Why Is Preventive Care So Anxiety-Inducing?

[xchrom]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/11/21/why-is-preventive-care-so-anxiety-inducing/



Not all preventive care is anxiety-inducing. But there’s two kinds of medical care that the hand-wringers who don’t understand science very well always denounce at the slightest provocation: Birth control, particularly hormonal birth control, and vaccinations. This came up again this week at the completely unwarranted spate of panicked articles about how birth control will make you go blind, based on a paper that was released without peer review, shows results that other studies haven’t found, and whose own researchers are describing as extremely preliminary and shouldn’t mean you should reconsider the pill. Indeed, the worst case scenario from the existing information is that gynecologists might start screening for a family history of glaucoma. Hardly a reason to, as one writer for The Week did, suggest that women go off the birth control pill.

Inevitably when you start pushing back against these alarmist, unscientific anti-pill hit pieces, defenders of this practice of sounding the alarm frame it as “education” and imply that the critics are simply dupes of Big Medicine who want to conceal the no doubt nefarious motives behind, uh, making a product women clearly and desperately want. While pill alarmists like to paint themselves as innocent parties whose attempts to add more information—the argument depends on refusing to distinguish between good and bad information—to the discourse, the effects of alarmist disinformation are actually quite serious:

In fact, sensational reporting on such findings can have an actively negative impact on women’s ability to choose the best contraceptive method. For years, women’s magazines reported that birth control pills caused weight gain. Even after numerous studies debunked this claim, concern about putting on a few pounds is one of the main reasons why women stop using the pill, or refuse to take it in the first place. In 1995, after the British Committee on the Safety of Medicines erroneously suggested that certain types of birth control pills dramatically increased women’s risk of blood clots, rates of unintended pregnancy soared.

It’s clear that this isn’t just a generalized inability to understand issues like cost/benefit analysis or risk assessment. As the writer of the quote above, Amelia Thomson-Deveaux points out, Viagra, coffee, and other drugs with similar or even much higher risk profiles don’t get this treatment. OTC painkillers are often much more dangerous than the pill, and that doesn’t get nearly the same kind of coverage. Big Pharma has some seriously shady practices, but—and sorry to disappoint—hiding the supposedly ill effects of birth control just isn’t one of them. Or vaccines. It’s actually quite maddening to see the most paranoia and anger about two kinds of drugs that Big Pharma actually gets largely right.

[LWolf]

1. When I saw your thread title,

birth control and vaccinations didn't pop into my head; they are no-brainers. When I saw "preventative care," I thought of the letter I opened from my insurance company last night.

You see, they keep sending me emails and snail mail about their "wellness" programs. Last night's letter was yet another urging me to get a "health coach." Which I don't need. I have adequate information about my lifestyle and my current state of health. What I don't have is insurance I can afford to use for anything that doesn't keep me from functioning today. What I could really use is a set of updated insurance cards, which I'm supposed to get every October but am still waiting for this year. That means that, last week, when I went to the local clinic to deal with my ear infection, my insurance was "out of date."

Which doesn't really matter, since it won't cover the visit or the prescription, since I haven't met my deductible for this year. Which is never going to happen outside of something catastrophic, because incurring that much debt would put me in bankruptcy.

Getting the constant push to let them "coach" me is anxiety producing when I'm just waiting for the new cards I should have gotten 6 weeks ago and hoping I don't need to use them.

Birth control and vaccinations? No anxiety. Some anger for those who use propaganda to discourage people from using them, though.

[xchrom]

2. yes, before i read the article - i had the same notion.

as a rule -- i think 'preventative' care isn't sound.

now, i'm not talking about birth control or vaccines -- which i hadn't even considered being in that ball park.