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Speaker 1: My good agulestar. How are you ni?

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Speaker 2: Good to see you mate.

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Speaker 3: Now you and I.

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Speaker 1: Are doing an impromptu one. Now let me just set

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Speaker 1: the scene everyone.

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Speaker 3: So today I was due to record a solo one today,

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Speaker 3: so to go up tomorrow tomorrow.

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Speaker 1: So today is the third of March.

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Speaker 3: It's Monday, and I'm always looking at David's work. And

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Speaker 3: I'm not saying this insincerely because i just said this

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Speaker 3: to him one on one off air. It's one of

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Speaker 3: the most brilliant articles that I've read in a very

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Speaker 3: long time. And apart from the fact that the content

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Speaker 3: is amazing, that like the interweaving of all these different

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Speaker 3: factors and variables and things that I hadn't really considered,

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Speaker 3: like stuff like kind in you but never really thought about,

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Speaker 3: but the actual writing and David would hate this, but

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Speaker 3: the writing of the article is so fucking good. So

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Speaker 3: the article is called The Price of Liberation The Pills

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Speaker 3: hit in toll on teenage Girls. It's on substack and

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Speaker 3: find that have a read of that is my suggestion,

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Speaker 3: because really it is more significant. It is give or

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Speaker 3: take three and a half thousand words, but it is

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Speaker 3: worth the time and the energy investment because it is

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Speaker 3: a revelation for guys and girls, I think anyway, that

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Speaker 3: is my opinion. I didn't intend to read it all.

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Speaker 3: I thought, oh, this looks interesting. What's golespo? And then

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Speaker 3: I started reading. I went, oh, this is significant. This

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Speaker 3: baggage up to page and when I don't have time

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Speaker 3: for this, and then I read it all and it's

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Speaker 3: just awesome. I'm just going to read the first bit

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Speaker 3: because I want to set it up.

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Speaker 1: And then I'm going to get out of the way

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Speaker 1: for you to do your thing.

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Speaker 3: Sure, I like doing this because it gives people a

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Speaker 3: bit of an insight in the human era of a

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Speaker 3: Puerto Rico click and I have fifty six. A handful

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Speaker 3: of women unknowingly stepped into a medical trial that would

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Speaker 3: change the world. They were the pioneers of a hormonal revolution,

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Speaker 3: the vanguard of a movement that we grant women unprecedented

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Speaker 3: control over their bodies and then destinies.

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Speaker 1: But like all revolutions, this.

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Speaker 3: One had unintended consequences, hidden costs that would ripple through generations.

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Speaker 3: This is the story of the pill, a triumphant scientific

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Speaker 3: innovation and social activism, and the silent crisis it has

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Speaker 3: ignited in the vulnerable lines of teenage girls. Yeah, so firstly,

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Speaker 3: what was the catalyst for this? And you know what

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Speaker 3: I love is we haven't gone in this space before,

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Speaker 3: and you and I had a lot of chats, so

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Speaker 3: I like the fact that it's a different area. But

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Speaker 3: what prompted this.

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Speaker 2: Article, I Ah, it's a long path, but I'll I'm

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Speaker 2: trying you this short version of it. When I was

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Speaker 2: writing Free Schools, which is the book I wrote about

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Speaker 2: the Australian education system, I noticed that there was a

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Speaker 2: dramatic shift in the way Australian households were organized when

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Speaker 2: you're compared just after World War II to modern day.

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Speaker 2: And often writers talked about, oh, that's because so what

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Speaker 2: happened was the average household just after World War two

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Speaker 2: had four and a half five kids. I can't remember

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Speaker 2: the exact statistics, but it was a lot, and it

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Speaker 2: didn't have any labor saving devices. It had kids, so

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Speaker 2: it had the mother usually at home. She was the

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Speaker 2: labor saving device or the person doing all the work,

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Speaker 2: and the kids were there and they were expected to

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Speaker 2: get out of the way or help, and there was

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Speaker 2: no concept of entertaining or indulging kids at that time.

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Speaker 2: It was just they were extra labor. But that shifted

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Speaker 2: dramatically when you compared that time to now where where

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Speaker 2: the average household is full of labor saving devices. So

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Speaker 2: the average homemaker in nineteen forty five, I don't know,

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Speaker 2: was doing sixty seventy hours a week of labor. Now

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Speaker 2: they're doing about fourteen. And the difference is all the

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Speaker 2: devices and so on. But also it changed the status

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Speaker 2: of the kids. You know, now I have one point,

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Speaker 2: whatever it is, you know, we're not even at replacement

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Speaker 2: levels in Australia at the moment. And that dramatically changed

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Speaker 2: the way we treated kids. Kids were no longer the

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Speaker 2: labor force, you know, and expected to get in there

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Speaker 2: and help. They became the prodigies that you know, had

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Speaker 2: to be indulged at all costs and no horrible things

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Speaker 2: could ever happen to them, you know, especially the word no.

