Thanks to the J&J vaccine scare, more women are realizing that birth-control pills cause blood...

Well, ones are claiming "no one told me".

But . . . in general . . . there are people who won't listen, even if you do tell them.

People have been told about the risks of smoking. There is proof in their faces. But they smoke.

But I have been told that doctors can get a financial reward for prescribing a drug. Does this happen with birth control drugs?? In the article, we have the woman who was an athlete and she got clots and no doctor ever warned her about that possibility, she said.

So . . . did those doctors have a financial motive, for not telling her the risks??

Or - - on the other hand . . . it seems to me, how doctors do tell their patients things; yet, humans keep doing what turns out badly. And this possibly can become more and more disillusioning for doctors, so they might get fatigued so they do not make so much effort to try to advise their patients.

Doctors can be human . . . too . . . in different ways.

So, since we now can know this, possibly we can find out how to make sure about things we do.

If we pray and do what God has us do, He will guide us according to all He knows is really true. So, whenever I discover how I have been tricked, I can be wise to start with my own self, about why I did not seek God to guide me according to what He knows is true.

By the way - - - I have been told that pharmacists can be quite in the know about a drug, more than doctors who are not so specialized in drug knowledge.

On the other hand, once I talked with a pharmacist who seemed like quite a hot-head who started ranting about how doctors are so unreliable. That got me suspicious . . . of her. And so I carefully and prayerfully checked on things, I think including with at least one other pharmacist. And it seems the hot-headed one was not one to trust.

It is recommended that we talk with a pharmacist about drugs we use, including to make sure a new drug will not interact badly with drugs we already may be taking.

So . . . I am curious if pharmacists might more readily let women know about the clot risks of taking certain birth drugs.

In the article, one person claims that the drug pamphlets, if I understand correctly, are too unclear for a nonprofessional to understand. But why not talk with a pharmacist who might make things clear . . . if they do tend to make things like this clear?

The original version of the pill was tested on the Puerto Rican population. The version eventually approved by the FDA was approximately 6X weaker than the trial. Much of a generation of women in Puerto Rico experienced health problems, particularly reproductive problems, as they entered their 40s and 50s. Many of these issues led to premature deaths.

When I see this sort of headline in a Catholic forum, I get a bit cynical. I'm one of those who think the contraceptive pill was God's gift, given at the very time population pressures were becoming a real problem in some parts of the world.

But to stick to the topic of blood clotting - Pregnancy also increases the risk of blood clots by about the same factor as that of contraceptive pills, around 1 in 1000.

Does pregnancy cause blood clots? | Blood Clots

DOES PREGNANCY CAUSE BLOOD CLOTS?
Pregnancy does not cause blood clots, but pregnancy does increase a woman’s chance of developing a blood clot by about fourfold. A woman’s risk is even higher immediately after delivery: in the first six weeks after delivery, a new mother’s chance of developing a blood clot is five times higher than during her pregnancy. This tendency to form blood clots post delivery likely evolved to protect women from hemorrhage at the time of miscarriage or childbirth. Nonetheless, the chance that a young, healthy woman will develop a blood clot during pregnancy is still low, about 1 to 2 in 1,000.

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Blood clot risks: comparing the AstraZeneca vaccine and the contraceptive pill

By the end of March, 79 cases of rare blood clots had been reported in those who’d received the AstraZeneca vaccine the UK, with cases occurring more frequently in younger women. Because of this, comparisons have been drawn with the contraceptive pill, which carries a greater relative risk of clots. In the UK, blood clots have occurred in people taking the AstraZeneca vaccine at a rate of roughly one in every 250,000, whereas blood clots caused by the pill are estimated to affect one in every 1,000 women each year.

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From the same article ...

Finally, it’s important to note that COVID-19 itself has been reported to lead to thrombocytopenia in up to 41% of positive patients, with the figure rising to up to 95% in those with severe disease. There are many reports of small blood clots in multiple organs in COVID-19 patients causing organ damage, failure and death.

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So if someone refuses to have a Coronavirus injection, they're thousands of times more likely to develop blood clots if they contract Covid-19 than if they had the injection. I'm surprised the authorities haven't made more of a point of this fact.

My conclusion - a woman getting pregnant or using the contraceptive pill has about the same chance of developing blood clots, most likely in the lower body.

And you're an idiot if you avoid the Coronavirus jab because you're worried about getting a fatal blood clot. The virus itself is far more likely to kill you with a blood clot, if not some other method.

Before I was fully Catholic, I used the pill twice. Each time it caused health issues, I finally said 'Never again'. Now that I'm Catholic to the core, I understand why birth control is frowned upon. Once you take away the purpose of sexuality (procreation/marital union), then you open the door to all kinds of exploitations of sex. It becomes a tool to be used in numerous unhealthy and, in some cases, evil purposes.

I don't really want to turn this into a debate about contraception, but I have my reasons for believing the pill was God's idea given at the very time population growth was becoming a real problem, namely -

1. It is based on the body's own biorhythms.
2. Catholic researchers were involved.
3. Two committees set up or expanded by two popes both recommended that the pill be allowed for use by married couples.

From Wikipedia - After John XXIII's death in 1963 (who set up the original committee), Pope Paul VI added theologians to the commission and over three years expanded it to 72 members from five continents (including 16 theologians, 13 physicians and 5 women without medical credentials, with an executive committee of 16 bishops, including 7 cardinals.)

4. The simple fact that the earth cannot support an ever increasing population.

To that end I did a spreadsheet showing population growth based on 1% and 2% per annum. I tried to put it here, but it did not work.

Using 2024 as the baseline, since that is when we expect to hit 8 billion people, I calculated that by 2185 using a 1% increase PA, we would reach 40 billion, that is in 164 years from today.

If I used a 2% increase, we would reach 40 billion in 2105, just 84 years from today.

On that basis, China would have 7 billion people, almost the same as today's entire world population, with the Indian subcontinent not far off. The USA would have China's current population, and the UK 330 million.

Dry, arid old Australia which has water problems already would have about 125 million people.

How many people do you think the earth can support?

I'm not convinced of the wisdom of Pope Paul VI"s decision to ban the contraceptive pill, in the light of the recommendation of his own highly qualified committee. It doesn't impress me.

As for the fact about .1% of women who use it might develop blood clots, many prescription medicines can have side effects.

PS - If we think we can look forward to a future where we send people offshore from a crowded planet so to speak, that is to other planets, even today's rockets use a lot of fuel -

How much fuel it takes to get to the moon

SpaceX fuels their crafts not with liquid hydrogen, but with kerosene, which has a lot more energy per gallon. Thanks to this and other advances, Falcon 9’s first stage uses 39,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and almost 25,000 gallons of kerosene, while the second stage uses 7,300 gallons of liquid oxygen and 4,600 gallons of kerosene. Combined, it makes a lean mean 75,900 gallons of fuel.

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As for Apollo 11 -

All told, the rocket that achieved one small step for a man and one giant leap for mankind held just under 950,000 gallons of fuel.

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And that was to send just three men into space to the moon and back, without trying to build a settlement.

Michie said:

Contraception is against Catholic teaching.

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Yes. And one reason that is so is that contraception is not good for human ecology, neither the physical human ecology nor the moral human ecology. It's not how we were made nor how we are fulfilled.