Natural Family Planning

I’m grateful for drugs. I really am. I take them, some as prescription and some over the counter. They’re not my friends, per se, but in a fallen world we sometimes–oftentimes–need them. But guess what? For every action there’s a reaction, for every cause an effect, and it’s not news to us that drugs–pharmaceuticals, prescriptions, our little chemic companions, or whatever you call them–have side effects.

However, our friends at Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals are so concerned about women’s wellness with completely altruistic motives that they have created a birth control, evidently, with no side effects. Amazing, right!? OMG, as the kids say. Why is this not on the front page of every paper and being quoted on every blog? I mean, by the way their product was marketed, it looks like not only will it cure my PMS but it might even stop global warming, create the perfect bra, *and* discover who really killed JFK. Nobel Peace Prize, watch out!

Wait a second…I didn’t read the fine print at the bottom of the page, in light gray. Way to go, marketing professionals at Bayer. Turns out, not only did the FDA read the fine print, they realized Yaz wasn’t FDA approved to cure everything. Not only that, but the FDA in concert with attorneys general of 27 states (um, why not 50?) have required Bayer to run $20 Million worth of new advertising over the next six years correcting the misleading advertisements, explaining that women shouldn’t take Yaz just to correct their acne.

Right. Because Yaz is the first birth control brand to promise things either they couldn’t deliver or that mislead consumers. The only one. How many teens are on the Pill because they’ve got acne or 32 day periods or cramps?

This isn’t the first warning for Bayer. They bought the makers of Yasmin, the predecessor to Yaz, who were warned in 2003 for implying in their advertising that their BC was superior to all other pills, and maximizing the positive side effects while minimizing the potentially dangerous side effects.

Right now I’m thinking of a certain Dr. E in Austin Powers saying, “Twenty meeelllyon dollars,” thinking that the world million will knock us off our rockers. I’m thinking that’s not enough, and somebody else agrees,

Bruce L. Lambert, a professor of pharmacy administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago, lauded the F.D.A. for insisting this time that Bayer run a corrective advertising campaign. But he referred to the corrective $20 million ad campaign for Yaz as “chump change” and “just the cost of doing business.”

“I don’t think it is likely to stop,” he said, “unless there are more significant consequences.” (NY Times Advertising Section, 2/11/09)

What is a more significant consequence? Death perhaps? Probably not, since a number of women have already died as a result of using the patch and other birth controls. Did you know the makers of the patch continue to settle out of court with families? What’s 1.25 million times ten to a multi-billion dollar industry? That’s right, Mr. Lambert. Chump change.

I will close with the great wisdom of  lady doctors. Doctors of comedy, that is.