WEBVTT - How The Pill Changed the World 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:02.960 Hey, everyone, We're coming to Salt Lake City, Utah and Phoenix, 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:06.560 Arizona this fall. Yeah, October, we're going to be at 0:00:06.600 --> 0:00:09.479 Salt Lake Cities Grand Theater and then the next night 0:00:09.520 --> 0:00:13.880 October will be in Phoenix. And we added a second 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:16.840 show to our Melbourne show, right, that's right, a second 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:19.239 earlier show in Melbourne. So you can get all the 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:22.119 information for all of these shows at s y s 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:26.520 K live dot com. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:35.720 from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:39.599 the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryant, 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:45.200 and there's the ghost of Jerry Rouran and the empty chair. 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:49.400 Thanks you love this, Thanks again to Ramsey. Yeah, thanks Ramsey. 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:51.400 How do we feel about this? I feel great. The 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:56.200 pill is it has everything. This might be I just 0:00:56.320 --> 0:01:00.240 love this episode already. I do too, but I kind 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:02.240 of like when we did the female Puberty episode. I 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:07.000 just feel nervous. This is gonna be fine. Dude, explaining 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:10.559 female reproduction. I just I don't know. Hey, man, We're 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:14.440 just we're just explaining stuff. I know. I know. It's 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:17.600 not like we're we're We're just we're just explaining stuff. 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:21.760 Just be cool. Hey, before we get going, dude, do 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:23.399 you mind if I do a little pluggage for my 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:27.600 movie Crush show? Do you plug away? So everybody murdering 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:30.400 nos out there, you know, I love my favorite murder 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:33.000 of the podcast and just got back from l A 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:35.959 and Karen and Georgia were kind enough to sit in 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:39.399 and do a movie crush with me. That's awesome, man, 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:42.000 that's huge. It was huge because I'm such a fan 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:44.959 and they were great and murderingos you should know. They 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:48.760 are warm and friendly and lovely and generous. And I 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:51.320 was a little nervous meeting them because I was like, ah, 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:53.120 what if it's gone to their heads and their jerks. 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:55.960 But they were great. They were so awesome and nice 0:01:56.560 --> 0:01:59.000 and we had a blast, and of course I they 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:01.880 let me pick the movie because it's a Murderino special 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:04.040 and we did the Silence of the Lambs. Oh man, 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:06.600 that's a great movie. Yeah. So not only that, but 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:09.640 we talked about their life and live shows and touring 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:12.640 and their rise to podcast stardom and about all the 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:15.680 people they've kidnapped and killed. Yeah, it's great, man. It's 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:18.480 an hour and forty minutes long, so it's supersized and 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:20.240 you're gonna love it. And even if you don't like 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:21.800 my favorite murder, it might be a good chance for 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:24.119 you to check out movie Crush. Yeah, so go check 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:26.600 it out. Everybody. When's that one coming out? Chuck, it's 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:28.880 already out. Just drop this last Friday. So wait, so 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:31.240 you guys don't even have to wait wait wait, wait, wait, 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:33.320 listen to this episode first and then go listen to 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:36.200 that movie Crushed. Actually doesn't matter, just listen to them both. 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:38.160 All right, you ready to get to this? Yeah? Man, 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:42.000 all right, so let's talk the pill. Yeah, the opposite 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:46.320 of having kids, the pharmaceutical so famous that it's called 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:49.280 the pill. It is there. I read this New Yorker 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:52.840 article about a book on the birth of the pill, 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:58.000 and now I'm talking about it, so everything comes full circle. Um. 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:00.440 And they were saying, like, there's like, you don't call 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:02.880 anything else the pill, Like viagra is not the pill, 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:07.880 Antibiotics isn't the pill. Um, you don't call it the 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:12.440 vacuum or the meat grinder, right, Like, there's there's really 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:17.000 nothing like that, nothing compares to it. And it's it's 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:22.280 for good reason. I mean, the pill is monumentally huge 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:27.240 as far as pharmaceuticals and medicine goes on the scale 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:32.160 of antibiotics easily. Yeah, and it's um, it's the very 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:37.040 first medication that was designed for a non therapeutic purpose too. Yes, 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:42.840 very interesting and so it's really difficult to over to 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:47.160 overstate how much of an impact the pill had when 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:49.920 they released it in I think nineteen sixties when it 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:53.520 first history first. Yeah, let's let's do that. So let 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:56.560 me set the stage for you please. Oh, you're bringing 0:03:56.600 --> 0:03:59.200 a couch out back in back in the day. I'm 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:02.360 gonna do my Charles Nelson Riley one man show impression. 