FDA to require contraceptives to contain new warnings

According to a press release issued today, the FDA is requiring a new warning on all over the counter stand-alone vaginal contraceptive and spermicidal products. This warning is to inform the public that the spermicide nonoxynol 9 doesn't prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV.

While this, on the one hand, makes sense - the clinical studies in Africa and Thailand that the press release refers to did show that nonoxynol 9 can irritate mucus membranes, actually increasing the risk for a variety of infections. But on the other hand, do people actually commonly believe, again as the press release suggests, that nonoxynol 9 is an effective barrier against STDs? They very clearly are a contraception, but doesn't our STD education - or even separate HIV education - explain the concept of bodily fluids transmitting infection?

So I admit that while I am neutral on the new packaging (I don't have a lot of faith that people read the directions and warnings in any great detail), I'm sort of baffled with its justification.
-Kelly

Birth Control to Reduce HIV in Africa

I don't know which to be more horrified about in this article entitled the 'Best-Kept Secret' for HIV-Free Africa:

- that researchers realize that birth control can have a great impact on reducing the number of children born with HIV in Africa, but they can't do anything about it, because of the PEPFAR's ban on distribution of contraceptives or family planning;

or the sentence where women are treated like a piece of property: "The man who, in accordance with local tradition, inherited her after her husband died refused to use condoms";

or the comments to the article that say that this is not 'our' (read 'America's') problem. As if we lived in a bubble.

It is a painful reminder of just how far we still have to go when it comes to basic human rights and mankind's inhumanity to man (and woman).

Not Just a Price Increase: The Human Cost of Contraceptive Prices

After more than a decade of decreasing birth rates among teenagers, the birth rate among teenagers 15 to 19 in the United States rose for the first time since 1991, according to a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control. Births among teenagers tend to lead to poorer health outcomes for both the young mothers and their babies. Not surprisingly, the report further inflamed the already heated debate surrounding “abstinence only” versus “comprehensive” sex education and ignored crucial access issues. Sexually active women, especially young women, are at increasing risk for unintended pregnancy and unmarried pregnancy due to constricted access to effective contraception on a number of fronts. First, the increase in the number of states limiting teens’ access to confidential reproductive health services, legislating parental notification laws not only for abortion but also for contraception despite demonstrated reductions in teen pregnancy rates. Second, women’s and girls’ reproductive health is endangered by pharmacists’ refusals to fill legal prescriptions for emergency contraception and oral contraception, their refusals increasingly protected by so-called “conscience” legislation that sacrifices women’s and girls’ health to ideology. No lobby no presence. Third, the cost of contraception has increased beyond the means of college students. In July the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid issued regulations that remove the incentives for drug companies to provide deeply discounted prices to college health clinics; a one-month supply of oral contraceptives, formerly $3-$5 at college health clinics, now costs between $40 and $50 for name brands and $15 to $20 for generics. The price increase was widely expected to cause students to switch to less reliable forms of birth control (oral contraceptives are used by 39% of women in college according to the American College Health Association) or to cease using birth control due to lack knowledge about alternatives. Some college health clinics have tried to subsidize a portion of the price increases; others have ceased to offer oral contraceptives altogether.

We’ve lost sight of why we are having the sex education debate in the first place: because of its serious implications for women’s and girls’ health and well being. The ideal of access is not exhausted by having the best available information; we also need to assure the material conditions of making that information effective.
RNF