Althouse: "Search for birth control on TikTok or Instagram and a cascade of misleading videos vilifying hormonal contraception appear..."

March 21, 2024

"Search for birth control on TikTok or Instagram and a cascade of misleading videos vilifying hormonal contraception appear..."

"... Young women blaming their weight gain on the pill. Right-wing commentators claiming that some birth control can lead to infertility. Testimonials complaining of depression and anxiety. Instead, many social media influencers recommend 'natural' alternatives, such as timing sex to menstrual cycles.... While doctors say hormonal contraception — which includes birth-control pills and intrauterine devices (IUDs) — is safe and effective, they worry the profession’s long-standing lack of transparency about some of the serious but rare side effects has left many patients seeking information from unqualified online communities. The backlash to birth control comes at a time of rampant misinformation about basic health tenets amid poor digital literacy and a wider political debate over reproductive rights, in which far-right conservatives argue that broad acceptance of birth control has altered traditional gender roles and weakened the family...."

From "Women are getting off birth control amid misinformation explosion" (WaPo).

40 comments:

Geoff Matthews said...: These complaints are coming from women who have used hormonal birth control. Sounds like there is a research study to be had here.; 3/21/24, 10:36 AM
RideSpaceMountain said...: Oral contraception is likely responsible for the 20,000% increase in environmentally registered levels of progesterone (and progestin, aka synthetic) found worldwide. It is literally in the fucking water. It is also likely responsible for the geometric increase in male sexual-organ birth defects and disorders since 1970, only 10 years after its inception.

Hundreds of millions of women - many of whom consider themselves environmentalists - are literally pissing this stuff into their environment and their largely inefficient local water-treatment facilities.

There is a huge amount of research that is now coming to light on the multifaceted impact these drugs have had over decades of use. As the science advances, I've little doubt unsettling externalities will be revealed. Will it have any impact on female behavior? I doubt it...; 3/21/24, 10:42 AM
Kevin said...: Sounds more like an information explosion.; 3/21/24, 10:42 AM
Rich said...: "Bendayan said she did her own research and found studies that backed up what she was feeling." ~from the Wapo article

Wow... there's a lot to unpack just in that one sentence.; 3/21/24, 10:46 AM
MadisonMan said...: Perhaps the WaPo should ask people: "Why do you believe what you see on the Internet?"
A hazard of this, of course, is that the WaPo routinely publishes things on the Internet that might not be completely true. So they'd be undercutting their own message.; 3/21/24, 10:51 AM
Birches said...: Uhh, birth control does affect libido. Ask any woman who has had periods of time with and without hormonal birth control.

After my first was born, I felt nothing for about six months. I went back to my doctor and she gave me a different prescription, so she didn't tell me it was disinformation. This topic has come up with other women plenty of times over the years. I'd guess a significant percentage of married women are not on hormonal birth control because both partners prefer it.

Shortly thereafter my prescription change, I completely stopped any hormonal birth control and have continued that way for about 17 years in a very happy marriage. I started charting to prevent pregnancy about 8 years ago after reading "Taking Charge of Your Fertility" by Toni Weschler, no conservative.

It's good to know your body and its cycles and not mask changes.; 3/21/24, 10:54 AM
Mr Wibble said...: Young women are put on BC in their mid to late teens, and many stay on for a decade or more. They have no clue about their bodies or their fertility cycle because they've never had to deal with it. And BC has always come with risks such as strokes. Pretending that it's completely safe does a disservice to these young women.; 3/21/24, 10:56 AM
Hassayamper said...: far-right conservatives argue that broad acceptance of birth control has altered traditional gender roles and weakened the family....

