I mean, isn't that part of the reason why we have side effects like "stroke and blood clot" and they caution us against smoking? It doesn't seem anything all that new to the field of birth control research...I'm glad they're constantly testing and researching side effects so we can continue to advance our understanding and make informed decisions about the kind of contraceptions we do and do not take.

One of the serious harms (among the more obvious ones) of having such anti-woman religious right movement is that it creates conditions where one feels inclined to be slightly less objective just for the sake of defending against their illogic and hidden agendas.

This is one example: If birth control pills cause certain types of harm, I'd like to know about it. But of course, barring extremely blatant harm, it should still be my right to choose to use it. Problem is, this perfectly good and valid information can be used as ammunition against my choice by those who have little interest in my well-being.

There's a similar dynamic in the case of abortion or the HPV vaccine. IMHO, among feminists (including myself), there's an incentive to downplay anything legitimately negative about either of these because you just know there's a rabid dog standing there ready to pounce on any sign of weakness.

Well, there are side effects with ANY drug. But I would need to know more, such as (as you already said) what other factors in the lives of the women in the study could have contributed to the condition. Were other factors controlled? If so, in what way? Etc.

I was a psych major in college, and one major thing I took away from that was not to ever trust study results at face value. Always find out the exact results, not just what someone claims they mean. Also to look at the procedure and see if there are other possible confounding variables in it.

Also, this sounds like a correlation. That means that there is a relationship, not direct cause and effect. And you know the anti-BC idiots will try and make this sound like cause and effect. DO NOT FALL FOR IT. Repeat after me: correlation is NOT cause and effect.

I know you said all of this already, but I thought I'd add in my own geeky two cents.

I agree with Barbara P. As someone who's been on the pill for 10 years (take that, incapacitating cramps!), I'd like to be aware of the pros and cons so I can make an informed decision.

I don't see why we should automatically discount this man's work just because he may have more information about our beloved pill. I understand, based on past experience, why you'd automatically jump to "could he be an anti-choice zealot?!" but I don't think it helps the cause.

Above all else, we know we're right. Therefore, we shouldn't be afraid of the truth.

I think the danger lies in the way this report will be used, not in the report itself.

The researcher does say that it is an association, not a causal relationship. And in order to research casual relationships, you often start with an association [I'm currently a psych major too, so I'm way into this research stuff]. That doesn't mean the results suggest that one the pill causes long term harm. It simply states what it states: There's an ASSOCIATION.

This could be beneifical to know if for example multiple studies show the same association, and then studies move on to isolate said variables [and extraneous variables] to either prove or disprove causality.

I think that as feminists, we are in support of disclosing the full information, and thats what this report does. Its an up-to-date study. It's only a study. There would have to be many more studies finding the same thing to even be considered valid and reliable.

I think what we should do is mandate that all anti-choice people take a good ol' beginners statistics course.

Maybe part of the problem is the impact the media has on such reports. I'm sure there have been reports showing a positive association with BC [besides the obvious no pregnancy] but they aren't given any media attention.

not cause and effect ..sure...but you don't think years of taking synthetic and horse hormones could have effects? Don't you think that if there was a man pill that it would be studied to death? There is so much we don't know about hormones and hormone replacement, particularly over years.

I don't know if these folks are anti-choice or not, but you don't see many studies on the effects of unwanted pregnancy and children, the long term risks and damages of pregnancy, advising women who are pregnant on the risks just as you have to legally do for any sort of family planning drug or procedure. You are right about things not being balanced.

However, don't put your hands over your ears and say "LALALALALALA" when the pill may be said to do harm. It is not natural. It is not a human source and even if it was, we don't know what it throws off to dose yourself up on it. And it is a chemical you put in your body. We don't know all the information about how a woman's body works. We ought to demand a focus on developing better contraception.

I know we had a few multiple comments up here...Just a reminder to folks that when you write a comment, hit "publish" only once; even if it looks like the comment won't come up, it will, just give it a minute. Thanks.

