I was reading someone else's website, thanks to Google reader, which allows me to half-heartedly follow blogs I find interesting, and got deeply annoyed at her celebration of the idiotic Bonk. It made me wonder whether I should stop reading this woman's blog altogether.
However, my snarky dislike for poorly written "popular" press is not going to keep the 3 people who read this coming back for more. Instead, I'd like to send you to read an article about James Trussell's call for a shift in contraceptive methods. He argued (and I haven't found the original speech, if such a thing actually exists) that the birth control pill is an "outdated" method, advocating for longer-acting contraceptive methods. Trussell has written some very excellent academic articles on women's bodies and contraceptive methods, and I like it when someone challenges standardized practices when it is clear that the methods we depend on are simply out of habit. So much of medical practice comes from "habit," or "that is what we have done for years," rather than actual benefit/efficacy/efficiency.
A number of women I know have gotten an Intrauterine Device (IUD) -- a method which has been improved (purportedly) in the last ten years or so. One by one, friends have told me about their decision (not all of whom have given birth, which used to be the case, you had to have already had a kid to be allowed to have an IUD). The fascinating thing about the IUD is that they don't entirely understand how/why it works. Another example in medical technology in which lack of frequency of use has probably driven the lack of research surrounding it. It's easy to claim that failure to understand technology is due to the impenetrability of the task at hand, but it seems to me that often the failure is due to lack of motivation (such as economic...we do live in a capitalist-driven health world).
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