about this development, even the most conservative GPs who stubbornly dismissed my concerns about side effects.
Then last week it hit British newspapers that this scheme had recently launched in the areas of London that have the highest rates of teenage pregnancy. Bold, bright posters in the style of laundry soap adverts exclaiming that the Pill is now available without prescription are up in pharmacy windows of Lambeth and Southwark. According to the news reports the pharmacists involved were given three weeks of training in order to provide consultations for young women looking to start taking oral contraceptives or wanting to move from the Pill to long acting methods like the injection, the implant or the hormonal IUS. The implication was also there that if young women came to the pharmacy for the emergency contraceptive pill then their consultation would involve the suggestion that they start on the Pill or a long-acting method. Continue reading...
Tags: advertising, birth control pill, England, Girls, government agencies, guest post
Posted in Birth Control, Girls, Health Care, Pharmaceutical | 2 Comments »
December 22nd, 2009 by Laura Wershler
In a December 21, 2009 news release the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) proclaimed that “hormonal contraceptives offer benefits beyond pregnancy prevention“.
You’d have to be an ostrich with her head in the sand not to have heard this message before. Just open any woman’s magazine to any ad for the pill, or any of the myriad varieties of drug-based birth control, and you’ll find the litany (a prolonged and tedious account) of non-contraceptive benefits used as marketing messages to “sell” birth control to girls and women. So the news release begs the question: why now?
Maybe the pharmaceutical companies are putting pressure on the gynies to protect their funding and the drug companies profits. Maybe this news release is damage control. A recent article in Maclean’s magazine proclaimed a trend towards ”ditching the pill for good“.
[O]ral contraceptive prescriptions in Canada levelled off in 2008, reports pharmaceutical industry analyst IMS Health Canada. Health care workers are seeing a growing demand for non-hormonal methods. Spurred by concerns about their health, the environment, or even frustration with family doctors, who sometimes seem to push the pill as a modern-day cure-all, Canadian women are looking for other options.
Are declining prescriptions for hormonal contraceptives a growing trend in North America? Is there a backlash brewing against the pill, the patch and the ring? One can only hope that the days when your gynecologist could convince you that taking the pill is a panacea for everything that, supposedly, is “wrong” with women’s bodies are coming to an end.
Hormonal contraceptives are drugs that disrupt a woman’s normally functioning endocrine system with synthetic versions of estrogen (ethinyl estradiol) and progesterone (progestin) to induce infertility. [Do not be fooled by the language used in the press release.] These drugs have a time and place. But precribing the pill must never become the “standard of care” for being a girl. Mothers everywhere, take note.
Tags: ACOG, birth control pill, Health Care, oral contraceptive pills
Posted in Activism, Advertising, Birth Control, Girls, Health Care, Language, Menstruation, Pharmaceutical, magazines | 2 Comments »
December 18th, 2009 by Elizabeth Kissling
You may have heard the news that 23 hormone replacement therapy lawsuits filed by women diagnosed with breast cancer were dismissed by a New York judge this week. Judge Martin Shulman granted Pfizer’s motion to dismiss for two reasons: the plaintiff’s delayed filing exceeded the the three-year statute of limitations in New York, and that “the potential risk of contracting breast cancer from taking HRT medication was well known at all times out there in the stream of public information.” Oddly, Judge Shulman simultaneously asserted “that the debate over HRT health problems has not yet been settled.”
I can’t argue about exceeding the statute of limitations, but it’s difficult for a judge to assert that breast cancer risk of hormone therapy is well known public information. The Lancet reported today that up to half of US adults have trouble interpreting medical information, displaying low levels of health literacy. Health literacy, according to The Lancet, is the ability to comprehend and use medical information that can affect access to and use of the health-care system. Health literacy is more than reading and comprehending news reports of medical issues (which are often of poor quality – see Health News Review for sharp analysis of health news); one must also know how to navigate the complexities of the health care system, including knowing how and when to question one’s physicians and pharmacists. Continue reading...
Tags: advertising, big pharma, breast cancer, drugs, government agencies, Health Care, hormones, lawsuit, Menopause
Posted in Health Care, Law/Legal, Menopause, Pharmaceutical | 1 Comment »
December 16th, 2009 by Elizabeth Kissling
Tags: big pharma, breast cancer, hormones, lawsuit, Menopause, Prempro, viral video
Posted in Internet, Law/Legal, Media, Menopause, Pharmaceutical | Comments Off
Readers should note that statements published in re: Cycling are those of individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Society as a whole.
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