You don't say. Are they wrong?; 3/21/24, 10:59 AM
The Vault Dweller said...: I'm not a Doctor, nor a birthing person, but it is my understanding that there are potential negative side effects of the pill, weight gain being among them. Which makes sense because my non-Doctor understanding of the pill is that it alters a birthing person's hormones to mimic the levels present during pregnancy. One of the worst things in our culture today is that too many people assume wide-spread use or 'authority' recommendation means risk-free. Something that is 99% chance of no bad outcome and 1% chance of bad outcome emotionally feels like, 'nothing bad will happen' to many people.

Oral contraception is likely responsible for the 20,000% increase in environmentally registered levels of progesterone (and progestin, aka synthetic) found worldwide. It is literally in the fucking water.

I think this is what Alex Jones was talking about when he said, "They're turning the Frogs gay!"; 3/21/24, 11:10 AM
Aggie said...: My God won't somebody please get the Government to step in and censor all this dangerous Right Wing Misinformation and Disinformation? Please save us! Conservatives are pouncing on women who are at risk of getting hormonally fat!!; 3/21/24, 11:14 AM
GRW3 said...: The medical profession blew up its credibility during COVID. That on top of their habit of denying potential side effects has blown up in their face. The first few lines of the paragraph you copied, written in a "can you believe this tone" are all truths anyone exposed to women on birth control have heard.; 3/21/24, 11:19 AM
Leland said...: What is the WaPo definition of a woman in this article?; 3/21/24, 11:25 AM
Prof. M. Drout said...: Remember about 15 years ago there was a huge panic about certain soft plastics releasing "endocrine disruptors," and everybody threw out their phthalate-infused water bottles, etc.?
A friend of mine from grad school had done research on the effects of various chemicals on frog morphogenesis. Remember when we were worried that the frogs were being transformed into females due to chemicals in the water? (And then we forgot about that because all the frogs were dying of fungus, which turned out to have be spread by the frog-researchers trying to find out why the frogs were dying from fungus. But I digress). Her research was kind of a follow-on to the original work, but she was a chemist, not a biologist, so what she was doing was trying to detect human-made organic chemicals in water and the correlate that with the degree of disruption to frog morphogenesis.
What she found was that synthesized estrogen so overwhelmed the effects of any other chemicals that it was impossible to build a mathematical model unless you found water that didn't have any estrogen at all (which is possible, as it depends upon sewage treatment systems in a watershed). Estrogen in the water had over 100 times a greater effect than the phthalates we all freaked out over. When she told her supervisor, the supervisor said "Oh. I'm sorry that we've got to find a new project for you now." Because no one would be willing to publish or fund further research on the topic.; 3/21/24, 11:38 AM
Lloyd W. Robertson said...: I was never anti-vaxx in any way until all the bullshit about the Covid so-called vaccines. Now among other things I'm taking Bobby K seriously. The health establishment has screwed up.; 3/21/24, 12:07 PM
J Severs said...: " . . . the profession’s long-standing lack of transparency about some of the serious but rare side effects has left many patients seeking information from unqualified online communities". This sounds familiar.; 3/21/24, 12:25 PM
robother said...: "Misinformation." There's that word again. Just substitute "Wrongthink" every time you encounter it, and you'll appreciate the real message.; 3/21/24, 12:49 PM
Assistant Village Idiot said...: Gee, those complaints about women getting off safe birth control sound similar to the complaints about not getting safe vaccines. If you squint hard enough, you can make "1 in 100,000" look like "you personally are just about to become infertile or die." Hey, I know! We'll just keep calling it a "jab," which sounds bad. That will prove we are right.

So go ahead anti-vaxxers. Tell me again why 1-in-5000 deaths of athletic young men getting the vaccine is horribly worse than 1-in-5000 deaths of athletic young men not getting the vaccine, because They aren't telling you the truth about side effects. Please look up: Fooled by randomness. Motte-and-bailey. Cherry-picking data. Confirmation bias. Tim Tebow Effect. Is there a bad argument you aren't using?

