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by Sherrill Sellman, N.D.
Medicating Young Women
 he 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 within her ovaries,
uterus and menstrual flow. The venerable
father of modern medicine, Hippocrates,
posed the question, “What is woman?”
and then supplied the answer: “Disease!”
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. The science of medicine
is notoriously misogynistic.
The sentiment that periods are a disease—or at least a most unwelcome,
unproven and unsafe physiological
process—seems to reflect a growing
trend among members of the medical
profession. They promote new scienti.c
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 gynecology,
obstetrics and human reproduction
in Brazil, as recounted in his book, Is
Menstruation Obsolete? 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 arrived at such conclusions.)
On the other hand, modern women,
who start menstruating earlier and spend
less time pregnant, have more than 400
menstrual cycles. As a self-proclaimed
champion of women’s freedom, Dr.
Coutinho 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 pregnancy. From a medical
point of view he sees menstruation
as a failed process, having no bene.cial
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 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.
Dr. Coutinho’s theory has many physicians
and researchers 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 (not a real
menstrual cycle).
he new continuous contraceptive
pill Seasonale, which will make
its debut this year, is the
pharmaceutical’s answer to menstrual
obsolescence.
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?
Shocking Facts about the Pill
Since 1960, when the FDA approved it for
contraception, the Pill has been one of
the most popular methods of preventing
pregnancy. But in recent years, oral contraceptives
have increasingly been prescribed
for adolescent girls and young
women for many non-contraceptive purposes.
There is no doubt that doctors
consider the Pill the best solution to
address a long list of young women’s
hormonal difficulties.
he Pill has been touted by the
medical profession as one of the
most effective and powerful preventive
medicines around. Far beyond its
initial purpose as a contraceptive drug
for short-term use, the Pill has become
the darling of the medical world for
treating just about any hormonal
problem a girl may have, and then some.
To date, the Pill is prescribed to help
teenagers attack acne, regulate their
periods, eliminate painful periods, treat
PMS, endometriosis, migraines, ovarian
cysts and polycystic ovaries. Girls as
young as 13 are now prescribed the Pill
for treating acne.
But is it?
In December 2002, the U.S. government
published the 10th edition of its
biennial “Report on Carcinogens.” Added
to the list of known carcinogens were all
steroidal estrogens used in estrogen
replacement therapy and oral contraceptives.
The gravity of this finding cannot be
overstated: all estrogens have now been
proven, unequivocally, to fuel cancer.
To make matters even worse, in 1977
norethisterone, the most common progestin in a progestin/estrogen combination
of oral contraceptives, and other
synthetic progestins used for injections
and implants, were listed as known
human carcinogens.
Is it arrogance or just plain ignorance
to believe that women are often healthier
if they are on the Pill? The fact is that the
ingredients of the Pill, whatever its formulation,
are known to cause cancer.
How can any carcinogenic drug be
deemed to be health promoting? Studies
have now linked estrogens and progestins
to breast, ovarian, endometrial,
cervical, skin, brain and lung cancers. Far
from being safe and risk free, these
steroid hormones are, in reality, dangerous
and potentially life-threatening
drugs that cause grave harm to women.
Most women taking the contraceptive
pill have no idea that they are putting
dangerous chemicals into their bodies,
nor warned of its potential side effects.
Pathologizing Menstruation
The Pill literally stops natural menstruation.
Bleeding only occurs each month
because the synthetic hormones are not
taken for seven days of the cycle, which
causes a shedding of the uterine lining.
The bleeding that occurs would be more
accurately termed withdrawal bleeding,
not menstruation. In fact, there is
nothing natural about taking the Pill. The
action of the Pill is in fact a female form
of castration because it stops the natural
reproductive cycle. Sometimes the
ovaries will become permanently damaged,
resulting in infertility.
All contraception formulas may also
increase the risk of coronary artery disease,
immune dysfunction, liver toxicity,
stroke, blood clot, osteoporosis,
gum disease, high blood pressure and
ectopic pregnancy. The side effects
include nausea, vomiting, migraine
type headache, breast tenderness,
allergies, weight increase, changes in
sex drive, depression, head hair loss,
facial hair growth and increased incidence
of vaginitis. Also, women with a
history of epilepsy, migraine, asthma
or heart disease may find that their
symptoms worsen. Many of these
effects may persist long after discontinuation
of the Pill.
In addition, the Pill causes serious
nutritional deficiencies of vitamin B1, B2,
B6, folic acid, B12, vitamins C, E, K, zinc,
selenium, magnesium and the amino
acid tyrosine.
Progestins make their own mischief.
As well as being carcinogenic, they raise
bad cholesterol and blood pressure, distort
sugar metabolism, bone loss,
depression, compromise the immune
system and create undesirable masculinizing
effects.
 eedless to say, the pathologizing
of women’s menstrual cycles and
hormonal imbalances through the
pervasive and persuasive advertising
campaigns initiated by both the medical
profession and pharmaceutical industries
is seriously jeopardizing the physical
and emotional well-being of young
women.
With the arrival of the continuous low
dose Pill, normal menstrual cycles are
now fair game for drug treatment. This
has great appeal to young women who
have been brainwashed into believing
that menstrual cycles are indeed a
painful curse, not to mention a great
inconvenience.
utritionally depleted diets, stress
and environmental toxins—the
real culprits of menstrual irregularities
and hormonal imbalances—have
been all but ignored by doctors. Why not
just use a quick fix to shut down the
whole system? Take a pill! Haven’t we
been here before?