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Speaker 2: And you know, it was a dramatic shift, and I

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Speaker 2: noticed it, and I didn't really draw much attention to

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Speaker 2: it in writing that book, but it stuck with me.

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Speaker 2: That's a very big change. And so when I was

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Speaker 2: writing Teen Brain about changes in the teenagers' brains that

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Speaker 2: occurred because of adolescence and the way the hormones work

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Speaker 2: in puberty. I came across this massive study in in Denmark,

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Speaker 2: and you know, a little bit of a spoiler alert

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Speaker 2: at the end of this article, is I finished or

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Speaker 2: towards the end of this article I talk about this study.

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Speaker 2: And what blew me away about this study is it

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Speaker 2: was massive, a million women between the ages of fifteen

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Speaker 2: and thirty four a million, And what they had studied

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Speaker 2: was the effect of birth control on these women's mental health,

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Speaker 2: So was the incidence of anxiety and depression and obviously

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Speaker 2: other things like suicide, self harm, etc. Was it in

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Speaker 2: any way related or correlated with whether or not a

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Speaker 2: woman was taking hormonal birth control, that is, the pill

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Speaker 2: or the longer acting versions of it like IUDs and

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Speaker 2: so on and injectibles. And the answer was pretty damn

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Speaker 2: shocking as far as I'm concerned. When this study came

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Speaker 2: out twenty sixteen, which was about when I was writing

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Speaker 2: that book, and it said what they found was that

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Speaker 2: women between the ages of fifteen and thirty four who

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Speaker 2: were on the pill were twice as likely to be

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Speaker 2: diagnosed with anxiety and depression, not a little bit more likely,

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Speaker 2: not a little bit here or there, or you know,

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Speaker 2: bit hard to call twice as likely. And worse than that,

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Speaker 2: when you look at a particular age group, the fifteen

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Speaker 2: to nineteen year olds who were on long term or

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Speaker 2: monal birth control, it was three times as likely. So

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Speaker 2: the group who are most likely to have severe adverse

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Speaker 2: outcomes from anxiety and depression, which is teenage girls, were

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Speaker 2: three times as likely to have those outcomes if they

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Speaker 2: were on birthnroll. And I thought, Wow, this is a

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Speaker 2: shocking statistic, and I kind of slipped it into teen brain,

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Speaker 2: but not really. It doesn't really have a home in there.

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Speaker 2: It's just it's in there. And I've always wanted to

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Speaker 2: really drill in to the pill and write the story

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Speaker 2: of the pill and understand how we got to this

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Speaker 2: place where we are happily giving a hormonal steroid medication

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Speaker 2: to young girls, often not for birth control, which we'll

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Speaker 2: talk about later, and we're happily doing that and blithely

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Speaker 2: ignoring major studies that say this is really dangerous to do. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I mean I've never come across that. I've never come

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Speaker 2: across that in everyday media, in people talking, but no

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Speaker 2: one says anything about, Hey, I'll by the way, you know,

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Speaker 2: the pill significantly increases the chances of anxiety and depression

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Speaker 2: in teenage girls, well not just teenage girls, in any woman,

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Speaker 2: but particularly in teenage girls.

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Speaker 3: And not just significantly, but like fucking astoundingly.

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Speaker 1: Like when you say significantly, like.

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Speaker 3: In normal science would go, oh, it increases by twenty Yeah,

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Speaker 3: we'd go, well, that's significant.

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Speaker 1: No, it's free.

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Speaker 2: That's right, that's bizar.

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Speaker 1: That is not a big conversation.

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Speaker 2: So what I wanted to do with this article is

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Speaker 2: I wanted to go back in time and really tell

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Speaker 2: the story of how we came to have this thing

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Speaker 2: in the first place. And I mean it's for all

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Speaker 2: the right reasons, all the right reasons. In the nineteen thirties,

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Speaker 2: they were just starting to get the hang of hang

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Speaker 2: on a sec there's these thing called steroid hormones in

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Speaker 2: male and female bodies that seemed to have a lot

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Speaker 2: to do with, you know, whether or not we get

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Speaker 2: pregnant and so on, And they were just discovering that

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Speaker 2: progesterone did affect a female's ability to reproduce. So if

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Speaker 2: it was added, you could it made periods less painful,

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Speaker 2: It could be used for all kinds of gynecological and

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Speaker 2: obstetric treatments. Trouble was it was hideously expensive because it

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Speaker 2: had to be extracted from animals, and so it wasn't

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Speaker 2: much uptake for it because only really very rich people

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Speaker 2: would have had any real access to it. And that

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Speaker 2: sent a doctor, well actually he was more of a

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Speaker 2: research scientist than a doctor, out on the hunt, a

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Speaker 2: fellow by the name of Russell Marker on the hunt

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Speaker 2: for he felt he'd heard rumors, you know, and read

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Speaker 2: some things about some types of yam, in particular one

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Speaker 2: growing in Mexico, which is bloody huge. I've put a

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Speaker 2: photo of it in the article.

