I find myself revisiting menstruation as a writing topic more often than I intend. Sometimes these are angry articles (remember my diatribe about Sarafem a couple years ago?), other times they’re more humorous (remember that 1997 classic, “Instead,” about a then-new menstrual product?). This one I’m about to write is of the “angry” category. I am currently pissed off about Seasonale™.

Summary of Seasonale™: new brand of birth control pills that results in women only having four periods a year…thus, Seasonale™. See? They even tried to make it sound nice and organic, as if being artificially pumped full of hormones without pause for 90 days at a time were as natural as dancing through a field of poppies on a sunny day. Ah…Seasonale™! I feel cleaner and less inconvenienced “down there” already!

I will be the first to admit that I’m biased when it comes to women’s health care issues, and especially menstrual issues. My mother was a practicing midwife for years, and is a big proponent of the miracle that is the female reproductive system. I was drawing little pictures of fallopian tubes in third grade. I got a special “coming of age” ceremony when I was 13 (much to my misery and horror).

That said, this article from The Stranger, Seattle’s typically beloved-by-me snarky alternative newsweekly, pissed me off. You should read it now.

I was angry from the byline of the piece (”The FDA just approved a new birth control pill that will allow women to have periods only four times a year–just as nature intended”) all the way through the last sentence (”Not anymore, girls, not unless you want to.”).

The “just as nature intended” line is a dig at those who would argue about the healthiness of blocking menstruation for such long durations. Proponents (read as: pharmaceutical company shills) of Seasonale™ argue that women have more periods now than in the past because we have so few children. The article accurately points out, “Women in 1900 had around 150 periods in a lifetime; women today have closer to 450.” Whether there’s anything particularly wrong with that (how did all those non-childbearing spinsters COPE back in 1900? Did they all DIE TERRIBLY BLOODY MENSTRUAL DEATHS? Was it JUST AWFUL?), and whether having yourself on hormones 332 days out of the year is a “solution” to a dubious “problem” is a much larger issue. [Follow up links providing two perspectives on this issue: frequent menstruation linked to cancer! | Long-term use of the pill linked to breast cancer!]

Especially shady to me were the quotes from the University of Washington’s Dr. Leslie Miller who runs a website called noperiod.com. Here’s one:

Dr. Miller often prescribes continuous-cycle pills for women who experience a lot of herpes outbreaks, yeast infections, and other problems with their vulvas–”just to make the genital area feel better,” she says.

Oh, that’s smart. “Doctor, I have a yeast infection/viral outbreak. I don’t feel good about my genital area.” “Oh! Here patient, TAKE THESE MOOD-ALTERING HORMONES EVERY DAY to treat that occasional pesky fungal infection/incurable viral outbreak.” WHAT?! Wouldn’t it be nice if American doctors actually treated women who don’t feel good about their genitals with, say, a little counseling to address how to make that vulva “feel better”? I’m stupefied. It’s like when my grandfather got a viral infection, and my grandmother complained, “The antibiotics they gave him just aren’t doing anything!” Let’s stop and be amazed. I’ll get back to why Dr. Miller’s thoughts on menstrual suppression can’t be trusted in a minute. First let me finish my critique of the article.

Paragraphs like this made want to hurt myself:

Why do so many women feel like suffering is part of their essential makeup? They can’t really feel responsible for Eve, can they? Dr. Miller reports getting plenty of nasty calls and e-mails from self-described feminists who say basically, “Periods are what makes a woman a woman.” So we should have periods as nature intended–oh, and the childbirth-without-drugs movement has convinced scores of women that suffering is natural. Is suffering and being “natural” a woman thing? No one complains that Bob Dole is promoting an unnatural treatment–Viagra–for “erectile dysfunction.” Instead Dole is lauded for being honest and speaking up about a “natural problem.” You’d never hear anyone say, “Sorry your dick won’t work. Just deal with it. It’s natural.”

First things first: I do say “Sorry your dick won’t work. Just deal with it.” I find Viagra (and its marketing techniques) creepy. Next? No, I don’t like suffering. Do I think the answer to suffering involves pumping myself full of hormones that I purchase from an enormous creepy industry that tries to convince me I’m fucked up to build their bottom line? HELL NO! And don’t even get me started on the angle this writer takes about this supposed “childbirth-without-drugs movement,” as she calls it. The United States’ record-high rates of cesarean section and other over-invasive birthing techniques are an international anomaly compared to other first-world nations.

