Transcript
Speaker: I'm Laurel Beabersdorf, strength and conditioning coach. And I'm Dr. Sarah Court, physical therapist. For too long, women have been sidelined in strength training. Oh, you mean handed pink dumbbells and told to sculpt?
Speaker: Whatever that means. We're here to change that with tools, evidence, and ideas that center women's needs and voices. Welcome to the conversation.
Speaker: Welcome back to the Movement Logic Podcast. I'm Laurel Beaversdorf and I'm here with my co-host, Dr. Sarah Court. This is part two of our examination of the Diary of a CEO Women's Health Roundtable. um In part one, we unpacked misleading claims about birth control, PMOS, endometriosis, Stacey Sims cold exposure pilot. So if you haven't heard part one, go back and listen to it and then continue on with this episode, part two.
Speaker: We'd like to mention, because we forgot to in part one, we are now a video podcast on YouTube. So you can do more than just listen. You can watch. You can watch ah us talk, and you can also watch the people in these clips talk, and it can be a viewing experience for you now and going forward. Yay! So yeah, we've taken the leap to video podcasting. Okay, so today, in today's episode, we are going to continue but checking the roundtable's claims against the evidence and examining the rhetorical sleights of hand that can make their unsupported warnings sound really persuasive and convincing.
Speaker: we're going to look at claims about teenage girls athletic performance and hormonal birth control, bone health and hormonal birth control, claims about hormonal IUDs, periods, and ah the real reason for the seven-day placebo week, which is not what Dr. Crawford says.
Speaker: um Before we begin, a reminder to please, if you find what you learn about on this podcast valuable. Evaluate us and leave us a review, a five-star review. Leave us a ah written review if you want to go the extra mile. We appreciate those and we like we like reading them.
Speaker: Oh, and if you want our free barbell mini course, you want to learn about barbells, you want to learn how to lift barbells, you want to learn how to build up to lifting heavy, you want to understand how to pick the right weight every single time, check out our free barbell mini course, which we have linked for you in the show notes. Without further ado, we are going to get right into our first clip of this episode, which we have titled Mary Claire Haver's niece, testosterone and Olympic aspirations. So what you're going to hear is that Mary Claire Haver shares yet again, another personal anecdote about her 14 year old niece.
Speaker: who is apparently ah a talented athlete. She's an Olympic hopeful. And she also had acne. And her doctor wanted to put her on hormonal birth control, um which is an effective line of treatment for acne. And I guess the way that it works is it reduces testosterone.
Speaker: And her father, and along with Mary Claire Haver, are concerned that this lowering of testosterone could affect her athletic performance. OK, so let's listen.
Speaker: So my niece who competes ah at a national level and she's 14 started suffering from where she was going through her adolescence, her acne got outrageous and she's a 14 year old girl, 13 and started at 12 and a half. And of course, you know she goes to the dermatologist and they're trying some topicals. And then finally, as you go down the algorithm for how we treat acne, one of the off-label uses is birth control pills will lower the testosterone. Their skin can clear up. So her father, a little concern comes to me. her mom passed away. Her stepmom had passed away. So have the mom in the house to you know, the immediate mom to talk to.
Speaker: And for the first time, i immediately thought of her athletic performance. Thank you, Dr. Sims. And I thought she wants to go to the Olympics. there's no way I'm going to let her testosterone levels drop. Like, we're going to throw everything topical at this. And we finally found the right combination. Her skin looks great. She's super happy. But, like, the next logical thing was to put this 14-year-old, you know, on a birth control pill to get her acne under control, which is the end result. But what no one's thinking of is her athletic performance. How is it going affect her? her training years leading and her training years like this is critical for her 16 is when the next trials are up for her yep so that's two years from now so we were able to get her acne under control avoid the birth control pill but that was nothing i'd ever thought of before
Speaker: um i just want to say because you know there's so many things we could talk about we only have so much time but there's a lot of things that will pop up on bartlett's show, text on screen, giving the appearance of, well, adding context, explaining what words mean, but sometimes also giving the appearance of like,
Speaker: fact checking, like yeah um emphasizing and giving credibility to what's been said. um there I've never seen anything pop up on screen that corrects anything that was said.
Speaker: you know It's never correcting anything. It's never like, actually, you know that's not true. Research shows this or that. It's always something that really reinforces what's been said. And so I think what this creates is this impression of, again,
Speaker: credibility, right? That like the platform itself is sort of boosting and reinforcing what's being said. And the the context given a lot of the time is is very vague. Like there was another one earlier about estrogen. And so this one that popped up about testosterone said, you know, low levels can impact blah, blah, blah. um But goes into no depth around how hormonal birth control does or does not create lower levels or impact that or whether or not test, you know, it's just right it just kind of very vaguely
Speaker: underlines what the what the person's already saying, whether or not it's accurate. Yeah. Okay. So we used consensus, that's our AI research tool, to find research on the pill, testosterone, performance, and whether or not Mary Claire Haver's and her niece's father's concerns are, are you know, evidence-based. And yeah its summary is pretty so pretty straightforward, okay? Certain pills do reduce available testosterone, and this is what helps reduce the skin's oil production and clear up acne.
Speaker: The only thing is that a lower testosterone measurement doesn't automatically mean worse athletic performance ah for girls. Okay, so a 2020 systematic review, which included 42 studies and 590 participants, found a possible performance disadvantage, possible, but it averaged out as trivial.
Speaker: With substantial variation and mostly limited quality evidence. Yeah. So the authors recommended that folks make individual decisions, not blanket advice against the pill.
Speaker: Yeah. 2024 review of eight studies and 325 participants found no statistically significant differences in things like muscle growth, strength gains, or power gains, um which are not the same thing as athletic performance, but You know, those are the building blocks of athletic performance, I guess. And so again, these find these findings don't guarantee zero effects. OK. And they don't predict what would happen to a particular teenage Olympic hopeful either.
Speaker: They definitely don't support treating lower testosterone as proof of impaired performance. OK. So the strongest version of Haver's concern is actually reasonable.
Speaker: um Elite competitive athletes are often especially cautious about even the smallest, most uncertain, most improbable effects on performance.
Speaker: Because even the smallest decrement in performance can be the difference between like going to the Olympics or not. If you are anyone chasing that level of athletic performance, you're looking at everything. You're getting the best pillow and the best, you know, comforter. And you're making sure you're getting exactly the right amount of hydration. Like every single thing in your life is is taken apart. Right.
Speaker: And and with with the goal of this level of athletic performance, right? It's not it's not the way that people ordinarily might behave. Yeah, okay. If you're not trying to go to the Olympics, yeah you might not scrutinize. This girl is, okay? So she is in this category.
Speaker: but um And so, okay, she finds a topical treatment, it clears up her skin. And that's, I think it's a good outcome, right? yeah But the story that Mary Claire Haver is sharing It doesn't ever tell us whether the pill would have affected this girl's performance.
Speaker: It doesn't tell us that so successfully choosing one treatment has demonstrated at all that an alternative would have harmed her.
Speaker: So this is where the storytelling starts to be the concerning thing, okay? The mention also of her stepmother's death you know, may simply explain why the father approached Haver, but notice how, notice how it also adds emotional weight, doesn't it? It makes Haver's intervention feel protective.
Speaker: And then her aside, thank you, Dr. Sims, right? Right. It makes like her concern is backed by this other expert at the table who is an expert in athletic performance, right? Right.
Speaker: Right. So she says, there's no way I'm gonna let her testosterone levels drop. And what no one's thinking about is her athletic performance.
Speaker: So the dermatologist is being a dermatologist and they're considering evidence-based acne treatments, right?
Speaker: The listeners could easily hear Dr. Haber as the person who recognizes the real danger that everyone else, including this doctor, has overlooked.
