The Medical Assault on Young Women

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The Medical Assault on Young Women by Sherrill Sellman

 

My grand daughter went to a gyno for painful periods and he

prescribed birth control pills. I found out about a month after she

had been on them. I asked my daughter in law if the doctor had

asked her even on question about her diet and she said no. And I

said, well the choice is yours and then I told her the down side of

bc pills and told her that if she had her daughter stop drinking

soda's and eating so much sugar, that the painful periods would

stop. So she talked to my grand daughter and told her the logic and

she agreed to try it and low and behold, no painful period.

 

All the sodas and sugar were using up all her calcium and so she had

problems short term that would have been bigger problems long

term. Glad she is starting to learn this stuff early.

 

Why would a doctor not know as much as I know?

 

Very sad to think about all the young women who don't have anyone in

their family that has a clue.

 

Blessings

Donna

 

 

http://www.nexusmagazine.com/YoungWomen.html

 

 

 

The Medical Assault on Young Women by Sherrill Sellman

 

 

Whether to control painful periods or even acne, young women are

increasingly being prescribed the contraceptive Pill and

antidepressant drugs, despite the cost to their long-term hormonal

and mental health.

-

Excerpted from Nexus Magazine, Volume 10, Number 2 (February-March

2003)

 

PO Box 30, Mapleton Qld 4560 Australia. editor

Telephone: +61 (0)7 5442 9280; Fax: +61 (0)7 5442 9381

From our web page at: www.nexusmagazine.com

 

The Berlin Wall of hormone replacement therapy came tumbling down

in July 2002 when the most prestigious study ever conducted on HRT

found that the steroidal hormones, oestrogen and synthetic

progestins caused breast cancer, strokes and blood clots. It's been

a downhill slide for HRT (and drug profits) ever since.

 

The real lesson from that study is that, for 40 years, menopausal

women were in fact the uninformed guinea pigs trialling dangerous

hormonal drugs that made an unprecedented fortune for drug

manufacturers. The world was shocked with the findings from the

study, and millions of angry women defected from the HRT ranks.

 

Women and many doctors had been cleverly convinced that menopause

was an endocrinopathy--an oestrogen deficiency disease. Women were

further advised that they must be saved from nature's inherent

design fault--the total decline and disintegration of their hormonal

health as well as their faculties--with toxic, untested steroid

hormones.

 

The folly of medicalising menopausal women has at last been

revealed. Unfortunately, the use of untested and dangerous steroidal

hormones and other drugs still continues. This time, however, the

medical fraternity and pharmaceutical corporations have set their

sights on young women.

 

 

Medicalising our Daughters

 

Being a teenage girl is challenging at the best of times. These

days, it seems to be even tougher for both teenagers and their

parents. Peer and social pressures, economic concerns, health

problems, school work and family tensions all tilt the stress

barometer into the dangerous red zone. Skipping meals, eating junk

food and going on starvation diets is a way of life for teenagers

these days. More than ever, teenagers seem to be burning the candle

at both ends.

 

The behaviours and decisions that young women make directly affect

their physical and emotional well-being for the short and long term.

As a result, their hormonal health is under siege. Premenstrual

syndrome (PMS), painful periods, irregular or absent periods,

ovarian cysts, polycystic ovaries, fibrocystic breast disease

(lumpy, painful breasts), endometriosis, hormonal migraines, acne,

allergies, fatigue and mood swings are occurring in young women at

epidemic rates. Many girls try to ignore their health problems,

hoping they will disappear. Others schedule an appointment with

their doctors. Odds are, they will leave the office with either a

prescription for a drug or some variation of the Pill.

 

Modern science, rather than perceiving hormonal imbalances as

aberrations created by the many abuses of modern-day living, has

convinced women that the underlying problem is menstruation itself,

and that natural reproductive cycles are dangerous and disease-

producing and must be medicated. Women are also told that their

reproductive system has become the enemy and is the primary cause

for all their physical problems and emotional turmoil. The solution:

shut it down. The method: steroidal hormones.

 

A long history predates this particular perspective. The venerable

Greek fathers of medicine held similar views. Hippocrates posed the

question, " What is woman? " , and then supplied the answer: " Disease! "

He also argued that fermentation in the blood precipitated

menstruation, because women lacked the " male ability to dissipate

the impurities in the blood gently and sweetly through

perspiration " . To his way of thinking, menstrual blood had

a " noisome smell " . Galen, another famous Greek philosopher, believed

that menstrual blood was the residue of blood in food, which women,

having inferior bodies, were unable to digest.1

 

The notion that menstruation is a rather unpleasant, if not

downright toxic, process has been around for a very long time. So

has the belief that the source of all women's suffering resides with

her ovaries, uterus and menstrual flow. The science of medicine is

notoriously misogynist.

 

While it would be comforting to think that living in the 21st

century guaranteed a more enlightened appreciation of women's

physiology, it would appear that we may have to wait another century

or two for that momentous event finally to occur. When it comes to

understanding and appreciating the wonders of the female physiology,

modern medicine is moving at a galloping snail's pace.

