We had our colloquium, here. Now a new book asks even more questions about The Pill regime:
The Pill: Are You Sure It’s For You?, a new book out next month, queries why the Pill is so readily prescribed across the developed world when its negative side- effects are so frequent and sometimes fatal, and its effectiveness in preventing pregnancy less than perfect.
This line of questioning is not new, incidentally. It’s something the late Barbara Seaman pursued vigorously.
Questions worth asking.
by 
The column is an interesting read, but I find it too dependant on personal stories. As the populat expression states, “The plural of anecdote is not data.” It’s all just stories of individuals who have had problems with the pill, rather than statistical analysis that would give a better idea of just how frequent such issues were. If it really was as bad as the column makes it seem, it wouldn’t be nearly so popular.
Personally, I wouldn’t want to depend on either the pill or on condoms alone for contraception. Both have a very low but non-zero failure rate. Both together, on the other hand… the chances of both failing independently are vanishingly small, and not worth worrying about.
In a very long-term relationship, if we really don’t want to use condoms… No sperm are going through cut and tied tubes. Only way to be absolutly assured of a 0% fertilisation rate.
Suricou, I do and don’t agree with you. Personal stories *are* important to study. That’s why anthropologists do one on one interviews–to get personal stories. I think the point here is that the trend to speak about something privately widespread–disenchantment with the Pill–is growing. Having said that, data *is* important, and confirms or disproves what we hear anecdotally. There’s unfortunately not a lot of research on attitudes towards the Pill, but we can see that the continuation rate of the Pill is 68%**, compared to 89% for the Creighton Method of FertilityCare. 1/3 of women don’t continue the Pill for one reason or another, and I’d be willing to bet that side effects account for the majority of those reasons. Additionally, that number is 3 years old, and the tide has been changing since then. **[R.A. Hatcher, et al., Contraceptive Technology, Nineteenth Revised Edition (New York: Ardent Media, 2007).]