Archives for January 2010

Yeesh:

A groundbreaking Canadian study of heterosexual couples has found that more than half of young adults engaged in a new sexual relationship were infected with the human papillomavirus (HPV).

Of this group of young adults, 44 per cent had the type of HPV that causes cancer, according to results from the HITCH Cohort Study — short for HPV Infection and Transmission in Couples through Heterosexual activity.

“It is a high number, but that number was not entirely unexpected,” said Ann Burchell, the study’s project co-ordinator and a post-doctoral fellow at McGill University’s Cancer Epidemiology Unit. “We know that HPV is a very common infection already, particularly in young people. We know that people are at a high risk of getting HPV just after acquiring a new partner.”

So you’re reading this thinking, “Oh, I’m probably fine since we always use condoms”? Think again.

The use of condoms generally reduces the rate of infection, Burchell said, but they don’t provide perfect protection.

“Even among couples in our study that used condoms all of the time, still more than 40 per cent of those men and women had an HPV infection,” she said.

There is no such thing as “safe” sex. There is only sex (with all its associated risks – and the fun bits, too), and no sex. I’m not saying young people should not be having any sex. I’m just saying they should be very careful who they’re having sex with.

Andrea adds: This seems like a good moment to advertise that Dr. Miriam Grossman, who as campus psychiatrist at UCLA has seen some of the mental health effects for young women engaging in risky sex,  is coming to Ottawa on March 11. For more information, check here.

This piece has drawn my attention to an Economist piece, which I shall now read, about women in the workforce. I’m intrigued by this quote:

But few are cheering. This is partly because young women take their opportunities for granted. It is partly because for many women work represents economic necessity rather than liberation. The rich world’s growing army of single mothers have little choice but to work. A growing proportion of married women have also discovered that the only way they can preserve their households’ living standards is to join their husbands in the labour market. In America families with stay-at-home wives have the same inflation-adjusted income as similar families did in the early 1970s…

All these things are played as choices, which is fine, except that in some cases, I don’t believe many of the family/work choices are freely made, after all.

And that’s probably because, all else being equal, it’s a better way to deliver your children – that’s sort of what women’s bodies are designed for. Certainly better for everyone, mom and baby, than a medically unnecessary C-section. Yet the rates of births by C-section around the world are so high they’re called “epidemic”. Why?

Reasons for elective C-sections vary globally, but increasing rates in many developing countries coincide with a rise in patients’ wealth and improved medical facilities.

In Asia, some women opt for the surgery to choose their delivery day after consulting fortune tellers for “lucky” birthdays or times. Others fear painful natural births or worry their vaginas may be stretched or damaged by a normal delivery. Some women also prefer the operation because they mistakenly believe it is less risky.

Others want to make sure the birth of their baby fits into their schedule. In other cases it appears doctors and hospitals push for them (pardon the pun), either because they make more money that way or to avoid malpractice suits. I’m trying to decide which reason is craziest: Worrying about what a baby (roughly the size of a small elephant, at least if you ask women in their ninth month of pregnancy) will do to a woman’s inner plumbing, or making sure the child’s birth won’t interfere with a busy work and social schedule, or ensure a happy future for the child based on a fortune teller’s say-so?

I gather that when you need one in a hurry, a C-section is like a gift from heaven. And it’s great that we live in a world where such life-saving surgeries are readily available. I feel the same way about open-heart surgery or radiation therapy, yet I wouldn’t want to have any of those procedures performed on me unless it was absolutely necessary.

The murder trial of Scott Roeder, the man who killed abortionist George Tiller is on, in Kansas. I’m not sure who fears violence from this trial more–the reporter or the public. Read “Some fear abortion ruling could spur violence” here. (I think it’s the reporter, who has managed to find the two sources on the planet who agree.)

By the by, everytime I post about Tiller, a blogger sends creepy comments to this site about following pro-lifers home to kill them in the privacy of their own homes. So clearly this is an inflammatory topic–and there are crazy people out there. We don’t need reporters fanning the flames.

Miep Gies, who helped shelter Anne Frank’s family from the Nazis, has died. She was 100. May she rest in peace.

Interesting story, is it not, about how women who come out as lesbians later in life seem to find more acceptance? Interesting for several reasons.

First of all, more acceptance as compared to what? Presumably each gay person only has to come out once, so nobody really knows what kind of acceptance they would have received had they come out at 23. And comparing yourself to someone else is silly, since gays are about as different from one another as straights are.

Second of all, it may also just be that society is more accepting (or less condeming, you choose) of homosexuality. It may have nothing to do with age.

But more importantly, here’s why I think the women in the article found widespread acceptance when they came out: They waited until their children were raised, they didn’t suddenly up and leave at the worst possible moment – i.e. they weren’t selfish. Maybe they were unhappy all those years, I don’t know (I hope not). But I’m sure not upsetting little children with a major change in Mom’s life (which little kids are ill-equipped to deal with) would help people in their entourage feel better about the whole thing. Funny nobody in the article mentions that.

Pigs are flying, all around me, even as I type this. Sweet vindication, for Maurice Vellacott and any and all of us concerned about the link between abortion and breast cancer (and the link between the Pill and breast cancer, too). Gloria Galloway is right:

…[T]rying to prevent abortions by scaring women with breast cancer would truly be wrong. But so too would be suppressing the risks of abortion or any medical procedure.

Incidentally, I agree with the first part of the statement. The reason freedom of information is important is simply because it’s important. Done. There will someday be an outcry that information was not released and/or publicized on this topic. I’m not saying it’s going to the headline in tomorrow’s paper, but I believe I will live to see that day.

Anti-depressant drugs may not do anything for moderate depression, says new study.

Some widely prescribed drugs for depression provide relief in extreme cases but are no more effective than placebo pills for most patients, according to a new analysis released Tuesday.

Recently, I have had cause to think there are too many doctors willing to put 100 per cent healthy women on anti-depressants. The ups and downs of life are not meant to be entirely eradicated on a steady stream of medication.