Healthy Skepticism Library item: 2681
Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.
Publication type: news
Check E.
"I really hate my period"
Nature ( News at Nature Blog) 2005 Oct 17
http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051017/full/051017-6.html
Keywords:
menstruation
Notes:
Ralph Faggotter’s Comments:
Some women suffer terribly with their periods and they will justifiably seek to avoid them by using the new continuous contraceptive pills.
But the problem is that there is a much bigger market in targeting women who do not have seroius period pain but can be persuaded that it is a good idea to avoid the inconvenience of their normal periods.
In the 2 countries ( NZ and USA ) where Direct to Consumer Advertising ( DTCA) of prescription pharmaceuticals is permited watch out for an advertising blitz aiming to further medicalize the menstrual cycle.
Full text:
Blog
Published online: 17 October 2005; | doi:10.1038/news051017-6
Blog: Reproductive medicine
Erika Check goes to Montreal to mingle with the scientists and doctors who are gaining ever more mastery over the earliest stages of human life.
Erika Check
Day 1: “I really hate my period”
Yet another reason why this conference is unlike most others: there’s a lot of frank, open discussion of PMS.
That’s right – premenstrual syndrome. This afternoon, I was striding purposefully through the exhibit hall on my way to meet a scientist for an interview, when I was arrested by the voice and image of a thirty-ish, pretty blond woman speaking to me from a four-foot-wide flat-screen video monitor.
“I’ve got to be honest,” Nicole said in a slightly embarrassed, confiding tone. “I really hate my period.”
Nicole went on to describe the awful symptoms of her menstruation cycle, including searing headaches and heavy bleeding. She was followed by two other women who wished they could do something to take the edge off their PMS. One, a mother, said that her PMS makes her say awful things to her children. She was nearly in tears. The other, a flight attendant, said that her period really gets in the way of her job some times: “It isn’t easy for me to find time to deal with my period at 37,000 feet.”
The videos were an ad for a hormone regimen that a drug company is marketing as a treatment for PMS. My first reaction was slightly skeptical; isn’t it odd to pathologize a monthly occurrence in women’s lives, just so you can sell them a drug? For some women it’s true that their monthly cycle is a debilitating experience. But for most – including the ones apparently targeted by this ad – it doesn’t seem so bad as that.
A woman standing next to me made me, for a moment, rethink my reaction. She watched the ad thoughtfully, with her arms folded across her chest. “It’s just so moving,” she said, and I thought I caught her brushing a tear from her eye. But one glance at the woman’s name badge revealed that she was hardly an impartial observer; she turned out to be a drug company rep.