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Speaker 3: It's gone the Diascoria Mexicana. Yeah, I'm like shit, how

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Speaker 3: does that translate to the pill? But anyway, I love

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Speaker 3: it so much.

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Speaker 2: Yep, these things are huge. Like imagine a pineapple now

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Speaker 2: multiplied by twenty right, those are what it looks like,

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Speaker 2: but it contains There had been local folklore amongst the

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Speaker 2: native people's in Mexico for centuries that eating these yams

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Speaker 2: could control many of the same problems that they were

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Speaker 2: trying to do with progesterone in western medicine, and so

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Speaker 2: this had peaked his interest and he'd gone looking for them.

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Speaker 2: He actually found a local shopkeeper and together they managed

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Speaker 2: to harvest ten tons of these yams and extracted eventually

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Speaker 2: extracted progesterone from it, and well produced it from the

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Speaker 2: things they extracted from. Boy with the details, but anyway,

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Speaker 2: the result was that you could produce progesterone extremely cheaply

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Speaker 2: using these dams. And when the doctors who were out

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Speaker 2: looking at progesterone studies heard about this, they thought, well,

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Speaker 2: hang on a sec. Now there's a bit of a market.

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Speaker 2: Now we can actually get the raw ingredient we need

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Speaker 2: at an affordable price. So all those sorts of things

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Speaker 2: came together along. But that's just science that on its

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Speaker 2: own doesn't make the pill. What made the pill was

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Speaker 2: in fact a suffragette, a famous suffragette who who by

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Speaker 2: the name of Margaret Sanger, who had been campaigning for

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Speaker 2: the better part of thirty or forty years by the

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Speaker 2: time this all happened, for the right for women to

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Speaker 2: choose when they got pregnant. Now, Margaret was a nurse

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Speaker 2: and she'd seen the results of endless unwanted pregnancy. You know,

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Speaker 2: essentially the birth control was not under the control of

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Speaker 2: the women. The wife often in these situations, and they

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Speaker 2: had as many children as nature would allow, And it

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Speaker 2: meant that a woman's lot at about that time, up

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Speaker 2: to the end of World War two was really controlled

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Speaker 2: entirely around an endless cycle of having children. So that's

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Speaker 2: all the free labor came from. That, I noticed when

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Speaker 2: I was writing the other book. And she campaigned on

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Speaker 2: the basis that, look, this is not fair, this is

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Speaker 2: not right. A woman should be able to say when

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Speaker 2: either when she's getting pregnant in the first place, or

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Speaker 2: when she's had enough children. And so she had been

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Speaker 2: advocating that for a long time. She'd started one of

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Speaker 2: the first birth control clinics, which was essentially handing out

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Speaker 2: pamphlets on when to have sex in the month and

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Speaker 2: things like that, sort of timing things. And she'd managed

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Speaker 2: to get arrested for that, by the way, because it

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Speaker 2: was illegal to tell women how to control their pregnant

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Speaker 2: their fertility. Wrested, she got thirty hours in the workhouse

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Speaker 2: for that one thirty days in the workhouse for that,

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Speaker 2: But it didn't stop her. She had been campaigning fiercely

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Speaker 2: for these rights for a long time. When she heard

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Speaker 2: about the possibility that there might be a way to

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Speaker 2: create a pill that you could take that would control

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Speaker 2: your fertility. She was all over it. She put the

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Speaker 2: scientists together with the doctors. She even arranged the funding.

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Speaker 2: Another famous suffragette who Catherine McCormick, who was in fact

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Speaker 2: an heiress to the International Harvest of Fortune and had

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Speaker 2: had piles of cash. But she was very, very famous

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Speaker 2: in the Suffragetta the Votes for Women Arena. She put

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Speaker 2: up the money. Dr Pinkus, who was the one that

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Speaker 2: Marca was introduced to, started the research. They even got

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Speaker 2: involved with the condition by the name of doctor rock. Now.

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Speaker 2: He was an interesting addition to the whole thing because

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Speaker 2: he was a fierce Catholic and he actually smoothed the

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Speaker 2: way from an ethical perspective. He campaigned endlessly for the

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Speaker 2: Capital Church to change its stance on birth control to

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Speaker 2: at least permit the use of a hormonal contraceptive. He

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Speaker 2: didn't succeed, but his involvement sort of I don't know,

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Speaker 2: church washed the whole thing, and it also meant there

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Speaker 2: was a bit of an ethical shield. Nothing untoward was

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Speaker 2: going on here. This was all totally above board, with

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Speaker 2: absolute good intent. The end result was that by the

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Speaker 2: mid nineteen fifties are ready to do some experiments. They

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Speaker 2: are on humans, you know, as was the case in

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Speaker 2: those days, they did an experiment on Western humans. They

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Speaker 2: found some impoverished humans nearby and went to Puerto Rico

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Speaker 2: and did their experiments. But it was astoundingly successful, so

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Speaker 2: that the pill worked. It did control birth most of

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Speaker 2: the time. It's not one hundred percent effective, but.