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:07.560 Back in the day. Um, if you were a woman 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:11.960 and you didn't want to get pregnant, you had to 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:18.159 coordinate with your husband, Um that he wear a condom. Okay, sure, 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:22.000 your boyfriend, Well, that's like a whole other kettle fish 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:26.680 at this time, supposedly and socially that went on all 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:30.279 the time. There's plenty of premrital sex, but socially speaking, 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:35.320 only single men were allowed to have premarital sex, which 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:38.080 is like, who are they having premarital sex with? Then? Right, 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:40.480 if they're the only ones allowed to have premarital sex, 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:47.680 considering considering everyone refused to officially recognize homosexuality even existed. 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:50.680 And where you're getting okay, so there's a lot of 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:53.719 double standards, a lot of repression going on. But if 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:55.520 you were if you were a woman and you wanted 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:57.159 to have sex, so whether it was with the guy 0:04:57.160 --> 0:05:00.200 you were having sex with or your husband, you you 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:02.680 basically had to say you got to wear a condom. 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:04.640 And if you said no, well you were s O 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:06.799 L one way or another, either you weren't having sex 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:09.400 or you're gonna have sex without a condom. And if 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:13.279 that happened, there was a really good chance that you 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:16.800 were going to end up getting pregnant just from having sex. Yeah, 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:20.240 the ball was entirely in the man's court and women 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:22.760 did not have much say in the matter. No, they didn't. 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:25.320 There were a couple of things on the market so 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:29.359 before the industrial the Industrial revolution, they were like folk 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:32.640 remedies where you could use herbs and stuff like that. 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:35.920 Basically I think they're called herbal douches where you're just 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:41.120 like squeezing stuff in there and hoping for hoping for 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:45.840 the best, right. Um, And then by the depression there's 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:50.960 something there's a whole line of stuff called uh, gynecological 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:55.000 aids or feminine hygiene, I think is what it is called. 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:58.240 And some of them worked, some of them kind of worked, 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:01.240 some of them didn't work. Some of them worked but 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:04.120 would kill you or give you chemical burns. There was 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:05.800 a lot of problems, so you didn't have a lot 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:09.440 of options, right, And then along with the fact that 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:14.039 you you actually didn't have that many options socially, in 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:19.360 nineteen fifty, thirty states and the federal government said you 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:24.640 can't have anything that that can be used as a contraceptive, 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:27.599 and you can't even learn about it from your doctor 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:30.400 or from school. Thirty states in the federal government. This 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:34.000 is nineteen fifty. Ten years later, the pill comes out, 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:37.159 and a couple of years after that, five million American 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:42.520 women are using it as a contraception, and they now 0:06:42.880 --> 0:06:46.919 it was in their hands. They had the ability to 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:50.440 decide for themselves whether sex laed to pregnancy or not. Well, 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:53.760 and sort of even then, right because not all states 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:57.160 allowed it and not all doctors would give it out right, 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:00.360 So it wasn't like, oh, the FDA said it's good 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:02.279 to go, so we can all get it. It was 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:05.040 still a fight for years and years of decades it 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:08.719 really was. So I guess we should start with a 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:13.960 woman named Margaret Sanger. She is very controversial figure, uh, 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:18.600 founder of planned parenthood. She's a nurse, and she wrote 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:24.000 in nineteen twelve about a magic pill that could prevent conception. Yeah, 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:28.720 just a theoretical hypothetical pill, right, and um, she's controversial 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:32.400 for many reasons, um, not the leases which is her 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:35.840 she was anti abortion. Um, kind of when she was 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:39.600 most famous, she was anti abortion and kind of went 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:41.720 all in on the pill and was like, this is 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:43.880 the way to do it, is to prevent the pregnancy 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:48.600 once you're pregnant. Sorry. Uh, and then you know there's 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:51.520 the whole eugenics thing. We should do a podcast on 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:53.640 her probably at some point we should, because that's a 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:56.400 that's a rabbit hole right there. Yeah. So, but she 0:07:56.640 --> 0:08:00.680 was the early champion of it. She was she coined 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:05.080 the term birth control and I think nineteen twelve as well. Yeah. 