I agree we have to look at this in the context of which is safer, being on the pill for many years with the possibility of it causing problems or getting pregnant, repeatedly and the health problems that such stress puts on the human body. Also this study only looked at the effect of the traditional birth control pill, not the ring, low dose birth control, depo or other forms of hormonal contraception.

The increased risk of plaque for a decade of pill use isn't very much, 34 and 42%. Since women who've been on the pill for many years are likely to be older than women who haven't had many years of pill use, I seriously doubt if there's any increased risk when age is ruled out.

Since the research hasn't been published, the take away message should be: eh.

@betty:

Yes, of course, and aborted babies are pulped to make shampoo. (rolls eyes)

Hopefully, there will be more studies like this, and they'll use it to make better forms of birth control. It's sad to think the study will also be used as anti-choice propaganda, but that's the way in our polarized world.

As for the results, they make sense. The estrogens and progestins in BC pills are not the same as the estrogens and progesterone our bodies make. But they're similar enough that they can bond with the same receptors, which means your natural hormones can't get in and do all the things they would otherwise be doing for you healthwise. The synthetics do some of what the naturals do, but not everything. And some of what they don't do is probably very important to keeping a healthy heart.

More research can only help. There may be better synthetics. There may be ways to incorporate natural hormones. There may be things that can be added that will support heart health. But without lots of research, we won't get those things.

I don't regret a decade on birth control pills because any risk was certainly better than getting pregnant in my 20s. But that doesn't make the possibility of a heart attack in 20 years any more appealing.

Exactly, Phoebe. I find it hard to believe that daily ingestion of any medication won't have some kind of side effects down the line--and I include the meds I take daily. Now, the fact is that I'm fine with taking that risk because my life would not be acceptable without my anti-depressants and breathing is too hard without my asthma meds. It's just a shame that the forced-birthers have colored the discourse so far that we are forced to be suspicious of research on the meds that affect our lives most. Remember, back in the day, when the Pill first came out, it was approved with a slew of harmful side effects, and that was a feminist issue--that the FDA had no problem with a pill that cause so much trouble for women, whereas any side effect with a drug for men is taken uber-seriously.

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that a lot of this study's information is gathered from women who have used birth control for decades, meaning these women probably used a high-dose pill for many years. As a woman who has been on the pill for only a year and is taking the lowest dose available, I'm only taking this study with a grain of salt.

As Phoebe Fay said, this risk is better than being pregnant right now.

...and I like sex.

I think this study points to the need for more studies with more controls. They need to find a lot of women on long term BC and control for other risk factors like diet, weight, exercise habits, stress levels, etc. On its own this study doesn't mean much (as it says in the article).

Women's medicine has been sorely under served - particularly with respect to cardiac care. The disease models for men are not sufficient and there are lots of indications that risk factors for women and how you test for them and how you treat cardiac problems all need to be studied for female specific factors. The sooner, the better.

By the way - the symptoms for a heart attack in women are remarkably different than they are for men. Raise your hand if anyone ever told you that. I didn't think so. Hence, cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of women.

The pill is a drug, marketed by drug companies. It is a drug, manufactured by drug companies to make them money. And like most drugs, it has side effects, because ALL DRUGS HAVE SIDE EFFECTS. Sheesh, the pill is related to feminist theory and actualization but it does not contain or embody either of those things. As someone who took the pill several times, different doses, and was constantly preached to by the people who prescribed them that the side effects I was having weren't side effects (some of which were pretty serious, INCLUDING arhythmia at age 25, and no, I was not even slightly overweight) I came to the conclusion years ago that some peoples systems cannot handle the extra hormones. I am NOT anti-choice, but I think preaching that the pill is a central tenet of feminism is horseshit. In fact, what it really did was raise a bunch of men who roll their eyes at condoms and wonder why you can't just pop a capsule so they can fuck you and not have to worry.

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that a lot of this study's information is gathered from women who have used birth control for decades, meaning these women probably used a high-dose pill for many years.

That is correct.

