In the fall of 2016 results came in for one of the latest clinical trials of a hormonal male birth control. Everyone was excited to read about the findings and finally have something close to equality in terms of both genders taking care of this aspect. But then, when it was all published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, it turned out that most of the study was cancelled due to several participants dropping out of the trial and even some attempting suicide due to the side effects. According to the study, acne, depression, and mood swings were the top consequences that the patients could not live with.
What happened afterwards was a surge of responses from women who’d been on some sort of hormonal contraception. Because, if we’re being honest, acne and changes in libido, as well as mood swings, are something birth control takers have been enduring for decades. Let’s not even talk about the chance of stroke or heart attack, or the linkage with a rise in breast cancer risk. However, there is one side effect that medical professionals keep insisting doesn’t exist, yet patients still name as a leading reason why they drop hormonal birth control methods: weight gain.
This is the ultimate pet peeve, right? I mean, it’s not just an inconvenience. If anyone was worried about mental anxiety and distress, as apparently they were to cancel the trial for men, then weight gain for no apparent reason would be exactly that for women. There are cases of athletes gaining at least 10 lbs. in a matter of months despite no apparent changes in their routine.
Doctors and advertisements are always prone to talk about how you might feel bloated or have water retention at first. Just like the nausea and overall dizziness, you’re supposed to grin and bear it as you wait three months to see if your body adapts to the synthetic hormone compound of the pill, patch, ring, or shot. But what happens if your mental wellbeing changes due to weight gain? According to most accounts the shot can be the worst culprit, since it’s basically a surge of hormones all at once. But why is everyone so unwilling to believe that this is an actual side effect?
According to Christine Greves, an OB/Gyn, there’s a chance that the weight gain is related to a lifestyle change that the pill is simply part of. This means, someone at their first year of college, living away from home and eating different things, or even someone at the beginning of a relationship, which also brings an expected change in food and activities. However, she remarks that women who claim they’ve gained weight while on contraception should not be dismissed so easily: “We try to act like everything is a cookbook, but each person has an individual composition.”
But the problem seems to return to the situation at the beginning. Why are women expected to endure these side effects and risks, while men are protected from them? Ultimately, it seems to be a market call. Men are less willing to buy or try a method of birth control that could cause discomforting side effects, so pharmaceuticals don’t see it as a good investment. Women will go on contraception because it’s safer than just using the condom.
But I think Rob Stein from NPR hit it right in the head about the real difference between men and women on birth control: “When women use a contraceptive, they’re balancing the risks of the drug against the risks of getting pregnant. And pregnancy itself carries risks. But these are healthy men — they’re not going to suffer any risks if they get somebody else pregnant.”
Since women are the ones who have to face further action when an unexpected pregnancy occurs, and men are not always part of the picture, they are the most concerned with having sufficient protection. The problem with the fact that women will continue on birth control, despite the risks or side effects, is that pharmaceuticals are less likely to fund research into different methods that might be better. After all, if your main buyer is happy buying the same broken item every month, why fix it?
One thing to keep in mind is that the current options in contraception are still a vast improvement over the ones that came out in the sixties and seventies. It was during the Nelson Pill hearings in 1970 where the US Senate created had an investigation into the side effects and risks related to the pill. Yet there was not one woman invited to speak or give testimony during what was supposed to bring greater transparency between pharmaceuticals and patients. It was then when Alice Wolfson, a protester, commented that women were the ideal form of guinea pigs, “They don’t cost anything, they feed themselves, they clean their own cages, pay for their own pills, and remunerate the clinical observer.”
It’s interesting that nobody ever considers customer satisfaction into the mix. If a patient buys medication for three months, and then drops it because of the side effects, then this isn’t the best business model, is it? An actual improvement would be finding a better option that is safe and less invasive or distressing than the current. Instead of telling women that they’re imagining a change in their body, it seems that some funding and research should be invested in creating better options and alternatives for women, who are the actual consumers.
Images by Ariel Lustre