Speaker: And I think that that framing specifically could easily provoke outrage, right? Like, how are these doctors missing this? They're so careless.
Speaker: You know, they're so careless with this young girl's athletic future. um And it can cast Haver as the hero who like stepped in to protect her niece.
Speaker: And whatever, like whatever her intention, the story could easily leave listeners believing that this pill actually did threaten this girl's athletic performance.
Speaker: But this has never been established. Okay. And this shifts trust away from the dermatologist. toward Haver and gives listeners a reason to, you know, potentially keep following the person who spots the danger, who really knows what's up, right?
Speaker: Her story kind of invites listeners to think, how could doctors put athletic girls' future at risk? And then Haver's like, hey, I'm the person, I'm the person who's preventing this from happening.
Speaker: Yeah. I'm stuck still on this framing of, the death of the stepmother is why he approached Haver. Like he didn't approach her because she is OBGYN and probably has more information than most other women.
Speaker: Right. Approached her because she was the only woman around kind of is kind of the framing. It's yeah weird. I know. It's really weird. Like if the stepmother had still been alive, she would have had the same level of knowledge. Yeah. is Anyway.
Speaker: So there's another there's another part of this decision that gets left out. And so we're going to use Dr. Jen Gunter's writing that she's done in the Vagenda to explain this. And we'll link it in the show notes. um so Dr. Gunter wrote an article called, Can the Pill Cause Depression for Teens? um So this article is about mood. It's not about athletic performance. But I'm bringing it in because it shows why evaluating a medication requires more than listing what might go wrong when someone takes it.
Speaker: OK, so Gunter explains that some observational studies have linked pill use with depression in teenagers, while others haven't. And these associations don't establish that the pill caused depression. Teenagers may be prescribed ah hormonal birth control for acne, for painful periods, for heavy bleeding. And these conditions in and of them themselves can cause mental health problems. OK?
Speaker: So researchers always have to account for why someone needed the treatment in the first place. Gunter's broader point with this regarding pill use in adolescents generally is that not taking a medication also has consequences.
Speaker: Untreated heavy bleeding can mean bleeding through clothes. missing school, avoiding sports entirely. Untreated pain can interfere with daily life. And for teenagers who need contraception, yeah unintended pregnancy is life altering and probably not in an ideal way for a child.
Speaker: yeah So consider Haver's story and how it might land with a parent whose daughter has painful or heavy periods or whose daughter is sexually active.
Speaker: um They may remember the warning about the testosterone and the athletic performance. and then resist the treatment that could help their daughter participate in sports at all.
Speaker: They may also hear the alarm Mary Claire Haver seems to be ringing to imply that MDs prescribing birth control tend to do so irresponsibly, and this might sow its own kind of distrust between the parent and their child's doctor.
Speaker: Right. Handed out like candy, right? Yeah. So now the possibility of harm extends beyond her anecdote because she completely fails to qualify this anecdote and root it in the specifics of the individual in question and how the concerns of this individual, which is an Olympic hopeful 14 year old niece of Mary Claire Havers, are likely very, very different from the concerns of the children of the millions of parents who are listening to this episode.
Speaker: And this is why I consider this to be really incredibly irresponsible science communication and deeply ethically troubling medical communication um because it leaves families, I think, possibly fearful about an established line of treatment without giving them any evidence or context that they need to be able to judge that fear.
Speaker: yeah Right. So one final detail is that Haver also refers to using the pill to treat acne as off-label. And that means using an approved medication for a purpose outside of its specific FDA approval and off-label prescribing happens and it can be appropriate.
Speaker: But... actually several pills are FDA approved for acne. um You know, for those products, acne treatment is officially, it's approved use.
Speaker: ah we We don't know which pill she's referring to here, but her but that blanket statement is kind of misleading, right? um So so what if what if she were to have a redo? What if we gave Mary Claire Haver a redo?
Speaker: And we were like, do you want to do that over? Do you want to do it again? what might be a more responsible way for her to have told this story, right? So maybe it would sound like this.
Speaker: My niece is a teenage athlete with severe acne and her dermatologist was considering the pill, which is an established acne treatment. And we knew that it could lower testosterone. And because she hopes to compete in the Olympics,
Speaker: We wondered whether that might affect her performance. But the research couldn't really tell us that it would. It couldn't predict her individual response either. But given her priorities, we just, we wanted to keep exploring topical options first. And fortunately, we found a combination that works.
Speaker: And I'm glad she had that option. But I really don't want another young athlete or their parents to hear this story and assume that the pill would hurt their performance.
Speaker: would be so nice if she said anything like that. Yeah. But she does not. All right. I think this is a good time to to continue talking about protecting the girls. Yes. And their future. Yeah. ah So this is the one time in this part of the, the this of the interview or the round table rather where Dr. Vonda Wright jumps in and reports that she is terrified for their bones.
Speaker: So what you're going to hear is Vonda Wright having a huge freak out about bone health for reasons that seem to me unclear, except to make herself seem relevant to this part of the conversation. ah So yeah yeah we're going to hear Vonda Wright discussing bone health and hormones and the impact in her mind of birth control on bone building for young women.
Speaker: Let's take a listen. I just want to say before we do that I'm incredibly proud of how diplomatic you're being. Thank you. I mean, yeah. Thanks. It's pretty amazing. Trying very hard.
Speaker: Well, I'm sitting here from a musculoskeletal standpoint, thinking about the high percentage of women who have endometriosis and PCOS and the complete, soundingly, imbalance of natural hormones. Plus, for a lot of reasons now, girls are not cycling normally. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: And I'm sitting here terrified for their bones. Yep, 100%. Because we build bone from 15 25.
Speaker: And if we are so inflamed that we're producing all kinds of inflammatory cytokines, Ig, interleukin-6, and C-reactive protein, and tumor necrosis factor, which halt bone development, we don't have enough estrogen for whatever reason, we're going to shut off our testosterone because it makes us feel better. And we're not exercising. And we're sitting around. Yeah.
Speaker: No wonder I have 20 and 30-year-olds with no bone density that are then going to go into perimenopause, which we will get to, and lose another 20%.
Speaker: So I was pretty feeling pretty hopeful that the Generation Xers are going to get to the millennials and get to the whatever they're called after.
Speaker: It is. we're gonna be You're going to see it get worse go before it gets better. Exactly. That's what I'm sitting here terrified. Like, okay, I thought... Okay, baby boomers, those women missed out. Xers, we're doing the best we can. Millennials, but no. Because now you're telling me our 15 to 25-year-olds are still in the same detriment with muscle and bone building We are trying to change the narrative. That's the group we're trying to target right now. And I do think by educating across the lifespan, we're going to change how those of us who have 11 and 12 year olds, what we recommend. i I treat girls in their teen years when they come to me without their period much differently than a lot of other people do. But this is learned experience. yeah Instead of just, you don't have a period, here's a birth control pill. Say, yeah you're not making estrogen and this is a crucial time for you.
Speaker: Let's give you estrogen. Let's talk about why you're not. What can we do to change it? And so this discussion is more than just disease state important like PCOS and endometriosis. It's truly important across the lifespan of a woman, the choices that are being made in her early reproductive timeline is going to impact her longevity.
Speaker: it's It's a little bit like where where do we begin? But let's let's begin somewhere. Let's let's let's start with the Vonda Wright section of this to begin with. and And before we get into addressing the claims that she's making, some of which are just completely incorrect,
Speaker: um there's this weird kind of like, it's almost like this word salad that she gets into that. I just want to dig into a little bit because it's very confusing. It's not at all clear what she's actually saying, right? So she starts talking about all this inflammation and all these inflammatory markers, which sound gnarly as hell, right? Like necrosis factor and and C-reactive protein and all these things, right?
