Vaccine side effects leave women wondering: why are pills less safe?

This comparison was aimed at reassuring women of the safety of the vaccine. Instead, it aroused anger in some quarters — not about suspensions, but about the fact that most contraceptives available to women are hundreds of times more dangerous, but still seeing safer alternatives. not.

Vaccine-related blood clots were a dangerous type in the brain, but oral contraceptives increase the likelihood of blood clots in the legs and lungs. This is a point that many experts immediately pointed out. However, the distinction made little difference for some women.

“Everyone was worried about blood clots when they started putting a 14-year-old girl on the pill,” a woman wrote on Twitter.

“If contraception was done for men, it would be free with a bacon-like taste,” another said.

I’ve heard that some women shouldn’t complain because they have chosen to be risk-aware and contraceptive on social media and elsewhere.

Mia Brett, a legal history expert focused on race and sexuality at Stony Brook University in New York, said: “This is a very common reaction to women’s health care. We pointed out something and it was rejected.”

The rage of anger online was well known to women’s health professionals.

Dr. Eve Feinberg, a reproductive endocrinologist and infertility expert at Northwestern University, said: “All medicine has great sexual prejudice.”

Many Feinberg and online women admit that contraceptives control women’s childbirth, and the benefits far outweigh the harms.

31-year-old culture writer Rebecca Fishvine began tweeting about the inadequacy of oral contraceptives almost shortly after the announcement of the suspension.

Still, “contraception is an incredible invention. Thank God,” she said in an interview in April. “I will fight the person who tried to rob it.”

Contraceptives have also been improved over the years with intrauterine devices and oral options that provide ultra-low doses of estrogen.

“Overall, it’s incredibly safe,” Feinberg said. “Everything we do is at risk.”

However, Feinberg said it is important for healthcare providers to discuss risks with patients and guide them on the symptoms they care about. This is a conversation that many women have never experienced.

Kelly Tyrrell, a communications expert in Madison, Wisconsin, was 37 years old when a doctor discovered a potentially deadly blood clot in her lungs.

Tyrrell is an endurance athlete — witty, strong and not prone to anxiety. In early 2019, she began to wake up with pain in her left calf. After one particularly bad morning, an emergency treatment visit revealed that she had high blood levels of “D-dimer,” a protein fragment that indicates the presence of blood clots.

She had been taking oral contraceptives for 25 years, but none of the doctors made a relationship. Instead, given her age, health, and lack of other risk factors, her symptoms are likely not due to blood clots, they said. They instructed her to stretch her calf muscles and sent her home.

When I felt tight while running in Hawaii after my grandmother’s funeral, doctors said it was probably due to stress and anxiety. In July 2019, she finished a 100K race in Colorado and assumed her aching lungs and purple lips were the result of a 19-hour run in the highlands.

However, she knew something was having a serious problem when she was out of breath after climbing a short staircase on the morning of October 24, 2019.

This time, after eliminating heart problems, doctors scanned her lungs and found multiple blood clots. Some had blocked blood flow to part of her right lung.

“I immediately shed tears,” recalled Tyrrell.

The doctor put her in a course of anticoagulants — and told her not to touch estrogen again. Tyrrell has switched to a copper IUD. Over time, she added, the incident escalated to a burst of anger updated by Johnson & Johnson news.

“Part of my anger was that the medications I took to control childbirth threatened my mortality rate,” she said. “I’m angry that I wasn’t better counseled about the risk, or even what to look for.”

Emily Farris, 36, was prescribed oral contraceptives at the age of 8 to help with migraine headaches. In all the conversations she had with many doctors over the years, “I never had a blood clot,” she said in an interview.

On Twitter, some critics pointed out that inserts with contraceptive packs clearly explain the risk of blood clots.

Faris, a political scientist at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, said:

Most drug inserts have a long list of possible side effects, “it’s a heavy burden for people to classify medical research and what probabilities and statistics mean,” she said. Told.

Even with a PhD education, “I can’t assess those risks,” Faris added. “I think most Americans need someone to translate what a legitimate kind of pamphlet is into real terms.”

For Tyrrell, the elucidation was too late. Her lungs haven’t felt the same since she was diagnosed, but I don’t know if it’s due to prolonged damage from a previous blood clot, a new blood clot to worry about, or just age. It doesn’t come to my mind anymore. “

© 2021 New York Times