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:07.920 So in nineteen fourteen she started a newsletter called The 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:11.400 Woman Rebel. That's where birth control was first typed out 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:15.440 and distributed the words like you said. And then in 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:20.440 the nineteen twenties, some breakthroughs happened, uh in science where 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:25.120 they were able to identify a progesterone and estrogen and 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:28.560 realized kind of how it all worked. Yeah, so at 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:32.840 first they were looking at this stuff as our fertility drugs, 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:37.640 and then they noticed that it actually could suppress fertility. 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:41.480 And as they were I think this is in the 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:45.000 forties when they were really starting in earnest or is 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:48.480 it the twenties. Well, I mean they were sy synthesizing 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:52.400 it from animals, and it was in early ninety one. 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:54.320 I don't think they were even synthesizing. I think they 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:56.800 were extracting it. And then that's what you got in 0:08:56.840 --> 0:09:00.160 your pill was animal hormones. Well it's says synthis eyes 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:03.000 from animals, so maybe it was a process. But um, 0:09:03.080 --> 0:09:07.959 eventually Dr Marker, Dr Russell Marker, I just said it 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:11.559 like James Bond. For some reason, he discovered how to 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:16.320 synthesize the synthetic form of progesterone, which is called progestine, 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:20.199 and that really this is from wild yams, believe it 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:22.720 or not. So he did that and that changed everything. 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:26.000 It did. It made it cheaper, it made it easier 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:28.720 to obtain. You could research all of a sudden, right, 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:32.120 but you still couldn't really research right, because there were 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:35.800 laws on even doing research on birth control. So the 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:38.559 people who were doing this it started out as Margaret 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:43.280 Sanger she um, she hooked up with a doctor named 0:09:43.320 --> 0:09:47.920 Pinkus and Gregory Pinkus who was a biologist and he 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:52.240 was interested in in coming up with birth control as well. Um. 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:56.880 Mary McCormick was there for St Mary Catherine Catherine McCormick 0:09:57.040 --> 0:10:00.839 of the McCormick Uh, I guess the spices, okay, so 0:10:01.240 --> 0:10:05.560 um she uh. She lent a tremendous amount of her 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:08.439 wealth to this to this research. And then a guy 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:11.720 named John Rock who was a doctor who was also 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:14.880 working on a birth control pill. Um. They all joined 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:18.280 forces in the nineteen fifties and started working on this 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:21.520 really hard. But they had a lot of roadblocks up 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:23.839 against him, and they cut a lot of corners and 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:26.760 getting this thing out into market. Yeah, like going to 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:30.880 Puerto Rico too, because they had to trials, right, and 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:33.760 so this is not like Puerto Rico was like, we 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:36.320 don't want this, but you're forcing it on us. Anyway, 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:40.560 Puerto Rico had the exact opposite attitude towards birth control 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:43.320 that the United States did at the time. So there 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:45.360 was a good place to do it. They just didn't 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:48.480 inform anybody what was going on with this, that this 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:51.199 was a clinical trial. They just gave him some pills 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:54.280 and said you take these, they'll keep you from getting pregnant. Yeah, 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:57.000 which they kind of came about by accident. Uh. Some 0:10:57.160 --> 0:11:01.200 of the pills were contaminated with s regen and they 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:04.160 used that in scare quotes, I guess just because what 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:09.640 they really mean is mixed by accident, and that reduced 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:11.160 a lot of the side effects because that was one 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:13.319 of the big problems at first and continue to be 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:16.719 for a while. And eventually they landed on UM, a 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:20.760 drug company called Cyril. There were two competing ones, another 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:26.160 one of Syntax and Cyril. So you pronounced it Cyril cyrile. 