Interesting Links for 30-1-2011

[andrewducker]

• Hormones, contraception, menstruation and cancer. Absolutely fascinating article tying them all together.
  (tags: health science religion contraception sex menstruation women)
• A Student Loan Payment Calculator for the UK - allowing you to compare the different types of loans.
  (tags: student academia loans money uk)

Comments

[draigwen]

Pre-98 on the student loan calculator looks wrong to me. I swear I had to start repaying my loan back way before I was earning £26000. That said, I think it's based on average salary, which would presumably have been lower back then. But yeah, it's a tad confusing.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, it was £16000 for me, I think. Not 100% though.

[draigwen]

That sounds about right. My first proper non-temping job was about £17,000 and that's when I had to start paying.

[http://www.ex-parrot.com/~pete/id/config.php]

From the bottom of my page,

Pre 1998, I've assumed the student borrows £2,000 (approximately half the living costs of the student) with the other half having been provided by a grant. They then pay this back in exactly five years once their salary exceeds £26,000. This is an inflation adjusted version of the scheme that was in place at the time. The scheme did change thresholds yearly with inflation so this is a fairly true reflection.

[draigwen]

Teaches me for not scrolling down!

[feorag.livejournal.com]

That first link is the most evil, pernicious thing I've ever seen you post. If only we were good little women who had babies like we're meant to, then we won't get cancer. And please can we shut ourselves out of sight while we're having those icky period things, while we're at it.

[andrewducker]

I didn't read it as saying that at all. I read it as saying that the idea that "having periods every month is natural" has no basis in fact, and that therefore the design of the pill that enforces it doesn't make any more sense than a pill that was taken continuously.

[feorag.livejournal.com]

If that was all the author of the piece was trying to say, he'd (and that's pertinent, I think) have left off the anthropological bit at the end. Note the reasons those women don't get a period every month - they're mostly pregnant or breast-feeding! And then they die.

Women in our society have fewer pregnancies, and breast feeding has been out of fashion for a few decades until recently. So we get periods, mostly on a monthly-ish pattern, whether or not we are on the pill.

[andrewducker]

Yes, exactly. And it's by trying to simulate that, that the problem occurs! People think that that's natural, when the point is that it's not.

[feorag.livejournal.com]

So, because I was on the pill for a couple of brief times in my late teens and early 20s, my condition is my own fault? Because that's what the article claims, at its very root.

And what the article proposes as a "solution" is essentially keeping women pregnant all the time, because it's "natural" that way. Do you agree with that?

It also doesn't mention that the reason said eternally-pregnant African women don't die of cancer is because they don't live long enough to get it!

[andrewducker]

So, because I was on the pill for a couple of brief times in my late teens and early 20s, my condition is my own fault?

What? I don't see the article talking about fault anywhere. Nobody is being blamed for anything. I can't see where it says anywhere that being on the pill causes cancer - it's talking about how high numbers of periods are associated with it, which happens with absolutely any kind of birth control that doesn't prevent them entirely.

And what the article proposes as a "solution" is essentially keeping women pregnant all the time, because it's "natural" that way.

Again, not what I read. "A truly natural Pill might be one that found a way to suppress ovulation without using progestin." and "Pike's proposed solution is a class of drugs known as GnRHAs, which has been around for many years." indicated to me that what they want is a pill that suppresses ovulation entirely, without the use of progestin.


It also doesn't mention that the reason said eternally-pregnant African women don't die of cancer is because they don't live long enough to get it!
From the article "Those who survive early childhood typically live into their seventh or eighth decade"

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

Depo Provera injections stopped my periods for 10 years (which I thought was excellent) - but not so good for bones apparently... which I wish they'd known/stated/emphasised upfront. Also killed sex drive and reduced a lot of my Joie de Vivre - not surprising given what I was reading recently about the effects of high progesterone on the brain (increased suspicion/impaired social reasoning, IIRC, which to me suggests frontal lobe effects...).

I hate periods, and have never wanted kids, and b*ggering about with my hormones rarely leads to fun. But I doubt anything short of close simulation of actual pregnancy/lactation is gonna cut the mustard in terms of the equivalent protective health effects.

Do not forget that pregnancy has its own horrible and long-term risks (death [from any number of causes during pregnancy or birth or afterwards], diabetes, tooth loss, single or double incontinence, nasty perineum/vaginal tearing....) a lot of which seem to me equally as bad as cancer - and go on for more of your life too! [as do the kids themselves!]

I didn't get as strong a reaction to the article as your previous posters - it came off to me as a bit more neutral. But I'm not strongly reactive to emotionally-charged words (e.g cancer, pregnancy), and so may not be an average or indicative sample. Also there is very little in the article which is at all news to me or at all surprising [and all of that was about John Rock's personal convictions].

I can see why the article might get some (many) people's goat, though, it could have been written in a way that got the pertinent data from the studies over without even mentioning stuff like isolation during menstruation and all that - not vital to the gist. Could have just stated that the menstrual/pregnancy/breastfeeding status of the women was recorded.

Point is, there's lot of ways the article could have been more carefully written to ensure that there was a lot less risk of coming across all "you should be be barefoot and pregnant else you aren't a natural woman". And many people probably, and justifiably think that it *should* have.

Imagine what propagandal use an arch-conservative could easily put this article (as it is) to with minimal effort....

[andrewducker]

Everything has risks, some known, some unknown. Such is life.

I was fascinated by the isolation stuff - my first question on being told menstruation rates for the Dogon would be "How the hell did they find that out?" and I'm glad the article told me. I didn't feel it was approving of it.

And I am _so_ not worried by what uses arch-conservatives put information to. They're already preaching things I heartily disapprove of, and will happily twist any fact to fit their own agenda. I'd rather that everyone had the facts than we tried to protect people by hiding some of them.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

oh, it doesn't *worry* me, just don't think it should be made easy for them. But hell, as you say and as we all know people can get almost anything they like out of any data that not flatly contrary to the viewpoint they are peddling (and even then.....)

I suppose that upon reflection, really don't think that the isolation thing is a big deal, actually - I thought everybody knew that sort of thing happened/happens in certain communities. I suppose if I wasn't told how they got the data on menstrual timings I'd have assumed the researcher just asked....not unreasonable. I don't think there'd be reason to doubt the accuracy either way (but you never know).

yeah, sure everything has risks, but there is a damned awful history of not studying long-term health risks of various medicines and medical treatments and of inadequately advertising them when they do, in fact, emerge. Question of most good soonest I suppose - and the relative risks, in this case of losts of women without contraception running pregnancy/abortion complications vs long term health issue that may or may not arise. I think it take longer and better studies ot get something to market now - but I could be mistaken there.

They certainly do still do NOT adequately advertise the possible(probable) massive reduction in sex-drive and that is associated with all hormonal contraception. Oh yeah and it can be permanently persistent in some cases even after the cessation.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, Julie was told by her doctor that there were no side effects whatsoever to the pill. Despite the fact that she'd just come off it because she couldn't take the side effects...

The problem with studying long-term effects is that you don't really want to hold up the release of a drug for thirty years until all the possible side-effects are seen (and even then, trying to keep a trial group on the same drugs long term is tricky). At some point you have to let it out into the wild and then monitor for bad things down the line. We do do more (as you say) but that pushes up costs, and means that less problems are financially viable to look into. Tis all tradeoffs.