Speaker: She's worried about in the inflammatory effect of on bones, halting bone development. Then I was like, the inflammation though, that she's talking about, isn't that when the woman is in the sort of flared up version of the disease state that she's in, whether it's PMOS or endometriosis, like surely isn't the point that we give them the hormonal treatment and that reduces the inflammation and then that's better for their bones, not to mention their relief from their pain.
Speaker: It's very confusing. Can I just say, it yeah I'm still, I'm kind of go back to like my confusion that I've been bringing up, which is that I'm never really quite sure what we're talking about. yeah That like things sound bad, but I'm not sure what the bad thing is because it always seems like it could be hormonal birth control or it could be the conditions that hormonal birth control treats. Yeah. It treats it ah gets really jumbled up, doesn't it?
Speaker: It's very messy. It's very poor science communication, right? So she's poor she's combining this idea of inflammation. It's so poor. And then names a bunch of markers that she can think of.
Speaker: And then irregular periods, estrogen deficiency, testosterone treatment, inactivity, conditions, whether being treated by medication or not, different medications.
Speaker: She ties this all together and this like very scary sounding, but like absolute, when you try to pick apart what she's even talking about, it's completely unclear. There's like nothing, like there is nobody behind the curtain, right? Like who's who's who's the mastermind behind this?
Speaker: Hard to say. All right. So let's, let's get into the like claims that she's making. So, so she's saying PMOS endometriosis, abnormal menstrual cycles, raise concerns about young women's hormonal and bone health.
Speaker: Yes, sort of, you know, there, there seems to be, she seems to be very concerned both about the disease's inflammatory state, and then also about using birth control for symptom relief. It's unclear what, what she's saying.
Speaker: She says age 15 to 25 are a crucial window for building bone. Yes. And I and totally agree. And also this really doesn't get talked about enough. Like we're starting to hear so much more conversation about people, you know, my age and your age or age, you know, 40 to 70 makes it sound like one of us is 40 and the other is 70, but that's not what I mean. But we're hearing much more about bone building for us.
Speaker: We're not hearing a lot in the media yet about how lifting weights so good to do at this younger age, because you have, you get the biggest, sorry, bang for your bone buck, but she makes it sound like it's impossible to build bone after 25. Like, like 25 is the cutoff and then you're all done. You can't build any more bone. That is just patently untrue.
Speaker: We just, that that's untrue. We just know that it's untrue. And then she's saying that, that like these inflammatory, cytokine, infant substances, halt bone halt bone development.
Speaker: That's not true. Observational research generally has not found any clinically meaningful bone mineral density deficits in untreated endometriosis, which is what she seems to be saying is the source of the inflammation that's halting the bone development.
Speaker: then she says, I have 20 and 30 year olds with no bone density. but that So I give her an F on science communication. Like that's just not something. Yeah. well because yeah so So then I looked at it and I was like, really? Is that is is that what's happening?
Speaker: So, you know, because I started to think if I flashed on that movie, WALL-E, where people are sitting just as blobs and they have like no bones. I was like, is this really what's happening? So here's the actual statistics statistics on younger people and osteoporosis, osteopenia. So actual osteoporosis is very rare in this age range. It's lower than 1%.
Speaker: She's saying, you know, I'm having these 20 and 30 year olds with no bone density. So no bone density. I'm thinking she's saying severe osteoporosis. This is not true. Right. Okay. Now, osteopenia is higher, right? There's studies that put it between five to 33%.
Speaker: Fair. It's being linked to these lifestyle elements that are brought up like lack of exercise. It's actually linked to obesity. It's linked to smoking. There are a lot of secondary causes for osteoporosis.
Speaker: Um, and so she's not wrong to show concern, but her choice of language is just like, it's almost beyond inflammatory. It's kind of ridiculous, right? Yeah. She does this thing. And I feel like she's said this before. I feel like we've had to repute this before. She's like, okay, so these people, right. They've already got no bone density.
Speaker: They're going to go into perimenopause. They're going to lose another 20% of their bone density. The statistic, the actual statistic, for women during the menopause transition is between three to 7% of bone loss.
Speaker: Assuming this person's not doing any impact, any loading, any kind of exercise to attempt to reverse that, right? Not 20%, between three to 7%.
Speaker: Younger generations, muscle and bone health will worsen before improving. Right. So this is, I think now we're, this is a Natalie Crawford, right? Right. She's, she's predicting. It's going to get worse before it gets better. Yeah. Everything's going to get worse before it gets better.
Speaker: Based on what? Yeah. We don't know. Yeah. There's no evidence given to support this. She just kind of throws it out there in just general fear mongering way. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: So, and then, okay, now here she is, right. We've gone from worrying about bone to now we're back to, cause Natalie Crawford's on the case again. Yes. But why aren't they getting their period? We want to make sure they get their period. they've got to have as many periods as possible. So teenagers with absent periods need investigation into why they aren't producing estrogen fair, right? You should, if it's, if you're an age where you should have be getting your period and and you're not on hormonal birth control control. Yes. And there's not something being done. Right.
Speaker: agrees You just live in your life and it's like, what's going on here? You get one period a year or something crazy like that. Absolutely. That should be given attention and addressed. She says, we should give estrogen and address the cause, right? They're always fascinated with addressing the cause rather than simply prescribing birth control period.
Speaker: Yes. You know, especially if we're gay seeing these like teenage athletes in, you know, sports where they lose their period possibly, right? They're not choosing to be on birth control. They're losing their period because of their other actions. Yes.
Speaker: But they keep talking about the pill as if it doesn't also often contain a form of estrogen. I know. This is the weird thing where i you know we got to wonder, like why is it estrogen good here but not good here? And yeah I'm very confused. yeah And there's no established data saying that all birth control causes bone loss. No, no, not at all. fact, in our conversation with Dr. Kemi, we ran this claim by her and she was like, there's one form of birth control yeah and it's called Depo-Provera and it's an an injection. I believe that's the way it's administered every three months.
Speaker: And it... delivers a lot of progesterone or progestin, I'm not sure what the correct word is, to the body. And it is her least favorite. And it's, she said, many doctors in my field's least favorite choice. But for some women, the trade-off is worth it because the symptoms are so bad that they're experiencing. And this medication makes them so much better that they're willing to accept that trade-off. And that's what we
Speaker: want informed consent for, right? Which is that like, you're going to tell me as my doctor, what are the risks and what are the benefits so that I can make an informed decision about what is best for my body and my future. Okay.
Speaker: When we hear from Dr. Vonderreit, who has no business, no business talking about hormones, let's be honest, like really, she doesn't, she wouldn't be the person to prescribe them. She's an orthopedic surgeon. Like this is not her lane.
Speaker: But when we hear her weighing in and casting doubt on all of hormonal birth control as a category, painting it as something that will harm girls' bones, this is so misleading because there's literally one kind called Depo-Provera that has been shown to do this and none of the other ones do it.
Speaker: Yeah. What in the actual fuck is she talking about? Yeah. What? it's not It's not facts. I'll tell you that much.
Speaker: ah All right. So now we have Natalie Crawford still going on about how decisions about hormonal care early in reproductive life affect lifelong health and longevity.
Speaker: Potentially, yes. But that also assumes it's in the absence of doing anything else. Like... changing lifestyle habits that would help bone density, exercising more perhaps, lifting weights more, right?
Speaker: All right. And then they're saying insufficient estrogen and suppress testosterone as caused by going on birth control at a quote, two young age contribute to poor bone development. This is a bit of a two truths and a lie.
Speaker: The argument depends on birth control, lowering estrogen and then causing a cascade of issues. but combined hormonal contraceptives suppress ah ovulation and reduce the the ovaries production of estradiol, but they also supply estrogen.
Speaker: They typically contain something called ethanol estradiol, which has estrogenic effects, even though it's not the exact same molecule as ovarian estradiol. So lower endogenous estrogen by itself does not establish estrogen.