 

A recent syndicated column by a highly respected Australian

medical doctor was titled " Period Disease " . A question from a reader

was posed to him: " My doctor told me recently that monthly periods

are now regarded by some as a 'disease' and totally preventable. Is

this true? " His sagacious reply: " Why should women be burdened with

loss of valuable blood each month, which is often not manufactured

in similar amounts, often leading to anaemia and chronic tiredness?

Taking the active ingredients of the oral contraceptive pill daily,

with no seven-day break, solves the problems. " The short answer to

that question of whether monthly periods are a disease was a

wholehearted " Yes " .2

 

The sentiment that periods are a disease--or at least a most

unwelcome, unproven and unsafe physiological process--seems to

reflect a growing trend amongst members of the medical profession.

They promote new scientific developments that can supposedly

liberate women from their age-long debilitation, menstruation.

 

Leading the charge to stamp out menstruation is the work of Dr

Elsimar Coutinho, Professor of Gynaecology, Obstetrics and Human

Reproduction at the Universidade Federal da Bahia in Brazil, as

recounted in his book, Is Menstruation Obsolete?3

 

Dr Coutinho argues that regular monthly bleeding is not

the " natural " state of women and that it actually places them at

risk of several medical conditions of varying severity. The author

maintains that while menstruation may be culturally significant, it

is not medically meaningful. He asserts that prehistoric women had

fewer than 160 periods in their lifetime. (The mind boggles at how

rigorous the scientific method actually was in the conduct of that

research.) On the other hand, modern women, who start menstruating

earlier and spend less time pregnant, have more than 400 menstrual

cycles. As the champion of women's freedom, he believes that 21st

century women should be able to choose the timing and frequency of

their periods, just as they can now choose the timing and frequency

of childbirth. From a medical point of view he sees menstruation as

a failed process, having no beneficial effects; indeed, it can even

be harmful to many women's health.

 

In a nutshell, Dr Coutinho's work suggests that the most medically

advanced " treatment " for menstruation would be its total cessation

in all women of reproductive age. The correct medical terminology is

chemical castration.

 

The intricate and profoundly complicated female reproductive

system, which has undergone many hundreds of thousands of years of

evolutionary fine-tuning, has now been declared obsolete. Like a top-

class magician, medical science now professes the rationale and the

means to make menstruation disappear completely! The solution is

simple: just give all women a continuous low-dose birth control

pill. What progress!

 

Dr Coutinho's theory has many physicians and researchers waxing

lyrical, agreeing that there's no reason why women can't opt for

fewer periods by extending the use of the Pill. Whether for easing

health problems such as migraines or eliminating the inconvenience

and messiness not to mention the expense of menstruation, the Pill

can now be taken continuously for 84 days followed by a seven-day

break. In this manner, women will only have a bleed four times a

year.

 

Dr Freedolph Anderson, lead researcher of the trials for the new

continuous contraceptive pill Seasonale, which will make its debut

in 2004, says: " We have more than 30 years' experience of prolonged

period suppression with [intravenous contraceptive] Depo-Provera; we

know there are no health deficits and that women don't develop

gynaecological problems from not menstruating. " 4

 

Dr John Eden, Associate Professor of Reproductive Endocrinology at

the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, reiterates

that point of view: " Women are often healthier if they are on the

PillÉ " 5

 

So, now that medicine has conquered menstruation and drug

companies' glossy marketing campaigns have succeeded in extolling

the Pill's ever growing virtuosity, what has actually been achieved

for all the young women who are being seduced by these promises? Are

women really healthier on the Pill? Has prolonged period suppression

with Depo-Provera been perfectly safe over those 30-plus years? Is

this really a great victory, or a catastrophe of unparalleled

proportions for modern women?

 

1. Angier, Natalie, Woman: An Intimate Geography, Houghton Mifflin

Company, New

York, 1999, p. 94

2. Wright, Dr James, The Gold Coast Bulletin, Wednesday, June 26,

2002, p. 31

3. Coutinho, Elsimar M. and Segal, Sheldon J., Is Menstruation

Obsolete?,

Oxford University Press, USA, 1999

4. James-Enger, Kelly and Brown, Emma-Charlotte, " Which Pill Can

Stop Your

Period and Prevent Cancer? " , She Magazine (Australia), April 2002,

p. 107

5. ibid.

 

 

About the Author:

Sherrill Sellman is the author of the best-selling book, Hormone

Heresy: What Women Must Know About Their Hormones. Her new book,

Mothers: Prevent Your Daughters From Getting Breast Cancer, will be

released in April 2003. She is a regular contributor to NEXUS. Her

articles on the Pill and HRT were published in NEXUS 4/04-05 and

9/01 respectively.

 

Sherrill is on a national Australian lecture tour from March to

May 2003. Visit her website at http://www.ssellman.com for details

about this and other tours for 2003, or email her at golight@

earthlink.net. To to Sherrill Sellman's monthly

HormoneWise e-Digest, send an email to hwise.

 

Sherrill Sellman © 2002

GetWell International

PO Box 690416

Tulsa, OK 74169-0416, USA

Email: golight

Website: http://www.ssellman.com