I don't have occasion to listen to Public Radio very often. Having it on for awhile this morning turned into an astounding shock for me, giving me the idea I really have lost touch with the world.
NPR was doing a story about birth control. The focus of their story was on a product called Yaz (if I'm spelling it right). A birth control pill that I never heard of before the story, which I guess is my out of touch strike one.
So apparently it has really messed up some of the women who were taking it, and its producer was supposedly guilty of misleading their customers on its properties and benefits. Key among them a claim that it can not only help avoid pregnancy, but also clear up acne.
Then came the major shock. They brought in a subject of their story, a young woman who developed serious blood clots and claims to have nearly lost her life because of taking Yaz. But that's not the shocking part.
I was shocked when the young woman explained that she was 16 when she went to her Gynecologist and cajoled her into prescribing Yaz, because she believed the advertising that it would help clear up her acne.
Later, the woman's mother appeared in the interview to express her notion that the company misled her daughter about the acne and failed to properly communicate that those who have a high clotting factor shouldn't use it.
The program never once mentioned anything about the appropriateness of a sexually active 16 year old who goes to her gynecologist to demand the hip new birth control pill. Or why the mother seemed to support her daughter's behavior, which can reasonably be claimed to have proven dangerous to her health.
It felt like an episode of The Twilight Zone.
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