Speaker: inadequate estrogen action throughout the body. As Laura pointed out, there is one type of birth control that is directly linked with bone density loss called Depo-Fovera. Yes. If we're going to talk about testosterone, yes, combination pills do lower testosterone, but there's no evidence of a clear clinical implication, meaning we can't assume this is going to cause any bone damage either now or in the future. Also the problem with measuring testosterone, it's actually very tricky from what I understand, because there there's the difference between free testosterone and total testosterone, which means we can measure an amount in the blood, but it doesn't mean that that amount is what's available to tissues.
Speaker: And my understanding too, is that there is no like normative amount that we want to see with women because right it's just not something that is is looked at. I don't know. Well, because i think the, and part of it is that the amount that women have typically anyway is very small it's very small compared to things like estrogen.
Speaker: There's also all these weird claims about, she's like, well, you know, she goes for plus for a lot of reasons now, girls are not cycling normally. What reasons, what are you talking about? Are you, is this because you're on birth control?
Speaker: I look this, I checked this out on, um, consensus as well. Yeah. that like our menstrual cycles different for girls. Like, is there there fewer girls cycling now than they did? No, no, no.
Speaker: And then, so, so Vonda Wright's jumping in to yell something about bones and everyone's, so all these people are screwed. And then they're, they're, they're coming into her office. They have no bone density. They're going to lose even more bones. And like, it's just this scary, scary, scary story. And then it becomes like, and it's too late.
Speaker: The too late is such, it's such horseshit. ah the The too late part of this argument is what makes me nuts because Vonda Wright, you're out there regularly supporting lifting heavy for bone health.
Speaker: So why are you here now saying it's too late if you haven't done it by the age of 25? Like you're actually- contradicting yourself and lying at the same time. You know, and then she's bringing the drama. It's making for good, good, right. wing material you know And then Crawford jumps right in and is like, yep, we don't we don't. All we do is like throw birth control at them. And, you know, God, who knows what it's going to do for everything, including your bones? Definitely. Right. That's what I would I would take away from this section like that, that essentially birth control is in some way.
Speaker: going to have a negative effect effect on my future health. Yeah. Just period. Whether it's, uh, my longevity, whether it's my ability to, uh, have enough periods, always be cycling, whether it's my ability to, have a baby naturally, whether, yeah, my bone strength, my, all of these conditions, you know, my, my,
Speaker: you know, they're tying all of this ultimately to this whole, like, you know, brain health and dementia and all of this kind of stuff that like, if you later on during your menopause, when you are allowed to take hormones, that's why, because you're filling in right. For all this.
Speaker: Yeah. I don't think I can say anything more about this clip. I know. I just want to, I don't have an answer, but I'm like i'm going to go back to the question that we wanted people to ask themselves listening to this, at the start of part one, right. Which is like, why are they doing this? Who's benefiting like this, this whole like performative catastrophizing of girls' bones and futures, and it's only going to get worse before it gets better. Like the drama that they're creating around this, like what's it for? What's it doing? You know, just ask yourself, I don't actually have an answer right now. i have a lot of ideas, but. Yeah.
Speaker: And also, right. when When we're seeing this promotion of just inaccurate information. Right. Is it, are is this an ignorance factor or is this an on purpose factor?
Speaker: and which one is worse. Okay, our next clip is titled Crawford's Hormonal IUD to Lifelong Harm Argument. So we're gonna talk about IUDs now.
Speaker: And you're gonna hear Dr. Natalie Crawford acknowledge a real effect, which is that some hormonal IUD users don't ovulate. It's true. um But then she builds a warning around this about lifelong harm around an estrogen deficiency that she never establishes.
Speaker: She then moves from sometimes a qualifier expressing possibility, listen for this, right, to you're not gonna build your bones, a categorical prediction of harm.
Speaker: Then she asks us to imagine a patient she already knows has low estrogen without establishing that an IUD d would cause that condition, right? So it's confusing.
Speaker: And then she chooses an 18-year-old
Speaker: and then proceeds to emphasize the years ahead is crucial for bone development. And this is raising the emotional stakes, but she never she never establishes 18 a threshold for this alleged risk. It's very, there's a lot of feels, but I'm not really sure where she's getting any of this from.
Speaker: Whatever her intention, listeners could very reasonably hear that hormonal IUDs silently damage young women. while other doctors dismiss the warning signs.
Speaker: OK? And she never presents any evidence of harm. All right, so let's listen.
Speaker: I do not love intrauterine device for a patient who is 18 for a multitude of reasons. Now, I'm going to preface this to say it is a highly effective contraceptive choice. It's one of the most effective ones that we have. And so there are certainly circumstances where that is the right thing to do.
Speaker: We've had IUDs in practice for a really long time. For the majority of this, we were only placing them in women after they had given birth at least once because of their size and being able to pass them through the cervix. Now we have different options and we are offering them to women younger, which is wonderful. However...
Speaker: When we're putting IUDs in the uterus of women who are really young, sometimes the progesterone dose in them is so high that it is preventing ovulation. and we are seeing young women who are not ovulating and they're not making estrogen, therefore, and they don't even really realize it because...
Speaker: That's not disclosed as one of the main mechanisms of a progesterone IUD because it doesn't happen in enough people to effectively prevent conception that way. It works through the inflammation, the cervical mucus changes. And why does that matter?
Speaker: Because if you are not ovulating and you're not making estrogen, you are going to have low libido, low energy, you're not going to build your bones during critical years. Let's say let's say the IUD lasts five to seven years. You're 18 to 25. These are some of the most critical years in your mental health, your bone health, your cardiac health, and being low estrogen during that time is going to set you up on a different risk trajectory for your entire life. And the worst thing here about the progesterone IUD
Speaker: is that because of the progesterone, which will thin the lining, many women just say, i don't have my period because my lining is so thin, and that's a side effect of the IUD. If that same woman was not ovulating and came to me and said, I haven't had a period in seven years, and I knew she was low estrogen and not ovulating, We're highly concerned about her health. But because she has an IUD, what happens? Well, that's a side effect of the IUD. No big deal.
Speaker: So we're missing the moment to understand where are some of these symptoms just side effect of the IUD or are they having a much bigger role? in what's gonna happen to that woman's long-term trajectory for being low estrogen during crucial years. And I'll say this, Steven, I'm very biased, right? I'm a fertility doctor. I see patients who have trouble getting pregnant. That is a narrow subset. That is not the majority of women who have IUDs.
Speaker: So, all right. But can I, can I just jump in real quick and just say something I was struck by quick, listening to this again, I was struck by she's actually taking our argument, but using it backwards. Cause she's saying that, um, you know, if you're on some sort of hormonal birth control, in this case, IUD that is suppressing your cycle in your ovulation, we don't worry about it.
Speaker: But if you aren't, and you don't have a period, we are worried about it. And she's using that to claim that we should be worried about the people not getting their period. Not that not getting your period when there's nothing causing that is itself a sign of something might be wrong.
Speaker: Right. Like she's actually taking the argument and flipping it. Yeah. Yeah. No, she's saying like, yeah, you're on a medication that suppresses ovulation. That's bad. That's bad. That's bad. Yeah. yeah Always, always bad. Yeah. And her butt was a, however, i just want to make that point. Okay.
Speaker: Okay. But it doesn't make as good a song. You can't be like, I like big, however, and i can't really lie. It's not as funny. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So because she says, if you're not ovulating, you're not making estrogen, you're going to have low libido, low energy.
Speaker: You're not going to build your bones during critical years. Woo. no Those are some big bads. None of that. None of that. No, none of that's supported like categorically. like it could It could be the case that for some women, this is what happens, right? And then they would talk with their doctor about it and find a better option.