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Speaker 3: Goods everything else they had at their disposal.

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Speaker 2: It was revolutionary and seemingly no downside. It achieved exactly

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Speaker 2: what Margaret said I wanted it to achieve. It gave

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Speaker 2: women choice. Now, remember that the women she was talking

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Speaker 2: about were usually women who'd already had their children and

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Speaker 2: just didn't want any more. So they'd had their one

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Speaker 2: or two or three kids that they and their husband

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Speaker 2: had decided they wanted, and then they wanted control over

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Speaker 2: whether or not they had more. So these were often

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Speaker 2: older women who were further in their path in life,

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Speaker 2: and that was how it was really marketed at the

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Speaker 2: time in the early nineteen sixties, as were sold it

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Speaker 2: was a revolution. It fundamentally changed swung the pendulum the

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Speaker 2: other direction about who had control over whether or not

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Speaker 2: a woman became pregnant. It was the revolution Margaret Sanger

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Speaker 2: thought it would be. It was the revolution she'ds bought,

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Speaker 2: fought most of a century to have. And that's all terrific.

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Speaker 2: The downside come when we start handing these things out

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Speaker 2: to teenage girls. Now that's where the problem comes. Now

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Speaker 2: you might say, well, why are we handing these things

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Speaker 2: out to teenage girls? If you know anything about teen

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Speaker 2: sex statistics, you definitely say why are we handing these

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Speaker 2: things out to teenage girls? Because in the last twenty years,

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Speaker 2: teenage girls are having fifteen percent less sex than their

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Speaker 2: mothers were. The incidence of teen sex is actually dropping

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Speaker 2: like a stone. We've probably talked about this, but I'll

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Speaker 2: just mention it again. The reason for that is because

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Speaker 2: it's very hard to have sex with someone if you're

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Speaker 2: spending the whole day in your bedroom on your iPhone.

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Speaker 2: So people are getting dopamine stimulation from programs written to

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Speaker 2: manipulate their dopamine rather than from interacting in real life

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Speaker 2: with real people who could get them pregnant. So that's

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Speaker 2: a big part of it. Since the when you look

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Speaker 2: at the statistics for teen sex, they're actually trending upwards

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Speaker 2: until twenty eleven, and then from twenty eleven till now,

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Speaker 2: they've they've fallen dramatically, and that's because.

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Speaker 3: The first smartphone, or I find.

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Speaker 2: The first, first first iPad I think I think the

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Speaker 2: iPhone was two thousand and seven, but the iPad really

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Speaker 2: did it. So anyway, so.

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Speaker 3: That lady what's her name, the suffragette, the like she

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Speaker 3: was macco, Yeah, no, saying that she was. So there's

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Speaker 3: a picture in the article of here in twenty seventeen

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Speaker 3: when she got her thirty days in the.

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Speaker 2: Workout nineteen seventeen.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, nineteen seventeen.

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Speaker 3: Sorry, And then in the sixties she was still there

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Speaker 3: just banging the drum.

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Speaker 2: That's right.

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Speaker 1: Yes, that's such a commitment. I mean, god, that's nearly

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Speaker 1: half a century later.

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Speaker 2: Yep. Absolutely, And she achieved what she wanted to achieve,

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Speaker 2: but it went a bit wrong, and she couldn't possibly

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Speaker 2: have anticipated what would ultimately become of the pill. I mean, so,

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Speaker 2: notwithstanding that a lot less teenage girls are having sex,

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Speaker 2: the prescription rates for the pill are going through the roof,

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Speaker 2: So you know, it's increased by I think I put

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Speaker 2: the number in the article there is it's some twenty

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Speaker 2: five percent. Yeah, twenty five percent increase over the same

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Speaker 2: period that we've had a fifteen percent decrease in people

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Speaker 2: having sex. So less people are having sex, well, less

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Speaker 2: teenage girls are having sex. Yes, we're selling a quarter

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Speaker 2: more of the pill to those people in that period.

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Speaker 2: What are they doing with it if they're not using

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Speaker 2: it for sex? The answer is acne. The thing that

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Speaker 2: the iPhone and the iPad brought along was a whole

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Speaker 2: lot of curated perfection. There's you wouldn't I mean, eighty

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Speaker 2: five percent of teenagers get acne. You wouldn't know it

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Speaker 2: from looking at the average Instagram feed. No one has acne. Now.

