The pill kills women. Why isn’t the FDA talking about it?

If you watched TV last week, you’ve probably seen an advertisement for a new form of birth control called Phexxi. You could hardly miss it, starting with “Welcome to my vagina” and starring actress Annie Murphy from the hugely popular Emmy-winning Canadian sitcom “Schitt’s Creek.” As the bubbly Murphy struts around a cavernous pink bedroom, she promises that Phexxi is something women have always wanted: an effective, “in the moment” contraceptive method without hormones.

Phexxi was approved by the FDA over a year ago, but it wasn’t until last week that its manufacturer, Evofem, began marketing the product in earnest. With this brilliant new campaign, Evofem is betting on the recently increased research in women of non-hormonal contraceptive options.

Fatal risks and side effects

And that’s a good bet, as many women, like Annie Murphy herself, realize that the synthetic hormones found in most contraceptive methods come with annoying side effects and risks at best, and annoying at worst. , dangerous. In fact, many women are increasingly unhappy with the contraceptive options available to them, fed up with side effects such as headaches, weight gain, etc. And these are just the risks and side effects that they know about.

Compared to women who do not take the pill or other forms of hormonal contraception, the population of women on hormonal contraception has an increased risk (higher prevalence rate) for the following conditions: breast cancer (19 to 37% higher risk), blood clots and other cardiovascular risks (80%), cervical cancer (60-220%), bone fracture (7% for COCs and 40% for progestins alone), certain diseases autoimmune (Crohn’s disease: 44%, ulcerative colitis: 18%, Lupus: 19-130 percent, Interstitial cystitis: 131 percent), female sexual dysfunction, depression (10 percent for COCs and 20 percent for progestins alone) and even attempted suicide (97 percent) and successful suicide (208 percent). Compared to women not on Depo-Provera ‘birth control’, women on Depo have a 40-49% higher prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus that causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). In other words, injecting Depo appears to increase a woman’s susceptibility to contracting HIV. (Data supporting all of the relative risks inferred in this paragraph by lead author of the Citizens ‘Petition, Dr. William V. Williams, can be found in the Full Citizens’ Petition, which can be downloaded here.)

In addition, an estimated 300 to 400 American women die each year from vascular diseases like heart attacks, strokes, and blood clots that are exacerbated by hormonal contraceptives. To put that into perspective: meningitis killed 45 people (of all ages) in 2017, and most states in the US mandate meningitis vaccinations for college and university students (and don’t even get into the number of college-aged people for whom the COVID-19 vaccine is now mandatory, despite the low risk of serious illness).

Now, this litany of risks and side effects doesn’t seem quite right, does it? After all, women have constant reassurance that birth control is safe and effective, and many are told bluntly by their doctors that whatever symptoms they experience while taking it, they are “in their hands.” head ”or that“ the pill doesn’t do that ”.

FDA ignores concerns when approving Iffy products

But in 2019, the women’s health nonprofit Natural Womanhood and a group of doctors and researchers drafted a 90+ page citizen petition to the FDA citing solid scientific evidence for each of the risks that j ‘ve listed above. They submitted this petition to the FDA two years ago, calling for greater transparency and evidence-based warnings about the risks of hormonal contraception in prescribing information and in product information leaflets.

After a quick request for some additional information from the FDA (which was quickly provided to them by the research team), Natural Womanhood only heard crickets. This is despite the petition that garnered over 150 public comments, many from families of young women who have died as a direct result of their use of birth control.

Women are literally dying for better birth control. Hence the perpetual search for “hormone-free birth control” and why the Phexxi site is branded “Hormone-Free” in big, bold letters under a confident-looking Murphy. But even hormone-free Phexxi has its complications: it’s a gel that works by changing vaginal pH to make it more inhospitable to sperm, which is why women who have recurrent urinary tract infections (UTIs) are discouraged from using Phexxi, and why the The most commonly reported side effects are “vaginal burning, vaginal itching, vaginal yeast infection, urinary tract infection, vaginal discomfort, bacterial vaginosis and vaginal discharge”.

“Women have also reported genital discomfort, pain when urinating and vaginal pain,” the Phexxi safety information panel continues. “Some male partners have reported genital discomfort.” But hey, nothing like itching and burning genitals to get people in the mood, right?

Additionally, Phexxi is around 93% effective with perfect use and around 86% effective with typical use, which puts it in roughly the same range of effectiveness as condoms. (The other popular hormone-free contraception option – the copper IUD – is 99% effective, but comes with its own significant risks and side effects, including a bad habit of breaking and migrating through women’s bodies.)

What the FDA would do if it cared about women’s health

Interestingly, the FDA chose to ignore the petition I mentioned above, but continued to approve birth control products like Phexxi in the meantime. Is it because they know, at a level not yet publicly recognized, that women want and need safer, non-hormonal options for family planning? Or is it just because they want there to be as many products on the market as possible to prevent pregnancy – to hell with the side effects and the risks?

After all, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was at least temporarily taken off the market after being linked to far fewer cases of blood clots than is typical for hormonal contraceptive use (yes, even though a woman does smoke. not or is over 35 years old). Yet birth control appears destined to remain a sacrosanct and permanent part of our pharmaceutical landscape, and without transparent recognition from public health officials that it could be a possible source of a myriad of problems, ranging from rising rates of teenage anxiety and depression, our autoimmune epidemic, skyrocketing breast cancer rates, to name a few.

If our public health officials really cared about giving women all the options and information they need to prevent pregnancy, they would talk more honestly about fertility awareness methods (FAMs) – the only effective forms of family planning available really without. side effects – instead. actively discourage their use and wrongly label them as an ineffective and outdated “rhythm method”. (By the way, many modern FAMs have both perfect and typical utilization rates that far exceed those of Phexxi.)

But at the very least, the FDA should better educate women and their doctors about the risks and side effects of hormonal contraception. Then doctors might stop tricking women into thinking their negative birth control experiences are imaginary.

If you are interested in helping better protect women and be a part of the fireside movement under the FDA regarding the harms of synthetic hormones, I encourage you to sign and share the Natural Womanhood petition today.