[neverdem]

Wyeth Receives Approvable Letter From the FDA for Lybrel

[Bobalu]

Tough times ahead for manufacturers of feminine hygiene products?

[SoldierMedic]

I'm a dude, yet even I know about birth control and stopping your period.



Only those blue pills contraint the hormone. Those green pills are placebos, and only are there to so you stay in the habit of taking your pill each day. Because they lack the estrogen, when taking the green pills a woman will have her period. Some women skip those green pills all together, going from one months blues to the next, thus not having their period.

Personally, I think (the opinion of a male) that doing it that way is safer, because every other month you can have a period, which isn't a bad thing. You don't want to completely skip your period.

[Caipirabob]

I can't imagine that this will be very healthy or hygienic for women in the long run. I can see missing 1 or 2 cycles, but to do so consistently or for far longer time frames? I can imagine a whole slew of health issues arising from tissues that need to be purged not naturally being removed. I won't speculate about cysts that nearly every woman I know either experienced or knows someone who deals with them. I don't imagine this will have a good impact towards that end either.

I'm not a gynecologist and I didn't stay in a holiday inn express last night.

It's just that artificially prolonging the duration of this natural cycle by a chemical imbalance seems to draw obvious questions and concerns. I mean, even in my exceptional caffeine deprived state...

Despite the articles implications that "sans menstrual cycle" a woman will be the same as a man in a position of responsibility, a woman is still a woman.

Chemically altering her so she can be more competitive? Beastly...

However, for women who suffer tremendously due to severe menstrual discomfort and perhaps other concerns, this pill could be a miracle.

From the perspective of healing, I welcome reasonable exploration of this as a resolution.

From the perspective of "Let's give this to Cheryle in accounting so she won't go PMS on us!"? Just d@mn...

[liberty or death]

As a personal observation from both my wife and I,

1) Family and friends who were on the pill from say the time they were 16 or so and then tried to have children in their early 20’s to mid 30’s lost many to miscarriage before success, or had no success at all.

Others like ourselves (and there were only a handfull) never used hormone altering birth control and we all had an easy time of conception (way easy :>)

[Jabba the Nutt]

This is what happens when agenda-driven news takes over a once great newspaper. Doctors and presumably most women have known for decades that you can shut down periods (menstruation) by taking the pill on a daily basis. To paint a pill designed and tested to do this as a 'war on menstruation' is ludicrous.

Is this a sign of the complete transformation of "progressives" and "feminists" into reactionaries? If they are against Lybrel, will they come out against all birth control pills and join with the Catholic Church? Just wondering.

[wolfcreek]

This is not a good thing! A woman's monthly period cleans out their system. Not doing so will create several unwanted and dangerous consequences. It's not good to mess with Mother Nature.

[wolfcreek]

Lybrel = Liberal

[MEGoody]

Women who take it will never get their periods.

Uh, I thought this was a bad thing healthwise.

[r9etb]

The more interesting question is this: A large percentage of these sorts of drugs gets eliminated in the urine and flushed down the toilet, and into the water supply.

What will be the long-term effect of this hormone on those who drink the processed water?

[neverdem]

Study suggests heart tissue can regenerate

Man Contracts Flesh-Eating Bacteria At Texas Beach

FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.

[balch3]

http://www.noroomforcontraception.com/

[peggybac]

I thought this was going to be an article on menopause.

[SunkenCiv]

Best part will be all those lawsuits against the manufacturer when:

A) actual serious side effects emerge, or

B) various unrelated problems are imagined as actual serious side effects

Jus’ wonderin’ — why do women have *men*struation, but men have *her*nias?

[ovrtaxt]

This just doesnt’ sound healthy.

[jammer]

periods and their mood swings are bad for family values (who wants to have a stay-at-home mom when she’s so darn [sic] cranky?)

Huh? I don't understand this correlation. I think it's a gratuitous slam at stay-at-home moms without any basis in fact. It could have read, "who wants to sit next to a career co-worker who is so darned cranky."

[LurkedLongEnough]

Reminds me of the movie “Children of Men”, which depicts a grim future-world of 2027 London where no woman in the world can get pregnant and Islamist gangs roam the streets.

The effect of this on demographics is something to think about.