Speaker: Okay, like no one's saying that, you know, one one hormonal birth control option works for everyone. um But what she's saying is that for everyone, you're going to have low libido, low energy. You're not going to build your bones during critical years. This is this is not true. She's talking about an IUD. She's not talking about Depo-Provera because that's where the like low bone concern, low bone, you know, peak bone mass concerns come into play. Right. Okay. And rightfully so. That's the one hormonal contraceptive option that could produce this like bone building problem.
Speaker: Right. Now she's also throwing in low libido and low energy.
Speaker: Ah, so let's look at what, let's look at the pros. Okay. She's got some IUDs are highly effective contraception things to say. She's got different options, have expanded access for younger women. She seems to be pro that, right? She says offering IUDs to younger women is wonderful.
Speaker: However, however the hormone dose can prevent ovulation. Yes, that's sometimes the point, right? Not ovulating means not making estrogen.
Speaker: Okay, I'm gonna lean into Kemi for this one, okay? Because we're gonna quote her in a second. I'm not gonna like try to get into all this, but I just wanna, let's hear all the cons, okay? Patients aren't adequately informed about this. They aren't?
Speaker: and Are you in everyone's doctor's office now? Like low estrogen causes low libido and low energy? Oh, okay, but have we established that this is truly low estrogen? Young women won't build bone during critical years. Not true. Okay. Their lifelong mental bone and cardiovascular health may be compromised. This is a very bleak future that she's painting, right? Like who in their right mind would go on an IUD after listening to this? Like it sounds like the worst possible decision you could make. Absent periods can conceal estrogen deficiency.
Speaker: Doctors dismiss potential warning signs as ordinary IUD side effects. I just wanted to dig into one of them because I, the one that she said where she said not ovulating means not making estrogen.
Speaker: And I was like, I don't think that's actually true. It's not true. It's not true. and And I went into consensus and I looked up I said, you know, if you are not ovulating, does that mean you are not making estrogen? And it said, no, here's the direct quote. Okay. Basically women who are not ovulating still produce estrogen across many common physiological and clinical conditions. A lack of ovulation does not equate to an absence of estrogen production production in women.
Speaker: While ovulation requires a mature follicle and subsequent corpus luteum formation, non-ovulating ovaries frequently produce normal or even elevated levels of estradiol by a developing or arrested antral follicles. I'm not going to pretend that I totally know what that means, but it's basically saying, yes, you can still, even if you're not ovulating, you can still produce estrogen. Complete estrogen cessation generally occurs only under specific conditions,
Speaker: such as postmenopause severe hypothalamic failure. So she has said something that is just plain wrong. Plain mar wrong. patent Patently untrue. Really, really wrong.
Speaker: and And then making claims about the cascade of problems that would happen to you because you're not ovulating and not making estrogen. So she's basing a lot of her argument off of the off something that's just not true. It's not true. Yeah.
Speaker: Okay. So we talked to Kemi. We asked her a lot of questions. You're going to go back and listen to that episode, listeners. But here is what Kemi says. Okay. So she she talked about IUDs and their benefit beyond pregnancy prevention. Okay.
Speaker: And here's some of what she said. She said that hormonal IUDs can improve fibroid-associated bleeding and pain. um And I checked and asked consensus if 18-year-olds can have fibroids. you know Is that something that even happens to an 18-year-old? And they can. Apparently, it's more common in older patients. But yes, 18-year-olds can have fibroids.
Speaker: Kemi is quoted saying, You know, this is how it works. Quote, by creating this progestin-rich environment in the endometrium, there's a feedback loop happening back with the fibroids themselves in the myometrium, and they can stabilize in growth, and they can definitely decrease in bleeding and pain symptoms.
Speaker: This is also important to remember. You do not need to bleed or ovulate for health. Please just keep remembering that because that's like a major premise that is undergirding most of what Dr. Natalie Crawford is warning us about. Okay. And it's false.
Speaker: Dr. Kimmy makes this point that menstruation is not required for health, although she concedes, yes, of course, absent periods and anorexia, heavily stressed athletes. This does indicate a problem, but this we can't confuse the two. ok Dr. Kemi is quoted saying, yes, there are times in which not having a cycle is an indication of a problem, but that doesn't mean that somebody who's taking contraception that has the effect of suppressing ovulation and suppressing the menstrual cycle is endangering their body. It is not the cycle that is making you healthy.
Speaker: The idea, she says, that stopping your cycle is somehow bad for your body is wrong. She says, from a medicinal standpoint, there is no reason that you must ovulate.
Speaker: She says, when you are taking a combined oral contraceptive, this is not what Dr. Natalie Crawford is talking about, or you have a progestin IUD, this is what Dr. Natalie Crawford is talking about, when you have something that we know ah Dr. Chemie says, when we know one of the ways that it works is it thins the antimettrion endometrium or it suppresses ovulation, you do not have to bleed.
Speaker: Okay, now we're going to play reel from Dr. Jen Gunter, a post she made in response to a post from Dr. Natalie Crawford.
Speaker: And let's hear from her. I've a lot about that video that Dr. Natalie Crawford made where she said she didn't love the progestin IUD for people who've never been pregnant. And you know and I don't love?
Speaker: I don't love people that push out fear-based content. I don't. Based on personal experience in the office, I don't love that. I think it's really important as physicians that we be very careful about what we see and how we present it to the public because otherwise we're in a situation where People think that vaccines cause autism and there's measles everywhere, right? How did that start? Somebody had an idea.
Speaker: It wasn't interrogated appropriately and it was pushed out there with fear based content. And yeah, there were lots of people who then said, oh, that speaks to me. That was clearly my experience. And it didn't matter how much data came out to show otherwise.
Speaker: people wouldn't believe it. So we have to be really careful, and especially with IUDs, because forced birthers love to take IUD stuff and twist it around, and you can be as pro-choice as you wanna be, but if you put out content that is useful to forced birthers, you can carry water for them. So we have to be very mindful.
Speaker: Which brings me to this idea about being more concerned about someone who's never been pregnant before, which she put in her video. That is something that a forced birther would absolutely run with because they wanna scare people before they sort of start their lifetime of contraception.
Speaker: If you mechanistically think that the hormone IUD d damages the basalis layer, why are you restricting your concerns to women who've never been pregnant? Don't all women who might want to have another pregnancy i deserve that same level of concern?
Speaker: The other thing that wasn't mentioned was clearly women who choose IUDs may have a higher rate of having bleeding problems, which could be a sign of of fertility related issues, right? Lots of people choose a hormone IUD because it's gonna reduce their bleeding. So you've got a denominator that may not be the same as if you just randomly assigned people. And of course we can't do that. We can't do a trial and randomly assign people to progestin IUDs or using condoms and then follow them up for 10 years. You can't do that with contraception literature.
Speaker: Also, we do have data that shows that we don't have a safety signal and there's about 100 million women using hormone IUDs worldwide. so you would think a safety signal would emerge, but there are follow-up studies after IUDs are approved, like for example, the ACCESS trial for after Luleta showed no concern about return to fertility for people who'd never been pregnant or people with previous pregnancies. Also, we have a Danish registry from last year that showed that there were over 700,000 people, no additional need for reproductive technologies for people who'd had a hormone IUD. And you can come on here and say, oh, well that's observational data. And sure it is. But you know what? It's better than the data that Dr. Crawford presented.
Speaker: All right. ah So, you know, i think i think I'm just going to let Jen Gunter ah have the final word there. I think that, you know, kind of going back to what we talked about at the top of part one, which is that anytime you are a purveyor of misinformation, you are carrying water for everyone who benefits from a misinformed public, which includes a lot of pretty heinous organizations and um people with some pretty heinous motives. So I, again, question mark, does it does she do it on purpose? Does she just not know?