I think the thing with the pill is that it's been so widely taken, and so extensively studied in so many different settings for over 40 years. Therefore, we are able to detect relatively rare adverse events, increases in morbidity/mortality that take decades to show up, things like this association with plaque build up and pill usage (which they didn't go on to correlate with actual clinically relevant events like heart attack and stroke, as far as I can tell.) So, it's likely that many of the medications we take have similar or equally troubling side effects and we just don't know about them. Either way, if it takes 10 years to have a 40% increase in risk, I'll take those odds.

Funny, I've known about this association for 10 years, since my mum had me tested at 15 and we found out that I'd inherited a genetic risk for blood clots from both sides of my family (Mum had gestational thrombosis with me, and my paternal grandmother died of a stroke when I was 16). The doctor told me to never take combined birth control pills (ie the ones containing estrogen), and take care of myself on long-haul flights. Funnily enough, I shouldn't be at any risk of gestational thrombosis, which is the condition which started all of this!

As some people have said, we need to know more about the women in this study - family histories, types of Pill and other medications, current lifestyle. There will be many factors which need to be controlled for, and again: correlation is not causation!

I think the thing with the pill is that it's been so widely taken, and so extensively studied in so many different settings for over 40 years. Therefore, we are able to detect relatively rare adverse events, increases in morbidity/mortality that take decades to show up, things like this association with plaque build up and pill usage (which they didn't go on to correlate with actual clinically relevant events like heart attack and stroke, as far as I can tell.) So, it's likely that many of the medications we take have similar or equally troubling side effects and we just don't know about them. Either way, if it takes 10 years to have a 40% increase in risk, I'll take those odds.

I think the thing with the pill is that it's been so widely taken, and so extensively studied in so many different settings for over 40 years. Therefore, we are able to detect relatively rare adverse events, increases in morbidity/mortality that take decades to show up, things like this association with plaque build up and pill usage (which they didn't go on to correlate with actual clinically relevant events like heart attack and stroke, as far as I can tell.) So, it's likely that many of the medications we take have similar or equally troubling side effects and we just don't know about them. Either way, if it takes 10 years to have a 40% increase in risk, I'll take those odds.

I think the thing with the pill is that it's been so widely taken, and so extensively studied in so many different settings for over 40 years. Therefore, we are able to detect relatively rare adverse events, increases in morbidity/mortality that take decades to show up, things like this association with plaque build up and pill usage (which they didn't go on to correlate with actual clinically relevant events like heart attack and stroke, as far as I can tell.) So, it's likely that many of the medications we take have similar or equally troubling side effects and we just don't know about them. Either way, if it takes 10 years to have a 40% increase in risk, I'll take those odds.

By the way, there IS some sort of error going on here. When I posted, I got an error page that it failed. Just ignore it and check to see of your entry posted before trying again.

I think that as feminists, we ought to applaud more studies of the pill and its results. I'm sort of disturbed by the number of posters that are downplaying the effects found like it is some sort of scam or likely inaccurate or just to be ignored because you aren't old or fat. I think we should demand more and call for better contraception instead of the shoulder shrug of "oh, all drugs have side-effects."

I haven't been able to get the entire text of the study, but I am curious about and skeptical of "risk" claims when touted in the general media. Are they talking absolute risk or relative risk? A 40% increase in absolute risk is one thing, while a 40% increase in relative risk quite another.

If a woman's absolute risk of developing plaque is at 2%, then a relative risk increase of 40% would mean her risk rose to 2.8%.

However, a 40% increase in absolute risk would mean her risk rose to 42%.

Huge difference in how we perceive the material presented.

I haven't been able to get the entire text of the study, but I am curious about and skeptical of "risk" claims when touted in the general media. Are they talking absolute risk or relative risk? A 40% increase in absolute risk is one thing, while a 40% increase in relative risk quite another.

If a woman's absolute risk of developing plaque is at 2%, then a relative risk increase of 40% would mean her risk rose to 2.8%.

However, a 40% increase in absolute risk would mean her risk rose to 42%.

Huge difference in how we perceive the material presented.

Another confounder that may be overlooked is that women who take the pill and experience a reduction in cramping may be less likely to take some form of aspirin or other anti-inflammatory medicaton in response to menstruation pain.