Just because Fauci is a lying idiot doesn't make you right. Or did you not think that one through?; 3/21/24, 12:51 PM
iowan2 said...: I sacrificed an email address to read the article. Much like I anticipated, long on conclusions, very short on actual facts. As I came of age a few years behind our host, I was on the ground with the release of "the Pill". The side effects were common discussion topics, the girls wrestled with. The guys were of course interested in the level of acceptance. I was well aware of condoms and diaphragms, and "the sponge" (insert Seinfeld reference here)

What the article glossed over is the self destruction of the medical communities reputation. They did note the medicos ignored or attempted to minimize side effects. Refusing to engage patients, and listen to concerns. Covid only exposed the duplicity of Doctors obfuscating facts in order to push "the narrative" of the AMA, or some other shadowy someone.

Plus there ought to be some thought about not engaging in intercourse with people you don't want to raise a child with. That was my dad's advice. The clear statement of expectation, men were responsible for their children.; 3/21/24, 12:58 PM
hombre said...: Given the grisly alternative it seems highly unlikely that responsible "right wing" persons would be trying to discourage women from using birth control.

It is not surprising that the irresponsible left wing WaPo would make that claim, however unfounded.; 3/21/24, 12:58 PM
loudogblog said...: It's weird how some people act like misinformation, rumors and gossip didn't exist before social media.; 3/21/24, 1:03 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: YouTube: Birth Control pills are safe and effective .

Anything other than that is misinformation and disinformation. Watch video above .; 3/21/24, 1:04 PM
Cheryl said...: HAHAHA sure, the anti-pill rhetoric is a right-wing conspiracy, led by, among others, Sarah Hill, Ph.D., who rightly points out that there is virtually ZERO research about effects of long-term hormonal birth control on adolescent girls.; 3/21/24, 1:16 PM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Ah the classic "comes at a time" journalistic BS:

"The backlash to birth control comes at a time of rampant misinformation about basic health tenets amid poor digital literacy and a wider political debate over reproductive rights, in which far-right conservatives argue that broad acceptance of birth control has altered traditional gender roles and weakened the family...."

The same far right that just enjoyed the victory of making birth control OTC over Democrat
obstructionism? THAT far right? So really, the backlash to birth control comes at a time when journalists wish to distract from the revolutionary achievement of convenience conservatives brought to the birth control issue.

FIFY; 3/21/24, 1:19 PM
Kate said...: @Birches ^^; 3/21/24, 1:22 PM
Jupiter said...: How could turning off your body's normal metabolic processes for ten or fifteen years be anything but safe and healthful? It's just common sense! More misinformation from the lying Patriarchy! Good thing we have the highly-trained medical scientists at WaPo to set the matter straight. It's amazing how little Jeff Bezos has to spend to get the top scientists in the world to work for him.; 3/21/24, 1:31 PM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Prof Drout, you might be interested that Alex Jones was pilloried for saying that birth control in water was "turning frogs gay" and asking "what is it doing to our children?" This was before he was successfully cancelled over other remarks (as a test case before the Left used Jean Carol to go after Trump in a similar way). Yours is the second report I've seen of actual research validating old Mr. Jones' statements.; 3/21/24, 1:34 PM
Mark said...: There is absolutely NOTHING that is harmful or adverse from taking powerful hormones to make a healthy woman's body dysfunctional.; 3/21/24, 1:50 PM
robother said...: Lem the artificially intelligent:
"Birth Control pills are safe and effective. Anything other than that is misinformation and disinformation."

So, even the side effects warnings that come with the pills are misinformation. Lem likes his State-approved reality simple-- good vs. evil, safe v. unsafe, no cost/benefit analysis ever required. More importantly, no intelligence (natural or artificial) required.; 3/21/24, 1:57 PM
Maynard said...: Millions of women have had issues with the pill.

There are plenty of other methods of birth control.

One size does not fit all.; 3/21/24, 2:31 PM
Rabel said...: For an article repudiating misinformation about the dangers of hormonal birth control there's an awful lot of information about the dangers of hormonal birth control.

