The Bitter Pill?

The Telegraph reports on some of the health risks associated with some contraceptive pills. I'm not sure such information has been widely available until now. There is doubtless much we are not told about a great deal of pharmaceutical products in terms of adverse side effects. I've never heard about any dangers with the pill before but I do sometimes wonder how strange it is that in an age obsessed with health and organic food, that few publicly challenge or question the fact that women are encouraged to pump their bodies with hormones, chemicals and pills that alter quite dramatically, the body's natural fertility cycle...This article suggests that if the pill were a brand of margarine, it would have been removed from the shelves long ago, yet it is sold as 'reproductive health'.

In the first study claiming to conclusively rank the health risks associated with the different types of contraceptive pill, researchers found that some raised the chances of developing clots like deep vein thrombosis (DVT) by twice as much as others. 

While all types of the oral contraceptive increase the risk of a clot, some combinations of hormones are worse than others. Researchers warn that many women are not using the safest type to minimise their chance of clots like DVT, a blood clot in the leg or the lungs. 

The study found that "second generation" pills first used in the 1970s, such as Microgynon, which contained low levels of the female sex hormone oestrogen combined with a second hormone levonorgestrel, were the safest. 

Newer "third generation" pills, which have been available since the 1980s, which contained a hormone called desogestrel, carried twice the risk of DVT than the second generation medication...[For full story click here]...