Changes in frequent or regular aspirin ingestion may also result in changes in risk for plaque development.

That might make for an interesting study.

These results mean, basically, that on this ONE study, this is what they found. As with ANY research study, the results are to be taken for what they are, a single result, and the study should be replicated, looking out for errors and ways to make the results more valid and accurate, in order to really learn what's going on.

I agree with many of the others, that it is a GOOD thing to know what kinds of side effects are possible from taking the pill, and be educated. The more information we have in making decisions about what goes into our bodies, the better. It also helps us re-formulate birth control pills so we can make them better.

Also, the pill is not your only option for birth control-- there are many non-hormonal options you can choose to use, from condoms to Natural Family Planning (which is NOT the "rhythm method" but instead involves observing your body's own fertility signs to know when you're fertile or not, and is as effective as using condoms).

You know what else causes atherosclerosis?

Babies! Mwahaha!

I think you guys need to take your tin foil hats off if you expect anything but an extremely rare mainstream medical paper to have anti-choice motivation behind it. The medical research community is ridiculously leftist by and large. Most of those docs who think birth control is against God's Will are practicing in someone's podunk hometown, and think that research careers are a high-fallutin' crime against Protestant ethics (because you can never know if God loves you if you can't monitor his love by your paycheck). You need someone like me, liberal and willing to take a gigantic pay cut, to enter an academic medical career.

This isn't a paper yet, but I'm always humored when people think that somehow epidemiologists have never heard of regression analysis. "Oh, I bet this is confounded by age! Those stupid doctors!" Come on, folks. It's hard enough to get research grants funded, and while plenty of studies have major methodologic flaws, those flaws are usually a little more subtle than the first thing that pops into your mind.

If, for example, you do want to see some ridiculously flawed methodologies that do not control for important confounders, ask Marcy to provide us some of the "studies" that show that Natural Family Planning is as effective as using condoms. The ones I've seen are about as well-designed as our exit strategy for the current administration's war.

I'm also a little bothered by the comments that dismiss the increase in risk of atherosclerosis in women who take birth control pills. I fail to see how it's sexist to be concerned that a pill designed only for women causes health risks in those women, especially since heart disease is already a major cause of death in women AND since heart disease is less likely to be diagnosed and treated in women.

It might be sexist to say that the health risks mean all women should stop taking the Pill, or to say that women who take the Pill are putting their slutty sex lives before their health. But it's not sexist to recognize and make information about these health risks available so that women can make informed decisions about their medications and so that researchers will be encouraged to continue to develop safer and more effective birth control.

I'm also a little bothered by the comments that dismiss the increase in risk of atherosclerosis in women who take birth control pills. I fail to see how it's sexist to be concerned that a pill designed only for women causes health risks in those women, especially since heart disease is already a major cause of death in women AND since heart disease is less likely to be diagnosed and treated in women.

It might be sexist to say that the health risks mean all women should stop taking the Pill, or to say that women who take the Pill are putting their slutty sex lives before their health. But it's not sexist to recognize and make information about these health risks available so that women can make informed decisions about their medications and so that researchers will be encouraged to continue to develop safer and more effective birth control.

I'm not entirely sure why so many people have taken this post as attacking the study. I saw no such thing.

As for "dismissing the health risks" - all drugs DO have side effects! Continued study is fantastic and needed, but it doesn't mean that if you just keep trying all the things you don't like will go away.

I take a progestogen-only pill. No periods, no baby. I'm already a genetic fuck-up, so while I wouldn't be HAPPY to be given more health issues by my pill it's NOT A BABY. Good enough for me!

As someone who took the pill several times, different doses, and was constantly preached to by the people who prescribed them that the side effects I was having weren't side effects (some of which were pretty serious, INCLUDING arhythmia at age 25, and no, I was not even slightly overweight) I came to the conclusion years ago that some peoples systems cannot handle the extra hormones.

Uh... Yeah. EVERY TIME I get a new prescription (every 3 months for 2 years and every six for the 2 years since legislation changed) we go over if I've had any side effects and the health risks. I'm very surprised your doctor would play that down.