Speaker: i have find it really hard to believe that she doesn't know. But, you know, there's ah there's ah there's a blindness that comes from having a bias that is can be it can mislead people to do and say really ridiculous things. um There's also a bias when you're Brand is dependent on attention and clicks and the brand narrative is kind of what ties it all together. And you've been coached to kind of stay on your talking points and to tell a story that paints certain ideas in a certain light because
Speaker: that's what you know your audience is primed to hear. And that's how you know they're going to then take the actions you want them to take. Like this is all kind of marketing 101. I don't know where I'm going with this.
Speaker: um just downloading a lot of thoughts and feelings. You're muted, Sarah.
Speaker: Yeah. I mean, she says all these things that sound terrible, but have no evidence to back any of them up. And she's like, well, yeah, you could get the hormonal IE deer when you're younger, but right. It seems like she, even though she admits her biases around fertility, she's not able to step outside that bias at all.
Speaker: Yeah. And, and say anything like, you know, it doesn't matter whether you've had a baby already or not, you can use this as a choice.
Speaker: You know, she doesn't, um because her bias is always towards reproduction and fertility. But it it seems like she's operating under a lot of incorrect premises that she seems to believe are true, that we've established are not, you know, that like not bleeding and not ovulating, if the reason you're not doing that is because you're on some type of hormonal contraception is not actually dangerous that that, you know, ah progestin IUD does not stop the production of all estrogen in the body.
Speaker: that taking a Protestant ID is not evidence-based ah harm to bones. like it right She's saying a lot of things that are just factually not true.
Speaker: So yeah, she has bias, but she's also like deeply misinformed or misinforming. right is it Is it misinformation or is it disinformation? right This is the real question we're asking.
Speaker: Well, I also wonder from her, but also who was it who like across the table was like, well, now I'm thinking about their bones or whatever. Thank you, Dr. Sims. Like, I wonder how much of it they're just kind of relying on each other's storytelling evidence and just like how many of them are now going to go. She's going to go say that like you lose 20% of your bone during menopause because that's what Vonda Wright told her on the, on this podcast. Right. And I don't know.
Speaker: I know that they're getting massive audience shares by coming on with each other though. Right. Totally. All right. Let's say all right. This next step is this idea once again, of having your period as proof of health ah now with extra Bartlett's girlfriend.
Speaker: Okay. And what you're going to hear essentially is that once more low estrogen, very dangerous for long-term health, getting a regular period is a sign of being healthy. So we should all strive to have a regular period.
Speaker: reasons to be low estrogen during these crucial bone building years but for talking about how your hormones communicate back it's very harmful to long-term health to have low estrogen at all brain health but yeah but it's especially in young years when you're still developing why would a woman say that she didn't want to have a period i mean this is a super naive question of the guy but i understand it's painful i mean do you want to bleed i mean do you want that i mean if it was a choice no Actually knowing now what I know now and for my own young daughters, I'm like, we have got to make sure you have a period. yeah But when I was young, I was a dancer and an athlete. I had very low body fat and I wouldn't have periods for six to nine months. And I'm like, yes. You know what's interesting? I was thinking of Mel.
Speaker: She, because of what she's been through, and also because she's listened to the conversations I've had with all of you, and she understands the value and importance of her period, she now celebrates it. It's like a celebration in our house when it arrives, because because if you understand the importance that it has in sort of full body health and the role it's playing, then the pain, the downside, is weighted against your understanding of the upside, which to her means she's healthy, she's phantom. Promonal health is working, things are great. And that's the conversation shift that I'm hoping is going to, instead of being a detriment and a downer and talked about, she must be on whatever derogatory, yes, derogatory things are said about us, that, oh my gosh, she is so healthy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: right, well, let's unpack this a little bit. um First of all, if you're watching, you would have seen there was this community note that went up ah talking about how like in many traditions, menstruation is seen as a time of rest and renewal and da-da-da-da-da, which I don't think is actually accurate. My, you know, and I can't speak for all traditions, obviously, but my sense is more that like historically in older times, a lot of the time women would be sort of like put away somewhere else while they have their period. It was not, we certainly weren't throwing a party for her.
Speaker: Not that we need to be throwing a party for her, which is what they're saying. ah But, but this, the note, I just found that community note a bit strange. um Okay. So once more, they're making this claim. It's very harmful to your health to have low estrogen at all.
Speaker: This is their main message again. and again, you can be on birth control and be supplementing with estrogen or using a type of birth control that also delivers an estrogen stand-in. So birth control is not automatically giving you estrogen that is too low, right? It's just not.
Speaker: And then this whole thing about to her daughter, we have got to make sure that you have a period. Yeah. I found that very strange right after they were like, would you want to have a period, Steven? Right. You want it? It's the worst. And then in the same breath, it's like, we've got to make sure you have a period. I'm like, which is it? like Right.
Speaker: Well, and it's this weird eye it's this weird thing again where they're like, oh, well let's help women not suffer. But then right on the heels of that, suffering is part of being a woman and you better be having your period and suffering. It's just so confusing because it's like, okay, yes, it is part of being a woman and there's nothing wrong with having a period and we don't need to actually glorify it either. It's just confusing that they're like acknowledging in one moment that it's, it sucks for a lot of women, but then like, we got to make sure that the kids have their periods, like no matter what, right? It's like, yeah.
Speaker: What? And a you know a generous interpretation would be like her. She just told this story of how when she was younger and she was a gymnast or a dancer or something, and she wouldn't get her period. That again, that's a sign of lifestyle that is affecting your general health. And one of one of the clues that we're getting that the life lifestyle is affecting your general health is that your period stops. So if she's talking about maybe like for her kids who are super active, you know keeping an eye on the fact that they're still getting their period because in that circumstance,
Speaker: If your period goes away, it's a sign that something might be going on. that's That's a generous interpretation, but that's not what she said, right? She said, gotta to make sure you get your period, right?
Speaker: So, okay. And then Bartlett comes in, right? With the anecdote to seal the deal, talking about how his girlfriend now celebrates her period and the you know the pain is worth it, right?
Speaker: So yes, of course, it is a good idea to create a climate where we don't have to hide having a period where like, I mean, I remember when I was a kid and I got my period and I was going to school and I was using pads because I was think 12. And there was this idea that I shouldn't be using a tampon because putting something inside you was a little too close to like something sexual. And I was only 12. Like, I think there was a little bit of that kind of Catholic thing about it. So I'd had like big pads,
Speaker: And like so afraid all day that it was gonna show somewhere that I was gonna leak, right? Because even in this school that I went to that was all girls, it still would have been something to be mocked for because that's kind of the general attitude. And that's it's not incorrect that we should change that. It's not incorrect that we shouldn't and we should normalize this as best we can.
Speaker: But again, it's not the period that's making the person healthy. And it is unnecessary in this year of Bad Bunny 2026 to go through horribly painful periods.
Speaker: We don't have to, we have the technology. you know And and let's this is the thing that that i that they're not accurately describing. There's this sort of idea that like, let's get back to, it's like all of Maha, right?
Speaker: Make America ovulate again, ma'ua. um be but ma what right? That we're going back to this time when every everyone got their period all the time.
Speaker: But as Dr. Kemi pointed out, historically before birth control, women spent a lot of time in their life pregnant. And when you're pregnant, you're not ovulating.
Speaker: You're not having a period. So why are we idolizing having your period? Like it's the second coming of Jesus Christ out of your vagina. And, and We know that more cycles equals higher risk of uterine or ovarian cancer, but nobody's saying about that. That is not coming up at all.