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Speaker 2: The thing about it is that the pill is an

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Speaker 2: extraordinarily effective treatment for acne. It is very effective, and

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Speaker 2: so it's often the reason why a teenage girl is

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Speaker 2: on the pill. There are other reasons which have nothing

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Speaker 2: to do with sex as well, which is, you know,

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Speaker 2: difficult or regular or painful periods. It helps there too.

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Speaker 2: So when they've done surveys of who why are people

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Speaker 2: on the pill? Four out of five teenage girls are

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Speaker 2: on the pill or something that some reason other than

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Speaker 2: to prevent themselves becoming pregnant. Remembering that the target market

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Speaker 2: for the pill was never teenage girls. The tiger market

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Speaker 2: for the pill was married women, often who'd already had children.

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Speaker 2: So but now this thing that the market has crept

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Speaker 2: out and the pharmaceutical companies don't mind. I'm sure that

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Speaker 2: there's a much bigger market for this thing, and it's

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Speaker 2: now being given for a lot of reasons that have

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Speaker 2: nothing to do with getting pregnant, and but you know,

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Speaker 2: also have the side benefit that you know, if I

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Speaker 2: don't know, if accidents happened, then you probably won't get

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Speaker 2: pregnant either. So that's an issue. And you might say, well,

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Speaker 2: that's a bit terrible. But what about this thing about

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Speaker 2: the study that I mentioned before about the depression? Why

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Speaker 2: would that be the case? Have we got to have

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Speaker 2: we got to buy a chemical explanation for that? Why

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Speaker 2: would teenage girls be more depressed and anxious if they

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Speaker 2: are on the pill. What on earth does progesterone have

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Speaker 2: with anxiety and depression. That's the interesting question that I

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Speaker 2: like to come back to, which is what's going on there?

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Speaker 2: And some really interesting science has been done in this

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Speaker 2: area because we know some stuff about the teenage brain.

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Speaker 2: We know that when males and females anto puberty, a

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Speaker 2: hormone called GABA. Well, GABBA gets turned off, or more accurately,

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Speaker 2: it gets turned off so we can enter puberty. Gabba

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Speaker 2: is a breaking system in the body. It's what stops

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Speaker 2: us entering puberty the day after we're born, so it

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Speaker 2: holds us at that state of pre puberty for ten

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Speaker 2: twelve years before the rest of the body is in

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Speaker 2: a position to allow us to go that last ten

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Speaker 2: years of building a human which actually builds the higher

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Speaker 2: order parts of the thinking in human brain. So that

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Speaker 2: hormone gets dialed right down and puberty commences. Now, the

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Speaker 2: problem is that that hormone is a general purpose shutter

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Speaker 2: down er of things, and one of the things that

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Speaker 2: shuts down is addiction. So it actually when it's dialed up,

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Speaker 2: as it is in children or people over the age

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Speaker 2: of about twenty two, it's much harder to become addicted.

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Speaker 2: It's also much harder to be anxious and much harder

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Speaker 2: to be depressed. This thing is like a breaking system

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Speaker 2: that stops those things happening. But there's particularly vulnerable period

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Speaker 2: of human development that you have to go through called puberty,

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Speaker 2: where we turn off the thing that stops that happening,

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Speaker 2: and so we become more likely to be addicted anxious depressed,

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Speaker 2: which is of course why adolescents are the people who

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Speaker 2: become addicted anxious depressed most addictions, Almost all addictions start

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Speaker 2: during that period because that's the point when the human

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Speaker 2: brain is most susceptible to it. It's also why allmost

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Speaker 2: all anxiety and depression starts during that period. Okay, so

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Speaker 2: what's they got to do with the pill? Well, what

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Speaker 2: the pill does is jam us in, well, jam jam

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Speaker 2: females in what's called the luteal phase of you know,

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Speaker 2: the ovulation phases. And that's how it works. It's basically

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Speaker 2: convincing the brain, oh, ovulation has already finished, it's over

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Speaker 2: and done with. We're cool. So the brain thinks it's pregnant.

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Speaker 2: It thinks the body is pregnant. And therefore that's how

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Speaker 2: the pill works, you know, in the shortest possible way.

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Speaker 2: I do go to a bit more detail on the

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Speaker 2: article for those of you who are interested or don't know,

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Speaker 2: but it the end result of that is that it

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Speaker 2: just so happens that the luteal phase is the phase

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Speaker 2: where GABBA is totally suppressed.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So whilst if we think about, say in puberty, we

383
00:25:01,240 --> 00:25:04,360
Speaker 2: might drop from one hundred percent gabba functionality to say

384
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Speaker 2: thirty percent, just to gett into puberty. In the luteal phase,

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Speaker 2: we drop that thirty percent down for maybe ten percent

386
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Speaker 2: or five percent. So it's a temporary thing, and if

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Speaker 2: a woman isn't on the pill, it happens every month anyway,

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Speaker 2: but only for that short part of the ovulation cycled

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Speaker 2: the luteal phase where they're particularly susceptible at that moment.