And clearly, the author does not believe that women can be trusted to make their own decisions about such things.; 3/21/24, 2:31 PM
Rabel said...: "I sacrificed an email address to read the article."

If you open this Webpage Archive website in a new tab then highlight, copy and paste the article's web address to the blue search bar at the Webpage Archive it will bring up the article (if someone has archived it). Sounds complicated but it's really just 6 mouse clicks.

It works most of the time, including this article. I keep the Webpage Archive link in a topline bookmark right next to Althouse.

Fight the power!; 3/21/24, 2:43 PM
iowan2 said...: Given the grisly alternative it seems highly unlikely that responsible "right wing" persons would be trying to discourage women from using birth control.

I did read the article. The "evidence" the Right wants to "eliminate birth control", consists of of trying to stop the govt from paying for birth control. The Pill is now OTC, not sure what the issue is.; 3/21/24, 2:45 PM
Darkisland said...: MadisonMan said...
Perhaps the WaPo should ask people: "Why do you believe what you see on the WaPo?

Fify

John Henry; 3/21/24, 3:51 PM
Jim at said...: Just because Fauci is a lying idiot doesn't make you right.

Actually, it does. Because we were right about everything.

Maybe it's you who didn't think that one through.; 3/21/24, 4:16 PM
Tina Trent said...: One friend had a psychotic episode after having monthly birth control inserted under her arm skin, and yes, it was the cause. She was institutionalized and lost her job and career.

Another had an IUD malfunction destroy her uterus floor.

A third, a perfectly healthy 20 year old woman, had a mild stroke not long after starting the pill. Can't prove a connection, but...

A fourth almost died from toxic shock syndrome when a Today Sponge tore apart.

In the 90's, a manufacturer was trying to get approval for a device that would release "a small controlled explosion in the uterus" opening a Batman-like cape with hooks that would attach to the uterus walls. No, I'm not making that up. Happily, even the FDA said WTF?; 3/21/24, 4:44 PM
GingerBeer said...: "I search for info on birth control on Tiktock, and I vote!"; 3/21/24, 5:46 PM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: Mike (MJB Wolf):

The same far right that just enjoyed the victory of making birth control OTC over Democrat
obstructionism? THAT far right? So really, the backlash to birth control comes at a time when journalists wish to distract from the revolutionary achievement of convenience conservatives brought to the birth control issue.

Well, exactly so. It's fascinating to see the Dem opposition to OTC birth control, and the Republican support for it. The reason (as a gazillion people have already pointed out; don't give me credit for originality) is that formerly lots of women got prescriptions from Planned Parenthood, and now they won't need to go there; any drugstore will do. Which in turn means that PP will become even more just an abortion provider, vs. your happy full-service womyn-centric superstore. The more PP is sectored off from actual birth control, as opposed to abortion, the worse it is for them.; 3/21/24, 6:19 PM
Kirk Parker said...: Robother,

Actually, Lem is a master of sarcasm -- which you would have spotted if you would spend even a few moments listening to the link he posted, though really his tone should have told you already.; 3/21/24, 6:48 PM
Leora said...: I follow the issue of birth control safety as someone who had a severe pelvic infection related to an IUD. A friend of mine had an embolism related to her birth control pills. As I recall, Glenn Reynolds wife, Helen, had a life threatening issue related to her birth control. I believe life and fertility affecting incidents related to birth control, including the chemical abortificants, are far more common than women have been informed. This leaves aside aside the non-life threatening effects such as bloating, weight gain and emotional distress which are just as real as crippling menstrual cramps.; 3/21/24, 6:50 PM
MattJ said...: Why would anyone believe the Washington Post when it calls something disinformation? This may be true, and it may not be true, but the Post reporting it doesn't increase my knowledge or understanding of the situation in the slightest.; 3/21/24, 11:32 PM