Speaker: And it's always estrogen is good and we got to give her estrogen. Like if you listen to the whole episode, there's many times in which Mary Claire Haver and maybe Dr. Natalie Crawford are like, but she needs more estrogen. You got to give her more estrogen. If you listen to the talk with Dr. Kemi, she talks about how uterine cancer risk ah is driven by estrogen, right? and And excess estrogen and just giving women estrogen and telling them estrogen, estrogen, estrogen. right, is ah potentially increasing increasing that risk by decreasing the public's understanding of like what, what it's not just a good blank, right? It's not ah it's not a good blank. it's It's a fucking hormone. And its value depends on how it's given to someone, when and by whom, and what the clinical reasoning was behind it. But like, we listen to this episode, and we come away thinking that there are good hormones and there are bad hormones and there are good hormones at good times and bad hormones at bad times. And like, this is just so irresponsible and unethical and terrible medical communication that we're seeing. We're really seeing very, very irresponsible, harmful medical communication take place.
Speaker: Yeah. All right. So this last one ah is just once again, Crawford claiming that it's really important to give your brain a break if you're on birth control and use that week of placebo for your brain.
Speaker: Okay. let's Let's listen to this.
Speaker: I just think that it's really important if you're using the birth control pill. I do think it's important to give your brain a break from the pill at times. And even if you're cycling it monthly, you know there's options now. I took the pill, an active pill, every single day for for years, a decade probably, meaning suppressed my brain completely for that long. Now, your brain sends out hormone signals that impact your entire body, right? So we already talked about the hormones and how it's this beautifully conducted symphony.
Speaker: But if you even, if you're gonna take the pill at that young age, I would say, Take it so that you have the seven days of not not taking a pill, let your brain have a moment of release from the suppression, and then take it again. That's still a very effective way to use the pill. But because women don't love having periods, we've offered these other options, which are not wrong, but they just have a bigger consequence downstream than we're talking about.
Speaker: You're wrong. But. But. Yeah. Yeah. So, all right, let's, let's talk about this. Thankfully that one was kind of short.
Speaker: So she says, I think it's really important if you're using birth control, I do think it's important to give your brain a break from the pill at times. So we already know there's no medical reason to do this. And also I just think is how my neighbor who did their own research talks. It shouldn't be how a doctor talks. yeah I just think,
Speaker: I just think it should, it should be evidence shows yeah that it's really important yeah for this. If you're, but she, there's, that's not a sentence that could exist. Right. So I just think, all right.
Speaker: Also, she's talking about these downstream consequences, right? So, I mean, she says she took the pill actively for 10 years. What downstream consequences has she suffered from being on the pill, right? She's not giving any examples of harm that she has experienced, right?
Speaker: Have you seen, you saw the reel I sent to you about her talking about her miscarriages, right? Yes. Yeah. I don't know that she speaks publicly about why she thinks she had them.
Speaker: But she says, like, I never took the seven day break. She shares oh wow like very emotional reels where she talks about, you know, I guess like the guilt that she you know, feels what, you know, she knows that as a doctor that that feeling of guilt maybe isn't warranted, but she still feels it because she's a human being. They're very, like, it's very easy to empathize with her when she talks about it. And, yeah you know, in the comment section, people are just very adoring of her. Like, you're so brave and you put out such great information. and like, one person weighed in and was like,
Speaker: anyone who says anything negative about you is just jealous. That's the only reason they would ever like criticize you is they're just, they're just jealous of you. Like you're so amazing, right? Like how you show up for us emotionally, how you're able to just like download onto us, like the pain and the trauma and like, you're a doctor and you're trying to help us not have to experience this pain and trauma. And, you know, I don't know if she,
Speaker: has ever said publicly, maybe listeners, you can, you can send us a reel that if you've seen her do this, I don't, I don't, I don't know that she has, but like, it seems to me like she thinks that there are some potential downstream negative consequences to fertility. if you take hormonal birth control. She also seems to think that you shouldn't just continuously take the pills and you should give yourself the break. And like these have downstream consequences that we're not talking about, right? Or that they're trying to talk about, they're trying to insinuate. And then she shares this reel about her miscarriages. And it seems like her whole brand is kind of built around this idea that like, we need to be, we need to protect women's ability to conceive and we need to keep women fertile. And I,
Speaker: I don't know. Yeah. It's very, very sophisticated, complicated, tricky human stuff that fucking works really well, you know? Yeah. Like it works really well. It goes, does really well on social media.
Speaker: Like everything we're seeing in this Stephen Bartlett podcast, like the way that they're communicating um has virality, right? Like the way they're saying it and the way they're putting it and the, you know,
Speaker: He watches like very quickly spliced together quick takes and clips that he does at the start of every episode where like it's like, you know, camera A is like oh on Miracle-Haver saying something shocking. Camera B is on Vonderweid saying something shocking. It's like boom boom, boom, boom, boom. Right. And then the title is like you've been lied to, you know, right this is this is attention grabbing gold.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So she's perhaps insinuating in some way that her own issues with conception and carrying may, who knows, whatever. I don't know. We don't. Okay. um So she's saying because women don't let love having periods, we're offered these other options, meaning not taking the week off, which are not wrong. Right.
Speaker: but they just have a bigger consequence downstream that we're talking about. No, there's no, that's not, that's not right. It's again, this like, well, those stupid women don't want to suffer through a period.
Speaker: So we're are fine. I mean, you can do that, but it's going to screw you up later. Yeah. Right. Just, just wait. It's going to come back. Yeah. Yeah. yes Something bad's going to happen. Right. Right.
Speaker: You know, the week off, we know already it's not medically necessary necessary. It's also not actually the same thing as like having your period. It's just, you're just bleeding because of the withdrawal the hormones. Right. So, uh, it's just more, more nonsense, more packaging. Yeah.
Speaker: yes Yeah, but I mean, yeah, we really wanted the listeners to hear her say, you know, that that the seven-day placebo is for the brain break, right? Right. This idea that your brain needs break. It kind of just puts into relief, like...
Speaker: history, science, facts, and then what Dr. Crawford says. Right. And again, he just, after three hours, I just, I got to keep coming back to, to one question. Right. Which is like, maybe Sarah has some new ideas or thoughts about this. Like why did each of these guests, each one of them with their different brands and their different audiences and their different niches and their different products and their different things that they sell. Right.
Speaker: Why do they all decide to come on and sort of agree with each other in the framing of birth control in the way that it was framed on this podcast? Yeah. What's the deal with that?
Speaker: What are they, what what's their end game? What are they, what are they going for here? I mean, sorry, it's a tough one. Well, it's just like I yeah. and
Speaker: I think we can't underestimate the fact that there are plenty of other doctors out there who are providing good scientific based evidence-based information, but they're not nearly as famous as these doctors.
Speaker: And so I have to assume that part of what their purpose and desire is, is to retain this level of, of fame. Yeah. They want to be well-known. They want to be recognized.
Speaker: They're interested in that, which is not a particular, particularly doctory kind of behavior. If you think about, if I think about most of the doctors that I know,
Speaker: Like they're not, they are, they are shunning the spotlight. They are not interested in that at all. They're busy doing medicine, right? Even the ones that are, that we see like Dr. Lauren Colenzo Semple or Jen Gunter who do come online and refute this, neither one of them is nearly as famous as these other people, even though they're, they're definitely better known than, than we are, they,
Speaker: I've even heard Lauren say things like, you know, it's, I don't have a lot of time for this. Like she's, she's actually a very good science communicator because she's able to sort of put things together, but she's like, you know, most, most doctors, most scientists, they're busy doing the doctoring and the sciencing, you know, they're, that is their, that is their number one concern. So, so I come back to this idea of like, how is each of their level of fame then also boosting,
Speaker: everybody else's level at fa of fame by sitting next to each other. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of how Stephen Bartlett did what he did. I mean, that's how his marketing brains behind his operation.