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Speaker 2: What the pill does is jam them in that phase permanently,

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Speaker 2: so there is your connection. That's why the study is

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Speaker 2: showing that women who are on the pill are more

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Speaker 2: susceptible to anxiety and depression than women who are not,

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Speaker 2: and in particular women between the ages of fifteen and nineteen.

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Speaker 4: So it kind of puts them in this perpetial hormonal

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Speaker 4: state where they are wildly more likely percentage wise to

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Speaker 4: become a dig that depressed and anxious.

398
00:26:01,920 --> 00:26:03,640
Speaker 2: Yes, and than that just being.

399
00:26:05,160 --> 00:26:08,560
Speaker 3: Once a month thing for a few days that becomes aw,

400
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:13,399
Speaker 3: this is your date, your this is your holding pattern,

401
00:26:13,480 --> 00:26:14,960
Speaker 3: your Hohomonal hole in pattern.

402
00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:16,000
Speaker 1: This is where you're at.

403
00:26:16,560 --> 00:26:19,639
Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow. Now, the reason there was a difference between

404
00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:22,359
Speaker 2: the effect on fifteen to nineteen year olds, and the

405
00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:25,480
Speaker 2: effect in women who are older in that study is

406
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Speaker 2: simply because that underlying GABBA level does start to come

407
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:31,680
Speaker 2: back up as you go through puberty and you reach

408
00:26:31,720 --> 00:26:33,760
Speaker 2: your early twenties, that starts to come back up to

409
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:36,720
Speaker 2: normal levels, but you still have the suppressing effect of

410
00:26:36,760 --> 00:26:41,159
Speaker 2: the permanent luteal face. So as you get older, the

411
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:46,720
Speaker 2: less affected by it you are. But the particularly dangerous

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Speaker 2: time is that early part of puberty where gabber is

413
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Speaker 2: suppressed anyway, and then you're suppressing it with the pill.

414
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Speaker 2: So none of this was contemplated by the Hugaret Sayer

415
00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:03,359
Speaker 2: or any of the folks I talk about in the article.

416
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Speaker 2: How could it be? They didn't even have in mind

417
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Speaker 2: that you would be giving this to fifteen year old girls.

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Speaker 2: What they were thinking about was women controlling how many

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Speaker 2: children they had, usually married women who'd already had children.

420
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Speaker 2: And for those women, whilst there still is a risk

421
00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:25,560
Speaker 2: because you are still putting them into a permanent luteal

422
00:27:25,600 --> 00:27:29,680
Speaker 2: phase which suppresses GABBA, their risk is much much lower

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00:27:30,160 --> 00:27:33,440
Speaker 2: than doing it to a teenage girl. And so we

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00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:36,399
Speaker 2: are in the midst of an epidemic of anxiety and

425
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:40,959
Speaker 2: depression amongst teenagers in general, but also in particular amongst

426
00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:46,320
Speaker 2: teenage girls. And we are prescribing a steroid hormone that

427
00:27:46,359 --> 00:27:51,679
Speaker 2: we know has these effects to those girls, not generally

428
00:27:52,160 --> 00:27:55,200
Speaker 2: to stop them becoming pregnant or for them to plan

429
00:27:55,359 --> 00:28:00,959
Speaker 2: how many pregnancies they have, but to stop them having acne.

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Speaker 1: It's bloody.

431
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Speaker 3: I'm just thinking, like when we're talking about anxiety, depression,

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Speaker 3: addiction in the media generally, like there's been and we've

433
00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:15,280
Speaker 3: had a lot of conversation around you know, screens and

434
00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:18,600
Speaker 3: phones and iPads and technology and the addiction to that

435
00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:22,840
Speaker 3: and the relationship between all the stuff that happens online

436
00:28:22,840 --> 00:28:25,520
Speaker 3: and the bullying and then the propensity or the potential

437
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:29,639
Speaker 3: for you know, depression, anxiety and all of that mental

438
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:32,680
Speaker 3: health issues out of that. But I've never heard maybe

439
00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:36,440
Speaker 3: it has been had, but I've never heard this conversation

440
00:28:36,600 --> 00:28:39,880
Speaker 3: we had in mainstream media once. And then you go

441
00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:46,400
Speaker 3: fifteen to nine year olds three hundred percent more likely

442
00:28:46,840 --> 00:28:51,480
Speaker 3: to suffer from like just that's enough, Just let's start there.

443
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:54,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, And which is why it amazed me when I

444
00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:56,960
Speaker 2: first came across, as I remember I came across in

445
00:28:57,080 --> 00:28:59,480
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen just about I think when it as it

446
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:01,440
Speaker 2: was released and I was writing the book Teen Brain,

447
00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:04,480
Speaker 2: and I do mention it in that book, but it

448
00:29:04,680 --> 00:29:08,400
Speaker 2: just struck me as wow, this is incredible, and I

449
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:11,880
Speaker 2: was just waiting for something to come out, you know,

450
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:15,080
Speaker 2: publicly about this. I would have thought, well, that's going

451
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:18,800
Speaker 2: to start making all kinds of warnings about whether or

452
00:29:18,840 --> 00:29:21,800
Speaker 2: not the pill should be being used, particularly by teenage girls.