Reminiscent of recent HRT revelations,
the mass prescribing of the continuous
low dose Pill—without any long-term
studies undertaken—amounts to a dangerous
experiment being conducted on
young women.
Inventing a New Disorder
Unfortunately, it’s not only the obsolescence
of menstrual cycles that the drug
companies have on their agenda. There
is another way that young women are
being pathologized and medicalized for
their natural cycles.
The pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly is
promoting its new drug, Sarafem, as a
miracle pill for women suffering with a
new mental disorder called premenstrual
dysphoric disorder (PMDD). Never heard
of it? It’s no surprise, since it was only
concocted as a psychiatric disorder
about three years ago. PMDD, is this
mental disorder which the American
Psychiatric Association (APA) listed in the
appendix of its Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders—the DSM-IV,
the bible of mental diseases.
PMDD which is purported to affect 3–10
percent of all menstruating women, is
actually the new and improved version of
premenstrual syndrome (PMS). To be
diagnosed with PMDD, a woman must
experience five or more of the following
PMDD symptoms: depressed mood, anxiety,
decreased interest in activities,
feeling sad, hopeless, self-deprecating,
tense, anxious or on edge, persistent irritability,
anger, increased interpersonal
conflicts, feeling fatigued, lethargic or
lacking in energy, marked changes in
appetite, a subjective feeling of being
overwhelmed or out of control, and physical
symptoms such as breast tenderness,
swelling or bloating.
Lilly reports that, “Doctors can treat
PMDD with a pretty pink-and-lavender pill
called Sarafem—the first and only prescription
medication for PMDD.”
Actually, Sarafem is better known by
another name, Prozac.
It is no coincidence that the year
Sarafem was listed as the only approved
drug for this new female mental disorder
coincided with the year that the patent on
Prozac would run out. However, with the
acceptance of the Prozac clone Sarafem
as the only approved treatment for PMDD,
Lilly’s patent on Prozac was extended
another seven years. Not to be left out in
the cold, all antidepressants have now
been approved to treat PMDD.
Are women once again being manipulated,
misinformed and mistreated in
order to fill the drug companies’ coffers?
But there is an even a more draconian
side to this.
A Strong Warning about Prozac,
Paxil and Zoloft
Researchers in Canada reportedly found
that women who took Paxil saw their risk
of breast cancer increase sevenfold.
Further studies have shown that
Prozac not only promotes tumors but
also causes proliferation of malignant
cells by blocking the body’s innate
ability to kill tumor cells. There is
mounting evidence that these drugs can
cause breast cancer and other forms of
cancer such as brain cancer. SSRIS are
also endocrine disrupters, increasing
estrogen levels.
 ther side effects include neurological
disorders such as disfiguring
facial and whole-body
tics that can indicate brain damage,
sexual dysfunction in up to 60 percent of
users, debilitating withdrawal symptoms
including visual hallucinations,
electric shock like sensations in the
brain, and dizziness, nausea and anxiety.
The SSRIS—Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil—
possess another trait, they have the
ability to turn normal people into raging
suicidal murderers.
Three years before Prozac was
approved, the FDA had such serious
reservations about Prozac’s safety that it
refused to approve the antidepressant.
The reason was that studies showed that
previously non-suicidal patients who
took the drug had a .ve-fold higher rate
of suicide and suicide attempts than
those on older antidepressants.
The growing incidence of depression
and anxiety among girls means that
more SSRI scripts will be written. Teenage
girls are further caught in a Catch 22,
since depression is also a side effect of
hormonal imbalances as well as the Pill.
How many girls and young women diagnosed
with PMDD and then put on
Prozac/Sarafem or one of the many
other SSRIS will one day find themselves
facing a breast cancer diagnosis?
Restoring Young Women to Health
It is truly terrifying to think that drug
companies are enthusiastically targeting
young women and teenage girls as a
lucrative market for the Pill and antidepressant
drugs. We must no longer allow
young women to be hypnotized by the
rhetoric of the medical and pharmaceutical
professions.
The real goal must be to promote
health. Menstruation is a powerful
expression of a woman’s true self. The
female reproductive system is delicate
and can easily teeter out of balance when
deprived of adequate nutrition or put
under duress.
ur daughters, instead of resorting
to taking a pill to mask important
warning signs, must be taught to
make healthy choices through diet and
lifestyle. Competent holistic health practitioners
are important allies in regaining
hormonal health.
Even more challenging is the task of
healing deeply held cultural myths. If
women are truly to regain and maintain
their health and appreciation for their
bodies, old myths and superstitions
must be exorcised from our collective
subconscious. The erroneous beliefs
that are held about the female anatomy
are passed on from generation to generation.
Our daughters are the recipients
of this legacy—unless we choose to
teach them otherwise. By healing these
misconceptions, women can truly honor
and appreciate their bodies as an important
prerequisite for overall hormonal
balance.
Sherrill Sellman is the author of the best-selling
book Hormone Heresy: What
Women Must Know About Their Hormones.
Her new book, Mothers: Protect Your
Daughters From Breast Cancer, will be
released soon. Visit her Web site
www.ssellman.com to subscribe to her
Hormone Wise e-Digest or e-mail her at
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