Birth Control Side Effects and Misinformation in the Media (Episode 515)

Full Transcript: Episode 515

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack:

In today’s episode, I am actually diving into current events. Interestingly, I don’t tend to watch a lot of television or news and I don’t tend to follow what’s going on, but there was an interesting article that keeps getting brought to my attention that the Washington Post dropped recently and I thought that I would jump in and talk about it. So here goes.

All right, so earlier this week the Washington Post released an article, “Women Are Getting Off Birth Control Amid Misinformation Explosion.” What follows in this article is just a whole lot of gaslighting, and ironically, they’re talking about misinformation that women are getting about their cycles, and they’re apparently the purveyors of most of that information. So I’m going to go ahead and read a couple of quotes from this article and then we can kind of get into just a bit of a discussion around what they’re actually saying.

Here’s how the article starts off: “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, a less effective birth control method that doctors warn result in unwanted pregnancies in a country where abortion is now banned or restricted in nearly half the states. Physicians say” — and I’m continuing to read the article — “they’re seeing an explosion of birth control misinformation online targeting a vulnerable demographic, people in their teens and early 20s who are more likely to believe what they see on their phones because of algorithms that feed them a stream of videos reinforcing messages often divorced from scientific evidence. While doctors say hormonal contraception, which includes birth control pills and intrauterine devices, 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 communities online.”

Okay, so that’s how they jump in and the article just continues on and on and on this way. Basically saying that all of these crazy people online are just complaining about these side effects that are so rare and barely happen, and all of these unqualified people online are talking about birth control, and obviously they’re just totally misinformed and there’s no scientific evidence. And of course, none of these people have official medical credentials, and therefore everything they’re saying must be false. These poor young women must know that there are absolutely no side effects related to the pill, and all of these complaints are just completely unfounded and insane.

So it’s really interesting. If you haven’t read it, if this is something that interests you, I mean, I would suggest having a read, if for no other reason than just to kind of reinforce and highlight many of the themes that we have been talking about on this podcast for so many years. This article is an example of the reason why it is so difficult for women to, A, be believed by their medical professionals when they share information about the side effects that they’ve been experiencing. Beyond being believed, it makes it difficult for them to even be taken seriously. And how many women who are listening right now have literally had their doctor ask you, “Oh, did you hear about that from Dr. Google?”

So this article really highlights some of the key challenges that women experience. And also, the fact that medical professionals don’t take these — I mean, the side effects are not in women’s heads. You can simply look at the hundreds of research papers, thousands of research papers. The pill is a drug that has been around since 1960. And one of the positives of that, at least with the birth control pill and its various iterations, is that there’s a ton of research on it. So unlike some of the newer drugs that may have recently been brought into market, the category of hormonal contraception has been alive and well since the 60s. And so for that reason, it’s actually not always that difficult to find research on it.

So at this stage, for any so-called professional, credentialed media outlet to be suggesting that these side effects are simply just a figment of the imagination of TikTok influencers — and everything they’re saying about it is just complete fooey and hocus pocus — is frankly just lazy journalism. Because with the birth control pill, in all of its iterations, it really only takes about five minutes or less of a search on Google Scholar to find hundreds, if not thousands, of articles detailing the whole wide variety and gamut of side effects that women experience on birth control.

And the way that they’ve steered the article is that they’re kind of highlighting the fact that some of the more egregious side effects are more rare. So the side effect of death from blood clots, or stroke, or pulmonary embolism — that is not something that happens to every woman. The actual numbers compared to how many women use contraceptives are quite small. But when we’re looking at the most common side effects that they immediately dismissed in their article — such as anxiety and depression — that’s much more common. And some of these side effects are some of the most common reasons why women are coming off of the birth control options, or why they switch from one version to the next.

There’s plenty of studies that have looked at the reasons why women discontinue their use of birth control. And the studies show that about half of women who are put on the pill come off of that particular brand of pill within the first year of using it due to their dissatisfaction with the side effects. And I’ve spoken about this before many times. I’ve shared many research articles on the podcast, in my writing. In The Fifth Vital Sign, I share a study where the researchers were looking at the side effects, but their intention with the study was actually to determine why women were complaining about the birth control — to identify if there was something that they could pick out about those women. And the researchers were discussing how difficult it is for providers to recommend the most effective methods while also being transparent about the side effects without discouraging them from using it.

