Women have been told that menstruation is “unclean” and makes them unfit to take part in a “man’s world” for thousands of years.  Just consider all of the prohibitions on women interacting with the rest of the social group during menstruation.  Such bans pop up everywhere from Judaism to some African tribes.  This is just an outgrowth of the idea that women are dirty and their natural functions need to be controlled.

Even worse, though, are the potential health impacts.  As already noted, there is no possible way that the longterm effects of there drugs are known.  Consider that longterm cessation of menstruation can lead to depletion of calcium and early onset of osteoporosis.  Is there any assurance that this drug will not do the same?  When a generation of women are living with porous bones in their 30s and 40s because of this kind of poison, it will be too late.

It’s time to get past the idea that the natural functions of a woman’s body need to be treated.  The number of times a woman menstruates in her lifetime undoubtedly has increased due to better nutrition, longer lifespans and fewer pregnancies.  That doesn’t mean we need to take drugs to reduce menstruation to previous levels.

This is hardly a “new” product - it is just the existing Wyeth product Alesse, slightly modified and repackaged to cash in on the Seasonale market.

It’s irresponsible to let this issue be politicized - it’s a question that should be studied and answered as to whether or not there are benefits to women ceasing their menstruation cycles for at least part of their lives.

The assertion isn’t that women’s bodies are “broken” but more that our society has radically changed the environment that humans evolved into at a pace that we can not catch up with naturally (i.e. via evolutionary processes).

http://www.gladwell.com/2000/2000_03_10_a_rock.htm

In particular check out section 2 of the linked NYT article, the part about how Dogon women in Africa have their period on average about 100 times in their lives in contrast with women in the United States who average 350-400 times.

My understanding is that with each menstruation cycle their are fairly drastic changes in a woman’s body on a cellular level in the reproductive organs.  The fear/guess/hypothesis is that each cycle therefore raises a woman’s risk of a future cancer.

Women didn’t evolve to menstruate so often. This is something rather recent in our history. Why? Because, until recently, women generally spent nearly their entire adult lives pregnant! Today, with modern birth control, most women menstruate regularly, which does cause some health problems. Chesler, who’s so concerned about this, should realize one thing: she won’t have to take Lybrel if she doesn’t want to. Nice to live in a liberal democracy (for now), isn’t it?

Mother Nature, evolution, whatever, has found that menstruation is a health advantage for women. When women are pregnant, a mucous plug in the cervix acts as a barrier against infection. During the non-pregnant times, regular sloughing of the uterine lining doesn’t allow infections to become embedded (no pun intended).

Watch for increased infections among young women who have been convinced that there is something the matter with them when they menstruate.

And you can bet that those continuous pills are going to cost a third more for a month’s supply than the three weeks on/one off types. An instant 33% jump in profits.

Of course this eliminating the monthly would be good since so many women are in the service.  But I wonder what the long term effect will be.

Of course those in the concentration camps also had birth control, if you are not getting enough food you will also lose your monthly, and if women exercise too much that will also happen.

You know the shave your legs croud tried to make money off women, but the women in Calif were not buying it.

Also products like deodorant was a small package and cost more, so smart women just used what the men used, after all man sweat and women sweat so what is the difference, just the price.

I could go on and on about how doctors thought it was better just to sterile women by taking out their womb and overies their reason was look at all the money women would save.  Never mind the fact that it was not good if women went into menapause quicker, I could go on and on about how the powers in the medical profession said it was best that I take Hormone replacement, I was going to have none of it, after all women have survived from hot flashes in the past and most women can indure, I myself did not suffer much.

I just don’t believe that the medical profession is really careing about women, after all most in the medical profession are men and these men have huge egos, and the people at the top are usually men but things will change because there are more women than men and the powers that be will not longer be in complete control.

Madder than a wet hem, state of washington, city of Vancouver.

This is actually not completely new—it has been known for years that if a woman doesn’t take the one-week break built into b/c pills that she won’t have a “period”. There is already a formulation called something like “seasonale” that reduces periods to 3-4 times per year. And periods that women have while taking b/c pills aren’t anything like natural menstrual periods (yes I am a woman who has some personal experience with this!). Women in general aren’t “sick” but there are women who have excessive bleeding or debilitating menstrual cramping. Obviously this isn’t going to be every woman’s choice, but it’s certainly a nice choice to have!

As a postmenopausal woman, I had mixed feelings when menses ceased.  I never really was fond of “the curse,” but it was a reminder that I was still young and “useful.”  Menstruation is annoying, sometimes painful, messy and can limit activity, to say nothing about being labeled a bitch (PMS).  BUT—-somewhere down the line there will be lawyers lining up to press lawsuits when women report that they have trouble conceiving or have cancer due to the drugs side effects.  The drug companies have been given a pass, in recent years, to push just about anything on their less than informed victims.  I, for one, would rather suffer the inconvenience and discomfort of a monthly period, than be another casualty of the unbridled greed of the drug companies that are given free reign to push their drugs just to line their pockets, and pay for their ceaseless lobbying in Washington.

I only hope that women of the world take a stand on this. Women do not need men telling them what they should and should not do with their bodies.  The article as presented is alarming.  Menstruation is not something that needs to be chemically “fixed”.

And here we have the latest symptom of the disease that made its appearance at the dawn of modernity when the human race first saw reason and science as allies in its feverish rebellion against accepting a well defined - and natural - place in the cosmos. Whether its contraception, abortion, in-vitro fertilization, same sex marriage, euthanasia, the abuse of the environment, war or shaved arm pits, we seem utterly determined to make things over to suit ourselves and all in the conviction that what we have been given as a natural inheritance is somehow debased. Yet in the process of working out this obvious hubris we’ve succeeded only in debasing ourselves.

At times it can seem as though humankind is experiencing a kind of tragic adolescence what with our educational and political elites leading us further and further into the abyss. The deal with science has been a Faustian one and we’re living to see that sad fact bourne out more quickly now than less. Spare me any more of the novelties of experts like Gloria Steinem, please. I’ve had rather enough of their kind of plastic, contrived humanity.

John Lowell

It’ll be fun to watch the fight between the lobbyists for Wyeth and Librel, and the lobbyists for the Tampax and sanitary napkin producers, to see how much money they spend to bribe Congressfolk to take sides and introduce legislation to make one side or the other ‘illegal’.

I’ll bet the republicans support the Tampax side, because:

1. Tampax is what ‘god’ intended.

2. Liberating women is the antithesis of their goal.

3. They don’t use pussies much for sex.