As far as I knew, Elon Musk’s background extends to tech companies, huge tax bills, and designing oversized trucks that look like the back of my dad’s first PC.
But apparently, he’s also an expert on women’s health – or at least he is according to one of his tweets (Xs…?) posted last week:
“Hormonal contraceptives make you gain weight and double the risk of depression And it triples the risk of suicide. This is a clear scientific consensus, but very few people seem to know it.’
As a health journalist, my alarm bells immediately started ringing. What ‘clear scientific consensus’?!
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.
As a father of 11 and a staunch advocate of procreation (his self-proclaimed biggest fear is declining population rates), Musk has earned a reputation for having a somewhat tenuous relationship with the truth and an impulsive use of social media to sell influence in their spheres of influence. interest: from wild claims about the self-driving capabilities of Teslas to their novel Neuralink brain implants.
As a father of 11 children and a staunch advocate of procreation, Musk has earned a reputation for having a somewhat tenuous relationship with the truth and impulsive use of social media to sell influence in his spheres of interest: from wild claims about Teslas’ autonomous driving capabilities, to their novel Neuralink brain implants. (In the photo: Musk with one of his children).
But when it comes to the birth control pill, I fear Musk’s pseudoscience risks causing real harm; After all, her post has already been viewed more than 41 million times.
The women in my life have been vocal about their complaints about the pill for as long as I can remember. It made them gain weight they couldn’t remove, it gave them spots, it made them feel exhausted, hungry, depressed, just not quite themselves.
Throughout my career I have been fascinated by these types of complaints, not only because of the frequency with which I hear them, but because my personal experience has been completely opposite.
I took the ‘combined’ pill (progesterone and estrogen) between the ages of 18 and 28, albeit with some short breaks.
I never suffered a single side effect until age 31, when I started taking the same pill again and had a few incidents of irregular bleeding, which eventually went away.
Have I been incredibly lucky?
Well, virtually every gynecologist and women’s health expert I’ve encountered over the years has gone out of their way to argue that the risks of the pill are “exaggerated.”
That said, since we only have six decades of research to draw on, we lack long-term safety data. (The FDA first approved the pill for use in 1960.)
However, less data is not necessarily a reason to rule out a drug or assume it is unsafe.
DailyMail.com Health and Wellness Editor Eve Simmons.
Vaccines, for example, are often implemented without long-term studies. And, despite what some corners of the Internet think, they have been proven safe time and time again since their introduction in the 18th century.
It is estimated that the smallpox vaccine alone has saved between 300 and 500 million people in the last 100 years. The Covid-19 vaccine was equally revolutionary in what it did to end the pandemic.
High-quality studies continue to show that the benefits of vaccines far outweigh the health risks. all the groupsincluding pregnant women.
As for the pill, the data overwhelmingly suggests that the “risks” are often exaggerated.
About acne: A 2012 review of 31 trials involving more than 12,000 women (taking combination pills) found no worsening of skin problems.
In fact, as the review concluded: ‘All six pills studied… worked well for reduce facial acne.’
As for weight gain: A 2014 review of 49 trials found no “substantial weight difference” between those taking various brands of combination pills.
But what about mental health?
In 2016, a study of one million Danish women found that those taking oral contraceptives (both combination and progesterone-only pills) were significantly more likely to suffer from depression than those who did not suffer from it.
That said, it’s also worth noting that another study last year by the University of Cambridge involving 6,000 women concluded the opposite: that those taking the pill were less probability of suffering depressive symptoms.
The data overwhelmingly suggests that the “risks” of the pill are often exaggerated.
Virtually every gynecologist and women’s health expert I’ve encountered over the years has gone to great lengths to argue that the risks of the pill are “exaggerated.”
As for suicidal feelings: In 2022, Swedish researchers studied 23,000 women with PMS (which put them at higher risk for hormone-related mood problems) and found that suicidal behaviors were actually reduced in those who took the combined pill.
Finnish doctors conducted another study the same year and their findings were similar.
And then there’s also the well-known medical phenomenon called the “nocebo effect,” which has been shown to apply to the birth control pill.
This effect describes the well-evidenced impact of negative “noise” around a specific treatment. In other words, if you believe the pill will cause certain bad symptoms, it probably will.
Considering all this, many respected researchers have admitted that it is very possible that there is a link between the pill and depression, and perhaps it would make sense given what we know about hormones and their powerful impact on our minds.
But it’s worth making clear that, no matter what Musk says, there is certainly no consensus here.
Of course, every woman’s experience is different. But the fact is that, until now, when scientists have tried to find and test a number of definitive effects of the pill, they simply have not been able to do so.
That is, expect a well-proven side effect that we should all take seriously.
Contraceptives containing estrogen increase the risk of life-threatening blood clots by two to six times.
Fortunately, for those who are particularly vulnerable, there are progesterone-only pills.
There is no evidence to suggest that a woman’s risk of clots increases with these, and the same applies to those with hormonal or non-hormonal IUDs.
What is less discussed is that while one in 3,000 women taking the combined pill will suffer a blood clot each year, around two in 1,000 pregnant women will suffer one.
In fact, the well-traveled risks of pregnancy are something Musk and his fellow procreation fanatics would do well to reflect on.
Dying during childbirth is still very common in the modern West.
In 2021, more than 1,200 women died in the US due to complications during childbirth.
Physically, one in three women who have had a baby will suffer from related incontinence.
Six out of every 100 births will involve a “third degree” tear of the skin around the mother’s genitals (essentially from front to back). In some cases, women are left with lifelong disabilities.
And that’s before considering the risks of poor mental health during and after pregnancy: Postpartum depression affects up to 20 percent of new mothers.
So if I’m honest, I find the discourse around the pill quite exhausting.
It is without a doubt the most revolutionary medicine for women in the last 100 years, both for medical and social reasons.
It has put an end to the notion that women’s only purpose in life is to have children. It has expanded our opportunities and horizons in the workplace. It has meant that an exploratory sex life is not just something that men can enjoy and that women can only discover in marriage. And it has prevented countless life-ruining unwanted pregnancies.
Multiple studies show that women who have babies they don’t want are much more likely to, simply put, have pretty bad lives.
They are more likely to: end up in violent relationships, suffer from mental health problems, financial problems, become homeless.
Multiple studies show that women who have babies they don’t want are much more likely to, simply put, have pretty bad lives.
And there are also risks for unwanted children, namely behavioral and mood disorders.
Today, more than 150 million women around the world are on the pill and we are much better off for it.
(One recent study even suggested that women with access to contraception in their early 20s earn a staggering $2,000 more a year than those without.)
Like any drug, the pill is not perfect.
But hysterical, unsourced claims like Musk’s only add credibility to the tidal wave of courting contraceptive ‘methods’ being offered to impressionable young women on social media.
Apps that track the size of the moon to tell you when you’re not fertile and if it’s “safe” to have sex. Technology that ‘monitors’ your menstrual cycle. Even the so-called “extraction method”.
No no no!
Of course, the pill has its risks. But it works, and the overwhelming scientific consensus is that any negative symptoms are far outweighed by the wide range of benefits that oral contraceptives have brought to millions of women around the world.
And I, for one, would rather hear your experiences than the wild musings of an out-of-touch billionaire throwing another Tesla tantrum.