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:28.079 That's what I'm going with. S A R L e 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:34.200 u he Zerril. They finally came up with they thought 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:40.040 was the right formulation and uh. In nineteen sixty two, 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:44.760 Syntax came out with their version and then pretty soon 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:48.599 it was being marketed and distributed after FDA approval in 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:52.440 so yeah. So Cyril was the one who hooked up 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:57.360 with UM Sanger in in Rock Yeah and UM they 0:11:57.400 --> 0:11:59.760 were the ones who provided the pills for the clinical trial, 0:11:59.840 --> 0:12:02.480 and Puerto Rico. There was also a clinical trial in 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:07.640 at a women's mental asylum in Massachusetts, and the patients 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:11.559 there didn't have any informed consent. And when they released 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:17.200 this formula um, first it was for gonecological disorders things 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:19.640 like O vary insists. They knew it could be used 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:22.160 to treat that, and Cyril at the time was like, 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:27.480 they had no expectations for this whatsoever. And then within 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:30.679 a year there were half a million women in America 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:34.920 who were suddenly using this for gnecological problems, and Cyril 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:38.040 figured out, well, no, they're actually using it for contraception. 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:41.120 And so when they went and saw at FDA approval 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:44.280 and got it, that was when the floodgates opened, Like 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:46.680 there was now a pill on the market that could 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:51.280 prevent contraception that was the woman's to take, and um, 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:53.280 all of a sudden there was the first year there 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:56.040 was one point two million American women on the pill, 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:58.760 and Cyril at first thought, they're not gonna want this. 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:00.839 Women are gonna want to take a pill every day 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:03.800 to keep from getting pregnant. But they couldn't even finish 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:06.160 the name pregnant before like the pills were being grabbed 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:08.720 from their hand. Yeah, you know, there was a huge deal, 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:13.600 it was uh. And then these pills were not very safe. 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:17.599 That's that's the upshot of this. The estrogen. There was 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:21.880 way too much estrogen. It was dangerous, it was causing cancer. Uh. 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:24.200 And in nineteen sixty nine, a very famous book came 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:27.520 out called The Doctor's Case against the Pill, written by 0:13:27.559 --> 0:13:32.760 a medical journalist named Barbara Sieman, and she got together 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:36.200 with a bunch of doctors and researchers and women uh 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:38.679 and made a case against the pill that it wasn't safe. 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:42.080 It was a senator named gay Lord Nelson who read 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:45.760 the book took on birth control um in Senate hearings, 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:49.880 and in January in the Senate Chamber there was this 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:53.760 testimony about the pill going on, of course run only 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:59.480 by men, with only men testifying providing witness testimony. But 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:01.760 there was a one in their named Alice Wolfson and 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:05.440 her group, the DC Women's Liberation Group. They were sitting 0:14:05.480 --> 0:14:07.880 there just getting more and more steamed. Yeah, in these 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:10.120 in these hearings. At this time, these hearies were kind 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:13.640 of under the radar until Alice Wolfson, Like the Blue 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:17.800 c Span wasn't a thing yet, so they were just 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:19.880 getting more and more steamed watching all these men get 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:23.960 up there and talking about women's reproductive health. And but 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:26.280 not only that, they were also these people were talking 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:32.640 about how how dangerous the side effects were with the pill, hypertension, 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:37.280 blood coots, heart attacks, high blood pressure, um stroke, all 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:39.680 of these things. And these the women in the DC 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:43.520 Women's lib Movement uh and including Alice Wilson, were like, 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:45.680 We've never heard this before in our lives. How did 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:48.359 our doctors not tell us this? Well, that was the backstory, 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:50.600 is that the none of the doctors were sharing this 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:53.280 information because they were getting and it's you know, I 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:57.040 think there's always been a problem not across the board, 0:14:57.080 --> 0:15:00.440 but with doctors and pharmaceutical companies pushing start and drugs 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:02.960 over others. But even but at the time it was 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:05.760 way worse than it is now, Like there was an 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:10.640 actual yeah, there was. There was a a mentality among doctors, 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:17.800 male doctors, um who who believed that if if you 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:21.280 a woman was better off not knowing, you didn't want 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:24.600 to get her all upset by giving her all the information, 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:30.200 and um if you did tell her, you ran the risk. 