Speaker: can't remember her name, but I watched a YouTube special about her like Her whole idea was this audience share idea, right? Which is to get like really famous guests on. It doesn't matter the topic, right? Stephen Bartlett's podcast, IRCO, if you listen. It talks anything. It's about everything. It's an everything podcast. He's interviewed all different types of people across you know the information and misinformation sphere about various different fields of study and topics, right?
Speaker: He doesn't care. He does not have a lane, except that every single guest has... an audience, right? That they bring to the table. Or they have some information that's going to bring an audience to his show. So anyway, um yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. I guess like we we just look, we we can't know the private motives of anyone. We can't know what they're thinking.
Speaker: um What we can do is we can ask what their behavior and choices reflect or what they point to.
Speaker: um So why did each of these guests frame birth control in this way? you know like Why does Mary Claire Haver call the pill a crutch and make her niece's athletic future sound like it was at risk, um but also then present estrogen repeatedly as a solution?
Speaker: um Does this reinforce her hormone-focused brand? Does this boost some of the products she's built? um Why does Vonda Wright use her orthopedic perspective to warn that birth control could damage girls' bones when that harm hasn't been established except for one form that she never mentions?
Speaker: I mean, does that lend credibility to her somehow? Is it just the outrage? Is that the point? Like, is that, is that the, is that the thing that she's after? Why does Stacey Sims move from pilot data to a specific cold water protocol for endometriosis, um, while kind of supporting everyone at the table who's framing like these established treatments as inadequate, you know, fear-mongering hormonal birth control as the treatment.
Speaker: Um, How might Natalie Crawford's fertility specialty, the fertility courses she sells, her whole hero's journey, right, and the entire narrative behind what she does and why she does it, the book she's written, how does this all influence which risks she emphasizes when talking about contraception and how she talks about them?
Speaker: um We're asking because these stories can make people distrust established care and instead trust the person offering a different way, a different answer. yeah um And that can definitely serve commercial interests.
Speaker: It will also possibly benefit anti-abortion groups um when contraception is treated with suspicion. And we aren't claiming these guests share the same motives or political agenda as that.
Speaker: We're just asking who benefits, who all benefits. When women's choices are narrowed because they've been given bad information and they've been misled.
Speaker: Yeah. Women's experiences of dismissal deserve to be taken seriously. But so does the evidence. and or lack thereof for the alternatives.
Speaker: And we believe that it's each person's right to be able to make an informed decision about their health. And we think that medical doctors should help people do that.
Speaker: And it seems to me like the medical doctors and the PhD, Sims on here have actually come on to do the opposite.
Speaker: So we got to wonder
Speaker: who does this serve? Yeah. Doesn't serve women. And to your point, no, it does not. And to your point about, we're not claiming that they have political agenda or motives, but they sure are carrying water who for anyone who does. And this is a great piece of evidence for anyone who wants to use it. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: for any sort of any i mean you read yesteryear right yeah uh there's there's obviously in the book sorry not that this is not a real spoiler but the the idea is that it's this very kind of like conservative christian family and the, the teaching is that, you know, you get married and you start making babies.
Speaker: Right. And so that perspective could very easily take this entire podcast episode and play it and be like, even the doctors agree. Yeah. Even the doctors agree that, you know, birth control is harmful. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: um Yeah. And so, yeah. So like the question could be narrowed to like who benefits when women are pregnant. Yeah, exactly. Who benefits when women go back to spending most of their adult years raising kids and pregnant.
Speaker: Who benefits when women have a reduced number of choices to take care of their physical health? Yeah. Yeah. It's not women. No. No, it definitely isn't.
Speaker: Well, um this concludes our and almost four hour ah you know episode. um But we parts. Actually, can I say a real quick? Yeah, we we broke it into two parts. It's the thing Sarah and I are doing now is we're we're not we're not allowing our episodes to go much longer than two hours, I think is what we said. um Another thing Sarah and I are doing now, which we'll remind you of, is we are appearing on YouTube in video in video form.
Speaker: So ah you can look at us and listen to us. You can. can we We somehow matched our colors today. I'm not sure. i know. I love your shirt. i Thanks. We look very purple.
Speaker: We do. We could easily have chosen each other's outfits. In fact, perhaps going forwards, we should coordinate, but make sure that we match on on our recording days. We're still working the kinks out, folks. We're still still figuring this out. But um but yeah.
Speaker: What were you going to say? Here's the thing I want to say. We got a, I believe it was in a review of the of the podcast a little while ago. We got a comment from somebody who, I'm not going to i'm not going to quote this exactly right, so my apologies, but it was basically like is sort of saying like, it sounds like you guys are anti-Republican and I hope that's not true, basically. but that's my That's my recollection of the of the comment.
Speaker: um And here's the thing. yeah yeah Everybody has a right to whatever individual beliefs they have, however they want to express them politically, religiously, everything.
Speaker: But you cannot look at the way that women's health is being treated, ah especially with something like the Roe v. Wade being taken down. you know You can't look at the way that women's health is treated specifically or during a Republican administration and think that it's pro-women.
Speaker: You just really can't. And if you do I fear that you are laboring under a lot of misconceptions. So whereas- I mean, think they're not even allowed to use the word woman to talk about health. Like they're not allowed- Oh, right. You're not allowed to talk about women's health Certain words and like women's health was struck from like the word woman.
Speaker: So yeah, so so sort of part of, i think what that's what that is, well, certainly people who are are like applying for federal loans and grants- Yes, grants. There's like keywords that you can't use and anymore. And one of them is women's health. Yeah. So, so if you want to fund some research that would help women. Yeah.
Speaker: Good luck. Can't, can't talk about the thing you want to do because you can't say woman. Right. yeah So yeah, I, I have a very hard time looking at that and thinking that this is a pro women climate.
Speaker: um
Speaker: you know, to me, the evidence is there. We're not trying to make political claims around anything else, but we are very pro women and we're very anti patriarchy. And ah so, so, you know, to the person's comment, again, i'm not trying to tell anybody what to do, but if you are walking around thinking that this current Republican administration is really here for women's health generally, um I fear you are very misinformed. Yeah.
Speaker: All right. Well, thanks for joining us for part two and making it to this point in the episode where ah we're very close to being done. And before we leave, we would love for you to leave us a rating or review.
Speaker: And also ah check out our Barbell Mini Course. It's our free freebie that we... send to you immediately once you sign up. And there's a lot of good material in there. It's very educational. And we think you're going to get something out of it. So whether it's that you want to know a little bit more about barbells, you want to know a little bit more about how to apply the tools of strength training, barbells or not, right? Maybe you just want to know how to squat and you don't really need to have a barbell. You could learn how to squat just by following the video where we show you happen to be holding a barbell. um there's There's a lot of good information there and it's free. Did we mention that it's free? You just give us your email and we give you this free course and then you might hear from us occasionally. I don't, when's the last time we emailed anyone? It was months ago. You might occasionally hear from us every couple of weeks or months um about something that we're up to or so or podcast episodes that we want to tell you about or sometimes we share an article. so yeah We will not be hammering you with emails. um
Speaker: You're lucky if you hear from us a couple of times.
Speaker: Like a literal text conversation might be, hey, did you do, when was the last time we sent out an email and the other person going, oh, fuck. Like something like that. Like that's not uncommon. Oh my God. We should really start. We really need to do one, don't we?
Speaker: Yeah, that's us. Okay. Yeah. So if you're worried about getting spammed, it literally the opposite is going to happen. Yeah, exactly. You're going to get ghosted. Yeah.
Speaker: Give us your email and get ready to get ghosted.
Speaker: Oh, but you'll get the mini course. That's right. You get the mini course and then and we disappear. We got that one on autopilot. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you all so much. We'll be back in your ear in two weeks with another great episode and we will see you then. See you in two weeks.
Speaker: My... We did it. Our first video. Well, this is our second one, but... Yes, technically.
