Date: 2010-08-19 15:16 Subject: Some food for thought.... Security: Public Location: Parents' Pad Mood: thoughtful Music: None

Hm, man I sometimes wonder why people don't read the fine print with medication.

Birth control (the pill verity) has shown some pretty amazing side effects. Here are some examples of people I know personally's side effects: strokes, brain cancer, severe respiratory problems (i.e. not being able to walk up a flight of stairs because its as winding as running a mile), extreme hormonal instability (i.e. getting all of the hormonal crap from a particularly bad period but for everyday, all day, with/without the bleeding), and new allergies.

Vaccines have some pretty interesting side effects too. Cancer, serious immune system damage, new allergies, getting the illness it was supposed to prevent, poisoning, and allergic reactions. And no, Autism is not a side effect but having it does heighten your chances of having one of the more severe side effects.

My point: be a weary consumer. Just because it's all the rage does not mean its the right thing for you.

(My inspiration to post this was an interesting conversation I had had with a friend of mine who's mother suffered some of these side effects.)

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User: kiokushitaka Date: 2010-08-19 21:04 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

Unless those side effects you've mentioned are listed by the FDA on the package they are only very rare. Like a 0.00000000000000000000009% chance. All medications go through rigorous testing so that we are aware of these side effects.

Vaccines... always have the chance that you'll catch the illness they're meant to be prevent. They are a dead or weakened form of that very illness, the point of the vaccine is to expose your body to it so that it can make the necessary antibodies to fight it.

And to be fair, if you drink too much coca-cola, it destroys your stomach lining. If you eat hot sauce all the time, it kills your taste buds and can give you ulcers. If you don't eat enough fiber, you'll be constipated and worse, have a higher risk for getting colon cancer. If you don't eat enough vitamin C you can catch scurvy.

I suppose that the issue I have with the post, if you can call it that, is that it is presented as fact when there is very little scientific data to back it up. It could be that these effects you're mentioning were caused by something else altogether. Unless it was diagnosed by a doctor or addressed by a scientist it's kind of hard to accept.

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