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:33.440 Since women were so suggestible she might develop a stroke 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:35.720 just by thinking about it so much, so it was 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:38.000 better off just not telling her about it. That was 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:42.120 the entire medical establishment at the time. And so the 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:45.600 pill went from this feminist icon in the sixties to 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:53.000 buy nineteen seventy becoming a an icon for white male patriarchy. 0:15:53.560 --> 0:16:01.400 Medical patriarchy and how UM patients informed consent was was 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:04.800 a paramount issue now and it just took on this 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:09.240 other role well, and informed consent was literally born that day. 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:13.360 At that hearing, they finally heard an expert say estrogen 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:16.680 is to cancer what fertilizer is to wheat, and Alice 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:20.120 Wolfson stood up and started screaming. She was screaming, why 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:22.160 are you using women as guinea pigs? Why are you 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:25.840 letting drug companies murderers for profit and convenience? And it 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:29.000 got a lot of media attention, and really the aftermath 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:33.760 of those hearings is when this consumer health movement started 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:36.840 and they started informed consent. They started having to list 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:40.040 um side effects on bottles, and you know, it wasn't 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:42.560 an overnight thing, but it really changed the form uh 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:49.280 pharmaceutical industry forever. So the pill managed to accept this 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:57.080 um UH I guess iconography, right, it became a symbol 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:00.280 for this other thing. Yeah, but still and if you 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:04.760 keep on keeping on like like, I think eighteen seven 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:07.680 percent of women between eighteen and forty nine in the 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:13.639 US followed those hearings once um Alice Wolfson and the 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:17.479 DC Women's Lib movement like made it a national thing, 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:20.680 um and I think eighteen percent of them stopped taking 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:23.720 the pill as a result. But the pill really didn't 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:26.840 fall out of popularity. It stood in as the as 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:30.960 the icon for informed consent, and then just after that 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:33.760 was established, it just went back to being the pill. 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:37.239 I think that's amazing because it was this huge thing 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:40.199 in nineteen sixty for one thing, huge thing in nineteen 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:43.280 seventy for another thing, and now it's it's it's part 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:46.760 of the cultural zeite guys, forever. Should we take a break, Yes, 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:49.320 all right, we're gonna take a break. We're all excited 0:17:49.359 --> 0:18:15.320 about history and now we're gonna get into uh science. Hey, 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:18.560 let's talk menstrual cycles? All right, let's man, because that's 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:24.320 all that's going on here is the pill manipulates the 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:30.120 menstrual cycle by tricking the body with synthetic hormones. Yes, 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:33.600 it tricks the body into thinking it's already released an egg. 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:36.840 It's pretty brilliant, it is. It is, UM, but it's 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:38.760 also kind of low fi if you think about it, 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:41.680 it is very low it's neat. So we should kind 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:44.840 of give you um an idea of what the menstrual 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:49.680 cycle is. Right, it's twenty eight days generally, Yes, that's 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:53.080 the that's the rule of thumb. But yes, it's certainly different. 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:56.639 And I think it's also down to like hours and 0:18:56.760 --> 0:18:59.520 stuff like that too. It's not just dateies. It's a 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:02.680 human construct you now, But have you stopped and never 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:05.760 thought about, like how interesting it is that the cycle 0:19:05.840 --> 0:19:09.400 of the moon is like twenty eight days as well. Yeah, 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:12.760 I think it's fascinating. No, I didn't say it when fascinating. 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:16.200 I never stopped it. I just just in researching this, 0:19:16.320 --> 0:19:18.160 I was like, that's the cycle of the moon as well. 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:22.440 That's interesting. So anyway, UM, over the say roughly twenty 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:26.480 eight day period. UM, the whole thing starts with the 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:30.200 pituitary gland getting a little froggy and saying, hey, I'm 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:33.720 going to release some follicle stimulating hormone at s H 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:36.560 and that stuff floods the body and it makes its 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:41.560 way down to the ovaries and it stimulates follicles, hence 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:44.879 the name, that's right. It makes these follicles and the 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:50.080 ovaries grow, and it just sets off a big series 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:55.560 of events. Basically, estrogen is triggers that pituitary gland again, yeah, 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:59.200 because the follicles then in turn release estrogen, right, yeah, 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:01.920 And so the pewitary gland is busy because then it 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:06.840 secretes what's called gonadotropin releasing hormone G little in big R, 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:10.960 big H, one of the better abbreviations ever, Yeah, because 0:20:11.000 --> 0:20:16.959 it looks sort of like guns and roses a little bit. Yeah. Uh. 