<![CDATA[Jezebel: pillheads]]> http://tags.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/jezebel.com.png <![CDATA[Jezebel: pillheads]]> http://jezebel.com/tag/pillheads http://jezebel.com/tag/pillheads <![CDATA[Your Birth Control Is Killing Unborn Babies, Fatheads]]> Lots of anti-birth control pill news on the wires today. The first story comes from the Economist by way of Canada: A Canuck scientist has found that extra estrogen, which can get into rivers and lakes through the toilet-flushed urine of birth control takers, kills fish. Karen Kidd, an ecotoxicologist at the University of New Brunswick, "poisoned" a small lake in northwest Ontario with estrogen, and she found that the smallest fish in that lake, "fathead minnows," were feminized because of the excess hormone. According to the Economist, "[The fathead's] sperm production was delayed and they started producing eggs. After two years of treatment, the fathead minnow population collapsed." The bigger fish eventually started having fertility problems as well, but it took much longer for the estrogen to permeate their populations.

As much as aquatic vertabrates are important to the ecosystem, of primary concern to pill-poppers is not getting knocked up. Our second story: Kroeger supermarket pharmacies are selling generic versions of Ortho Cyclen and Ortho Tri-Cyclen for a mere $9 per 28-pill pack. This is especially excellent news for college students, as the cost of birth control at universities had skyrocketed as a result of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.

Still, $9 is a sight less than you'd be paying for name-brand and newer drugs, like Seasonale, the pill that only gives you a period four times a year. Marie Claire, the magazine we loved to hate on earlier today reports that the brand is now being advertised on male-directed media properties like the pages of Maxim and Spike TV. "Maybe this is just a clever way to get guys who are skeeved out by the bloat and the mood swings to sell the Pill for them," MC's Sarah Z. Wexler concludes, since Seasonale will shorten your PMS time by 2/3. Don't submit! Think of the fishes!

A Poison Pill: Human Contraceptives Are Bad For Fish [The Economist]
Birth Control Pills For A Mere $9 A Month [US News & World Report]
A Birth Control Pill for Men [Marie Claire]

]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=359350&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Do Antidepressants Really Ruin Your Love Life?]]> Psychology Today has a trio of articles about antidepressants and love/sex that I feel uniquely qualified to comment on since I am both on antidepressants and in love (and having sex). [Braggart! -Ed.] The main article, "Sex, Love, and SSRIs" wonders whether selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (the class of drugs that includes Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil and others ) "compromise the ability to feel love," because SSRIs inhibit dopamine, which is also responsible for the feelings of elation and ecstasy that accompany falling in love. The author uses the anecdotal evidence of "Megan," whose sexual side effects ruined her relationship with high school sweetheart "Neil." The anecdote felt so weak (a high school love affair dissipating when the pair goes to separate colleges? You don't say!) that I wasn't surprised when she also used a seemingly dubious statistic to back it up: "Approximately 70 percent of people taking SSRIs suffer from sexual side effects."



Whoa, whoa wait. Back. It. Up. I've never experienced any sexual side effects, so I decided to do a little research to see if her stats held water. And just by doing a quick Google search, I found several articles refuting that 70 percent statistic. Take this article from the Harvard School of Public Health, which summarizes several studies on the sexual side effects of SSRI users and reports that the highest percentage of sexual side effects in any of the studies is 34%. (Strangely, the fear-mongering subhead of the Psychology Today article, "How SSRIs Wreak Havoc On Courtship", is just as misleading, as the article itself notes that a diligent shrink will work with a patient to find the right combination of meds that you know, doesn't clit-block an orgasm.)

But could I be calling bullshit on this study prematurely? Perhaps! So I'd like to see how the medicated Jezzies out there stack up to Psychology Today's statistics. Take our poll below, won't you?
I can't wait to hear what you pillheads are experiencing.

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Sex, Love, and SSRIs [Psychology Today]
My Boyfriend is on Zoloft [Psychology Today]
The Power of Love [Psychology Today]

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