So the whole article was like, “All these poor doctors that have to balance telling women the truth about the contraceptives without discouraging them from using it, because there are these side effects.” So there’s a huge problem when it comes to the birth control pill, because the medical establishment has already made up their mind that the pill is completely fine, it’s completely safe, it’s effective, any risks are super small, and the benefits clearly outweigh the risks — and any woman who’s complaining about it is just misinformed, right? And so they’ve already made up their mind that women just need to shut up and take it, in their opinion. And so it means that whenever women have issues with it and talk about it and try to reach out and discuss it and put those ideas into the world, they’re immediately shut down.

And so here you have women speaking out in kind of the only avenue that is open to them. These women who are speaking out on TikTok and on Instagram, and women like me who have been speaking about this through podcast avenues and through book writing, blog posts — whatever you want to say. And in particular, the women like myself who are fully jumping on scientific resources. So it’s not like I’m just talking out of my neck for fun. I actually cite sources that discuss this in a scientific manner, look for peer-reviewed research, identifying the rates of discontinuation and things like that. If you’re curious, Chapter 7 of The Fifth Vital Sign goes into that in extensive detail. And also, coincidentally, Chapter 7 of Real Food for Fertility also discusses the pill at great length.

It is no secret that many women experience anxiety and depression and libido and mood changes, panic attacks because of the birth control pill. They even have this — I’m going to read part of what they said here. They made a comment about nutrient deficiencies as well, and I found that to be really interesting — like in a super dismissive way. So they’re going off about this woman — Nicole Bendan, I’m sure I’m not saying her name wrong — because they’re saying she has over a million followers combined on TikTok and Instagram, for her holistic health coaching business and her TikToks about getting off of birth control and becoming a cycle-syncing nutritionist. She’s teaching women to live in tune with their menstrual cycles. I mean, how dare her. It’s garnered over 10 million views.

And this is — I’m going to quote from the article — “Ban has told her followers that birth control may deplete magnesium, vitamins B, C, and E, and zinc levels.”

It’s so interesting how they can write these articles and say these things as if there aren’t just droves of scientific research studies that verify this. This is not some sort of random thing about the nutrient deficiencies that this woman made up in her spare time. It only takes like less than five minutes — anyone can do this. Anyone can go and find scientific resources. You can go to PubMed. You can go to Google Scholar. If you’re a student, you can go onto your student research options and look through peer-reviewed research papers. It really wouldn’t take you more than five minutes to look up nutrient deficiencies associated with hormonal contraceptives to find a slew of studies that talk at length about the link between the pill and nutrient deficiencies.

All you have to do is open the insert, or search the insert if you’re taking a certain brand of contraceptive. Just literally search for the brand and the prescribing information. You can look it up. And in the actual insert that they’re mandated by law to provide you, they have to say what it does — including these nutrient deficiencies.

It’s so interesting how they can spin these stories and they’re making it look like this woman is just lying to these women and taking advantage of them so she can steal their money. But they’re not actually acknowledging that she’s pointing out scientifically proven data about hormonal contraceptives. So either the author of this article just didn’t actually do their research, or they’re just kind of being a mouthpiece for the pharmaceutical industry to really kind of downplay the very real concerns that these women are having about contraceptives.

Now, I’m glad that they didn’t single me out, because I don’t necessarily want to be thrown under the bus for the same exact things I’ve been saying for two decades. But I find it to be particularly interesting given that I would fall into the category of somebody who is sharing information about contraception. And they mischaracterize it, because when women are highlighting these issues with birth control pills, there’s a variety of ways that it can be done. I can’t speak to how all of these so-called Instagram and TikTok influencers are sharing their information. But what I can share is how I’ve shared the information over the years.

My main initiative all of these years has always been to help to inform women of the risks and potential benefits of their chosen contraceptive method, to inform them about all of the options. So you’ll notice how they heavily downplayed cycle tracking. They didn’t even name it. They don’t want to write “fertility awareness tracking.” And they are quick to say doctors don’t recommend this because it’s unreliable, right? But again, the person who’s writing the article has likely never learned anything about this method.