453
00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:27,680
Speaker 2: But I haven't seen anything. And I wonder then why

454
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:31,520
Speaker 2: we're not seeing that kind of thing. Because it's hard

455
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:35,880
Speaker 2: to say that this is nonsense. You could if it

456
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 2: were just that study, you could just say, oh, well, yeah,

457
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:41,520
Speaker 2: correlation does an equal causation, could be minion things that

458
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:48,200
Speaker 2: explains that who knows sure, but correlation andy not equal causation.

459
00:29:48,280 --> 00:29:50,080
Speaker 2: But it does raise a flag that says, look at

460
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:53,840
Speaker 2: this closely because something might be going on that we

461
00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:56,479
Speaker 2: need to know about. And when you can come up

462
00:29:56,520 --> 00:30:02,160
Speaker 2: with a reasonably well justified mechanical explanation for why what

463
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:05,640
Speaker 2: you're observing is occurring, that's when you really need to

464
00:30:05,680 --> 00:30:08,320
Speaker 2: pause to think. And all of the things that I've

465
00:30:08,320 --> 00:30:11,880
Speaker 2: given you today about gabba suppression, a luteal phase, all

466
00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:17,120
Speaker 2: that sort of thing that is all undisputed, uncontroversial statements

467
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:21,400
Speaker 2: that we know to be true, and it provides a

468
00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:25,600
Speaker 2: very reasonable explanation for what that study observed, which is

469
00:30:25,600 --> 00:30:33,360
Speaker 2: that there is a significant risk with these steroidal pills

470
00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:38,560
Speaker 2: during those phase for teenage girls. Now, there are often,

471
00:30:39,600 --> 00:30:44,720
Speaker 2: I'm sure there are teenage girls who must be on

472
00:30:44,800 --> 00:30:46,920
Speaker 2: the pill, and I don't want to stand here and

473
00:30:47,680 --> 00:30:51,360
Speaker 2: diss the pill for that, right, I mean, there are

474
00:30:51,400 --> 00:30:57,880
Speaker 2: always medically justifiable reasons for this, But its use is exploding.

475
00:30:58,080 --> 00:31:02,000
Speaker 2: It has increased by a quarter in the last fifteen years.

476
00:31:02,960 --> 00:31:08,800
Speaker 2: And why it is being used is not necessarily for

477
00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:13,400
Speaker 2: birth control or even to deal with difficult periods, but

478
00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:16,680
Speaker 2: for things like acne. Now, the other thing that I

479
00:31:16,760 --> 00:31:19,240
Speaker 2: briefly touch on in the article is one of the

480
00:31:19,400 --> 00:31:22,960
Speaker 2: longer term consequences of putting people on the pill is

481
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:25,040
Speaker 2: that have nothing to do with the things we talked

482
00:31:25,080 --> 00:31:28,440
Speaker 2: about so far, is that it masks symptoms of something

483
00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:33,480
Speaker 2: that is starting to become a very very real problem

484
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:42,360
Speaker 2: in society, and that's endometriosis. The difficulty is it's often

485
00:31:42,440 --> 00:31:49,280
Speaker 2: first diagnosed when a woman comes off the pill in

486
00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:51,440
Speaker 2: her mid thirties, and the reason she's coming off the

487
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:54,600
Speaker 2: pill is because she's decided she wants to have children

488
00:31:55,400 --> 00:32:00,240
Speaker 2: and then can't have children, and they discover that, oh, well,

489
00:32:00,360 --> 00:32:03,920
Speaker 2: your fertility has been affected by you know, many many

490
00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:13,760
Speaker 2: years of undiagnosed endometriosis. And that's a difficulty because you've

491
00:32:13,840 --> 00:32:17,040
Speaker 2: got the pill masking symptoms that would have alerted a

492
00:32:17,080 --> 00:32:20,880
Speaker 2: physician much much earlier on that there was something that

493
00:32:20,960 --> 00:32:21,640
Speaker 2: needed treatment.

494
00:32:22,480 --> 00:32:23,880
Speaker 1: Yeah.

495
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, Such, it's such a multifaceted conversation and issue, and like,

496
00:32:36,560 --> 00:32:39,160
Speaker 3: this is what I think everyone for what it's worth,

497
00:32:39,360 --> 00:32:41,959
Speaker 3: it is just two blokes having an interesting conversation by

498
00:32:42,040 --> 00:32:42,680
Speaker 3: one way.

499
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:45,400
Speaker 2: And that and that in itself is a bit problematic.