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:22.399 And that triggers arise in lutenizing hormone LH. Right, and 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:27.920 so lutenizing hormone goes back down to the ovarian follicles 0:20:28.560 --> 0:20:33.080 and it what it gets one of the follicles. So, 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:36.119 if you have a bunch of ovarian follicles growing, one 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:38.719 of them is going to clearly it's the lead horse, right, 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:42.240 It's going to develop into an egg. And as the 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:45.520 lutenizing hormone stimulates it to develop into an egg, the 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:50.000 egg pops off. The rest of the other follicles wither 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:54.440 and die. And then the egg travels down um, the 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:59.480 fallopian tube, where it may or may not be fertilized. Yeah, 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:02.200 this is called ovulation. And while this is going on 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:07.200 in the background, the uterine lining the endometrium is thickening 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:09.680 up right, it's getting ready for business. And the reason 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:13.320 that is is because the estrogen and the lutenizing hormone 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:15.520 are are causing that to happen. Yeah, they're just rising 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:21.400 and rising. So, Um, the the mucus in the vagina 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:25.760 I'm saying, like even more than usual right now. But 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:30.680 the mucus in the in the vagina also, um, does 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:35.600 it thicken? So it thickens? Is that after the egg 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:38.320 has been fertilized, because I think it would make it, 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:42.800 it would become okay, so it d thickens. The uterine 0:21:42.840 --> 0:21:45.800 lining thickens. I think the vaginal mucus makes it makes 0:21:45.840 --> 0:21:48.600 it easier for sperm to make its way correct, Okay. 0:21:49.720 --> 0:21:53.280 So that's so if all that goes um according to 0:21:53.640 --> 0:21:56.639 the genetic plan, then those sperm are gonna make their 0:21:56.680 --> 0:21:58.760 way to an egg. The egg is gonna be come fertilized. 0:21:58.760 --> 0:22:00.760 It's gonna come down the flop and to attached to 0:22:00.800 --> 0:22:02.880 the uterus. And it's going to start to grow into 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:08.080 a child. It might also not happen either. Um. The 0:22:08.320 --> 0:22:11.760 woman involved might not have sex, so there might be 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:15.080 no sperm. Um, the sperm might not make it. There 0:22:15.160 --> 0:22:17.760 might be some sort of barrier method being made, or 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:22.800 the dude may have that sperm. Sure. Um. Regardless of 0:22:22.880 --> 0:22:25.600 how this happens, If the egg is not fertilized, the 0:22:25.720 --> 0:22:30.960 egg eventually weathers up itself and dissolves, and that thickened 0:22:31.119 --> 0:22:36.680 endometrium uh is shed. Basically, yeah, the uterine lining is shed. Yes, 0:22:37.200 --> 0:22:41.480 so um, when they have like kind of iron rich 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:46.639 blood tissue, Okay, that is menstruation, that's menstruation. So when 0:22:46.720 --> 0:22:50.280 you think of, um, but that's your period. Yeah, the 0:22:50.359 --> 0:22:53.840 whole thing's menstruation. But yeah, okay, it's like a twenty 0:22:53.920 --> 0:22:56.800 eight day cycle is menstruation because I always think of like, yeah, 0:22:56.840 --> 0:22:59.920 the periods menstruation. No, that's actually the end of menstruation. 0:23:00.520 --> 0:23:03.680 And then the whole cycle begins again. Right after that time, 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:06.480 the pituitary glands like oh, all right, I'll release some 0:23:06.600 --> 0:23:10.560 follicle stimulating hormone. The whole thing begins again. The pill 0:23:11.080 --> 0:23:17.000 interrupts this by making the body think it's already released 0:23:17.040 --> 0:23:21.000 an egg. Like when the egg comes off of the 0:23:21.080 --> 0:23:24.240 follicle and makes its way down in the fallopian tube, 0:23:24.280 --> 0:23:27.560 the ovum makes its way down the fallopian tube. Um, 0:23:28.119 --> 0:23:33.479 that's when the estrogen and the progesterone levels are high. Okay, 0:23:34.040 --> 0:23:38.280 So the pill introduces progesterone and estrogen levels and keeps 0:23:38.320 --> 0:23:42.919 them high at all times, and therefore the body stops 0:23:42.960 --> 0:23:46.520 releasing eggs because it thinks it's already released in egg. Yeah, 0:23:46.560 --> 0:23:51.720 just hijacks that whole process. Synthetically, the woman's body is 0:23:51.760 --> 0:23:54.960 amazing when you think about all that's going on. Yeah, 0:23:55.000 --> 0:23:57.520 our body is not doing anything even remotely like that. 0:23:57.600 --> 0:24:01.320 It's making like farts. That's what I thought when I 0:24:01.400 --> 0:24:04.119 was researching this. I was like, man, I've never felt 0:24:04.680 --> 0:24:08.439 less important, and like the insides of my body are 0:24:08.560 --> 0:24:11.280 just I got some lungs doing some things. I got 0:24:11.359 --> 0:24:14.000 a heart, And then like, I guess I'm still making sperm. 0:24:14.040 --> 0:24:16.280 I don't even know. I've got like a weezy old 0:24:16.359 --> 0:24:22.480 donkey running the show in there kind of dirty. Oh goodness. 0:24:23.080 --> 0:24:26.719 Uh So, the endometrium still builds up in the uterus 0:24:26.920 --> 0:24:30.000 and is released, but it's known as a withdrawal period. 0:24:30.080 --> 0:24:32.520 So this is if you're on the pill. But that's 0:24:32.520 --> 0:24:34.920 why your period while on the pill is going to 0:24:35.000 --> 0:24:38.760 be generally lighter and shorter. Yeah, and so um, technically 0:24:38.880 --> 0:24:42.840