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BBC
Commentator:
“A new
birth control pills goes on sale in the United States next month that will allow
women to have only four periods of menstruation a year rather than the usual
thirteen. The manufacturers, Barr laboratories, say the new pill represents the
single most significant advance in oral contraception in the past forty years.
But is it safe? Dr. Carol Ben-Maimon is President of Barr research.
Dr. Carol Ben-Maimon
“Yes it’s
safe. Clearly any oral contraceptive has associated side effects. And
Seasonale, like any oral contraceptive, has the same associated side effects
that oral contraceptives have. But we did do a clinical trial on over 1400 women
for a full year, and we’ve had both safety and efficacy, and all the findings
were the same as you would anticipate with any oral contraceptive.”
BBC Commentator:
“But to
others, the new pill represents a more sinister landmark. Dr. Susan Rako is
author of No More Periods?: The Risks of Menstrual Suppression. I asked
her what was wrong with women choosing to have fewer menstrual cycles if there
was a safe way of doing so.”
Dr. Susan Rako
“Well, you know, I don’t agree that we know
that there’s a safe way to do this. There are several ways proposed. We are
going to address today, I think, the nonstop birth control pill, and the risks
specifically of that. And today, we cannot know or even imagine what the
serious consequences of menstrual suppression will be, because the complexity of
hormones’ effects upon one another and upon every organ system in the body is
far from fully understood.
BBC Commentator:
“But Barr
Laboratories say they conducted, um, extensive tests on this new pill and
consider it to be safe, and it’s been given approval to be marketed.”
Dr. Susan Rako:
“Well, you know, the fact that the FDA approved it for menstrual suppression –
and I don’t think that was the specific reason it was approved -- it was
approved simply as a birth control pill that would simply allow women to have
fewer periods, but it’s being promoted for menstrual suppression for
convenience.
But
actually, the pill itself has drawbacks that most people don’t know, and in my
research I discovered, in an article actually based on a study in Britain on
46,000 women from the Royal College of General Practitioners, “The Oral
Contraception Study” -- women who had used the pill over a period of 25 years --
when I looked at that study in doing my research for the book to see what I
could find about what could be safe or what the risks would be, I found the
expected mortalities from stroke and heart attack, but I did not expect to find
what I did in the way of increased risk of cancer of the cervix, and of women
dying from cervical cancer.
Very few
doctors know this, and I venture to say, even fewer women. And it’s a fact. The
research is clear – that the birth control pill is not simply a passive actor in
the process, but is an active co-carcinogen along with the Humanpapilloma Virus
in causing cancer of the cervix. There are risks to the pill, even, that people
don’t know.”
BBC
Commentator:
“And you
argue that there are even greater risks to this new contraceptive pill.”
Dr. Susan Rako:
“Not only
that, but women who take the birth control pill are doing themselves out of the
benefits of what their normal cycle allows in the way of decreased blood
pressure for two weeks of every month, and of a natural -- the only natural --
way to rid the body of excess iron -- both of which are factors that contribute
to a woman’s having fewer heart attacks and strokes than men of fertile age.”
BBC
Commentator:
“That was
Dr. Susan Rako, author of No More Periods? The Risks of Menstrual
Suppression.”
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Susan Rako, M.D.