And so again, you have a situation where women themselves are saying, “Look, I had a negative experience with this. I took this drug and this is what happened to me.” You find somebody online who says, “You know what, I’ve been researching this and there’s a lot of data to support your experience. Did you know that X percent of women experience this exact same side effect that you did? Did you know that you could look at the drug insert and actually see a lot of these side effects that you’ve experienced because the manufacturers themselves know that this is what happens when many women use the drug? Did you know that there are other alternatives? That if hormonal contraceptives don’t sit well with you, you could actually turn to another potential option so that you would be able to have effective birth control without necessarily having to rely on hormones?”

So this article is implying that by women getting together, sharing their experiences, looking to the science to see what it says, reporting on said science, and actually listening and believing other women who’ve had similar experiences — that there’s something wrong with that. This is not okay. Because God forbid women get together and talk about their own experiences and search for solutions that better serve them.

I just thought I would jump in and comment on this article by the Washington Post. I just think it’s laughable. And I suppose it’s their attempt at trying to redirect women to what they would consider to be appropriate sources. But on the other hand, for all the women who do have negative side effects on birth control, who then seek support from their medical health professional — these are the women who are doing what they’re supposed to do. They have this issue, they were told to talk to their doctor if they have an issue. How many women have had a reproductive health issue, an issue with their hormonal birth control, and they do what they’re supposed to do? They go to their medical doctor and they say, “Look, I’m having an issue with it.” Who are literally told it’s in their head, don’t worry about it, it’s normal, just keep taking it, we’ll switch you to another one. But they’re not believed, they’re not listened to, they’re not provided with an actual explanation as to why they’re experiencing these side effects. They often leave with a sense of hopelessness or helplessness.

I’ve sat around speaking in my group programs with an entire group of women, each of them telling me that they felt trapped on this medication. They went from one type of pill to another, to an IUD, to this, to that, and every time they had different side effects but none of them were good. And they eventually reached the end of their rope. And they felt like there was nothing they could do. And they were so fortunate to find that there was fertility awareness — a non-hormonal method that did not cause any side effects — to give them that option to actually be able to come off of this contraceptive method.

It’s also crazy to be recommending that women not question a medication that literally has death as a potential side effect. As I said in The Fifth Vital Sign — when you eat chicken or have a banana or whatever, it’s not like one of the side effects is potential death, like blood clots and stroke and pulmonary embolism. But with the pill, there is a percentage of women who, when they take it as directed, are going to literally die. That’s a fact. And when I was interviewed for The Business of Birth Control documentary, they interviewed actual family members of women who died in their 20s because they took the pill as directed.

Now, again, I don’t say this information to say no one should take the pill. I took the pill when I was in high school. But I share this information because it’s important for us to be able to have a conversation about it. It is crazy to me that anybody who questions this medication, cites reputable science about it, is going to be told that it’s just misinformation and they shouldn’t be talking about it — when we’re not even at a stage where it can be denied. There’s so much evidence. There are landslides of evidence. Each chapter I’ve written in any of my books about the pill has over 200 citations. This is not hearsay.

I always find it interesting that people get upset when you show them facts and data. Don’t shoot the messenger. It’s not me who created this drug, and it’s not me who did the peer-reviewed study of all these women who took it and discovered that all of the women who take it have a significant deficiency in these B vitamins. That’s just a fact. That’s just a thing that happens and they know that it happens.

So with that said, I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. It’s a little bit ranty. I feel like maybe it was just time for a good old-fashioned Lisa rant. If this topic interests you and you want to dive into the actual data — not just random chitchat, apparently uninformed misinformation — but if you’re actually wanting to dive into what the research has to say, I would highly encourage you to read The Fifth Vital Sign, particularly Chapters 7 and 8. Those chapters address hormonal contraceptives in detail, with all the citations listed. And of course, Real Food for Fertility, Chapter 7, does a deep dive into what the science has to say about hormonal contraceptives and the potential impact they can have on fertility. So with that said, I hope you have a wonderful week — whenever you’re tuning into the show — and of course, as always, until next time, be well and happy charting.