However, I did like that the article included Susan Rako’s quote from this book: “Manipulating women’s reproductive hormonal chemistry for the purpose of menstrual suppression would be the largest uncontrolled experiment in the history of medical science.” AMEN! Sadly, the author of the article seems to give this opposing viewpoint only a passing glance before dismissing it.

It’s hard for me to be fully articulate in my concerns with Seasonale™. I just get angry and reactionary and want to kick something. (Oh, it must be those damn pesky hormones again! Quick! Someone get me some Sarafem™! I’m angry!) Part of my cynicism is this: if the recommendations for “menstrual-free” living were coming from an international health organization, I might give them some consideration. But the people who stand to profit from Seasonale™ are massive pharmaceutical companies. Think about it: if they can get every woman already on birth control pills to buy seven more pills a month, the income potential is fantastic! Yes! And the allure of only four periods a year would probably woo some new customers too! Yes! Get that Dr. Leslie Miller on the phone — we need to write her a check to talk about how much she supports this idea!

According to this Seattle Post-Intelligencer article about menstruation suppression, “research, underwritten by pill maker Wyeth Laboratories, was conducted by Dr. Leslie Miller.” Seasonale™ is made by Barr Laboratories, which recently acquired Wyeth. Update: Thanks to Susan Rako, who corrected me on this point. Dr. Leslie Miller’s research is funded by Wyeth-Ayerst, who are a major manufacturer of birth control pills. Barr acquired some of Wyeth’s products, but Seasonale™ is not one of them. Wyeth is, however, clearly working on their own menstrual suppression product, as indicated by Dr. Miller’s current research for them. (Notice how the name of that document is “FDA Information Sheet,” indicating that the research is in pursuit of an FDA approval of a Seasonale™-like menstrual suppression product.) Clearly, Dr. Leslie Miller is not an objective medical perspective on the issue, as she is funded by a company that stands to profit from menstrual suppression. Why, I’ve never heard of the pharmaceutical industry doing that before! Groan…

In my effort to articulate some of my thoughts, I had a conversation about the issue with my mother. Here was her response to The Stranger’s article:

Because we modern women have lost the connection to the spiritual aspects of our bleeding time, the arguments for suppressing it seem logical and reasonable. And I don’t know that it would necessarily goof up the body any more than taking the pill in its current regime already does. In any case most modern women are already goofed up and disconnected from their bodies for a variety of cultural reasons and are not using their “Moontime” in a spiritually deepening way. But, as you know, I think the less we mess with our nature rhythms the better, whether we understand their deeper significance or not.

Modern medicine and pharmaceutical industries are always trying to convince women that somehow our bodies aren’t quite right and can be improved upon thanks to the wonders they (the industries) come up with. This attitude alone contributes to the disconnection and disassociation most women feel already from their female bodies and cycles. Whether this latest idea of suppressing menstruation makes the situation any worse than it already is doubtful; it’s just more of the same. And, of course, some women may be helped by this somehow. Nothing is absolutely bad or wrong.

More importantly, it seems essential to help women get re-connected to the power and mystery of their woman cycles somehow, so they can begin to find their woman-wisdom and tap into the ancient woman-power that is available to each of us. Taking time once a month to connect with this during the bleeding time seems very valuable for those that choose to explore this. But most women do not make this choice, out of ignorance and lack of guidance. So the medical system steps in and offers to just eliminate the whole mess–I’m sure that’s attractive to many, many women these days, which is a sad statement of the truth of our disconnection.

I had a conversation about the issue with my girlfriends. One brought up a story she’d heard on NPR about Monsanto corn pushing some GM corn on a group of indigenous farmers in South America. I didn’t hear the article, so I can’t quote it directly or vouch for its validity, the gist was this:

Monsanto: We’ve tested this new breed of corn for seven years! It’s tested very well!
Farmer: Yeah, and we’ve been “testing” this natural breed of corn by growing it for 5,000 years. Suck me.

That quote about summarizes how I feel about Seasonale™. I don’t espouse a great love of what my mother calls “moontime” and I simply call “my period.” But I do respect it. Do I like the crippling menstrual cramps I get every month that necessitate my never going anywhere (ANYWHERE!) without 1000 mg of emergency Ibuprofen at my disposal? No. Do I think being on birth control pills 92% of my year is the way to deal with that pain? No. That’s what the Ibuprofen is for.