500
00:32:45,760 --> 00:32:52,240
Speaker 3: Well about to say this is clime two blokes, and

501
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:55,520
Speaker 3: like David said, correlation not necessarily causation, but at the

502
00:32:55,680 --> 00:32:59,080
Speaker 3: very least, Like my intention with this is not on

503
00:32:59,240 --> 00:33:02,720
Speaker 3: any level for me to pretend or David for that matter,

504
00:33:03,440 --> 00:33:07,640
Speaker 3: that we're experts in this. But the evidence is the evidence,

505
00:33:07,680 --> 00:33:10,120
Speaker 3: The data is the data, the research is the research.

506
00:33:10,760 --> 00:33:13,640
Speaker 3: And so while I just think it's maybe a good

507
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:18,400
Speaker 3: conversation to keep having, and I just I wish that

508
00:33:18,600 --> 00:33:21,840
Speaker 3: the mainstream media would go, hey, could you know that

509
00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:25,000
Speaker 3: article you wrote, could we have a chat about that, because,

510
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:28,840
Speaker 3: I mean, one of the challenges with having conversations like

511
00:33:28,880 --> 00:33:33,520
Speaker 3: this that are deeply personal and affect people like birth

512
00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:36,360
Speaker 3: control and all of the myriad of hormonal and psychological

513
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:39,920
Speaker 3: and emotional issues that happen it can happen to women

514
00:33:40,120 --> 00:33:44,520
Speaker 3: young and older, is that obviously there's emotion around it, right,

515
00:33:44,560 --> 00:33:46,800
Speaker 3: and people like, who the fuck are you, Craig Harbert,

516
00:33:47,600 --> 00:33:49,760
Speaker 3: I'm saying I'm a nobody. I'm just a bloke with

517
00:33:49,840 --> 00:33:53,960
Speaker 3: a podcast, so there's no you know, I'm not making

518
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:58,240
Speaker 3: any statements other than this is when I read this.

519
00:33:58,400 --> 00:34:00,800
Speaker 3: When I read this article, I just went, this is

520
00:34:00,800 --> 00:34:04,600
Speaker 3: a really articulate, well researched, well thought through for me,

521
00:34:04,720 --> 00:34:08,880
Speaker 3: this is just an important thing to open up to

522
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:14,040
Speaker 3: further discussion. So mate, well done. I'll let you have

523
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:16,720
Speaker 3: the final say in a moment. But just reminding you everyone,

524
00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:20,160
Speaker 3: it's on substack. The name of the article is just

525
00:34:20,160 --> 00:34:23,120
Speaker 3: follow David on substack anyway of subscriber, whatever you want

526
00:34:23,120 --> 00:34:25,840
Speaker 3: to do in pay a bit or pay nothing. The

527
00:34:25,920 --> 00:34:29,880
Speaker 3: Price of Liberation The Pills Sitting Toll on teenage Girls.

528
00:34:30,320 --> 00:34:34,879
Speaker 3: It was out March one, twenty twenty five. Any kind

529
00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:36,160
Speaker 3: of wrap up thoughts.

530
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:39,880
Speaker 2: Mate, I really just want to underline the thing that

531
00:34:39,920 --> 00:34:41,680
Speaker 2: both you and I have said is that this is

532
00:34:41,719 --> 00:34:44,239
Speaker 2: a couple of old men talking about something that they've

533
00:34:44,280 --> 00:34:51,760
Speaker 2: never experienced. And I don't want to presume to understand

534
00:34:52,840 --> 00:34:55,600
Speaker 2: the situation that a teenage girl is in when she

535
00:34:55,800 --> 00:34:58,759
Speaker 2: desperately needs to be prescribed the pill to manage things,

536
00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:01,359
Speaker 2: for example, like period pain or regular periods or things

537
00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:05,360
Speaker 2: like that. I don't want to pretend I understand that,

538
00:35:05,840 --> 00:35:07,799
Speaker 2: or that I have a right to have a say

539
00:35:07,840 --> 00:35:11,880
Speaker 2: about it. What I do want to draw people's attention

540
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:15,040
Speaker 2: to is that there is solid research here which to

541
00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:20,440
Speaker 2: me is concerning and it should be getting more attention.

542
00:35:23,080 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 3: Well, mate, hopefully this will start the wheels of conversation turning.

543
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:31,440
Speaker 3: At the very least, we'll say goodbye affair. But thanks

544
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:34,879
Speaker 3: for taking this on short notice. I sent the Great

545
00:35:34,920 --> 00:35:37,640
Speaker 3: Man a message an hour or two ago and said

546
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:41,560
Speaker 3: would you do a and inn prompt you chat?

547
00:35:41,640 --> 00:35:44,399
Speaker 1: And he said yes. So I appreciate that a lot.

548
00:35:44,440 --> 00:35:49,000
Speaker 2: MANE absolute pleasure. Thanks Boddy. All right, so yeah,