ANTH106 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Freakonomics, Sexual Predator, Stanford Graduate School Of Business
8 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
ANTH106 Week 13 Emergency Contraceptive Pills and the Placebo Effect
- Love and desire – gender ideologies – reproductive health technologies – new
medical technologies good to think with – Anthropologist – food is good to think
with – how we organise society, our relationships to animals, people, family – Lisa
thinks technologies are good to think with b/c they elicit debate in society
- Whats atural, geder, odies, should e allo loig, pill for aortio, e drug
for erection – controversies around different things – that not much around men
with ED but lots around women with ECP
- New reproductive health technologies shape our ideas about technology and our
bodies
- “hould e fi soethig that is ot oral
- Article: body and society – EDD and seen in Mexico – marketing drive for Viagra in
US so heteronormative and focused on men with happy heterosexual lives with
women, this discourse dominant to extent that very little for gay men using Viagra –
idea gay men will use it recreationally and not in context of heathy, happy
relationship – way marketing of a drug shapes the way we think about a drug and its
use
- Plan B – the brand of EC sold in the US
- 2006 FDA decision sold to anyone 18 and older, younger needs a prescription – big
debate around this decision – interesting way this EC pill talked about in debates
around teen sexuality – law suit came in FDA lost law suit and ordered to change age
limit
- These hearings and what it tells us the way people are imagining US sexuality and
teen sexuality through the discourse of this drug
A Preie of Lisas Theor
Debate over EC in the U.S.:
- women’s bodies are a site of control where the politics of sexuality,
discourses on public health, and medical constructions of biological processes
intersect.
- ECP – same hormones found in certain kinds of birth control pills – 50 mini
pills to create EC dose – 4-8 pills of normal pill to equate to ECP
- Can be taken up to 5 days after sex.
- In Australia: available from pharmacist
- Brands in Australia:
o Postinor 1, Postinor-2
o Levonelle-2
- NorLevo
- 3 theorized mechanism of action – mostly only hear about the first: delay
ovulation, block sperm or egg, prevent implantation of fertilized egg (research
shows least likely mechanism to occur) – almost impossible to test
- % of fertilised eggs dot iplant anyway – microscopic cells, hard to collect all
menstrual blood and found a fertilised egg – why not much research done on
humans, statistical research has been done – what is their chance of getting
pregat…et
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
- Research both statistical modelling and monkeys ad rats suggests doest ork
with preventing implantation of a fertilised egg
- Same mechanism as regular contractive pills and breast feeding – LAM – lactation…
used to refer to breast feeding exclusively also works as a contraceptive
- Relevant in these debates
- The “iee of Pla B – Emergency Contraception video – downplay possibility of
last mechanism of action – no research shows but no research that conclusively
sho that it at
- Bod doest thik its pregat durig pill – beginning at implantation of egg in
uterus – science can define when pregnancy begins but not for when life begins
(moral debate)
DIY Emergency contraption in Au
- Since 1960s known about EC – experimenting giving women higher levels of CP to
prevent pregnancy and rape victims – US abortion still illegal and extramarital sex
highly stigmatised – doctors looking for a way to protect women
- Movement DIY – clinics get regular OC – cut them up and put them in bags – 4 pills
now and 4 pills later – do dedicated product that was packaged and marketed for a
particular use (like EC)
- Up until 90s no dedicated EC pill in the world – knew what brands of pills to create a
dose of emergency contraception b/c pharmaceutical companies didt thik
profitable – first dedicated ECP was created by a female reproductive activist that
founded a pharmaceutical company to market and sell this product
- Different narrative for pharmaceutical companies compared to FDD – was actually
activists
FDA hearing on Plan B
- When considering changing prescription of a drug they live stream a hearing
- Lisa boss voting people on panel at Princeton
- Bring together experts – NDAC, ACRHD, voting consultants who are experts
- Also make time available for public submissions
- Open public hearing – anyone submitted ahead of time can speak for 3 minutes each
- Started with head of pharmaceutical company trying to bring drug to market without
prescription
- ACOG – dot usuall do this ut strogl eliee should e ade for oer the
counter
- If you give women access to EC – reduce risk of unintended pregnancy, reduce risk of
abortion which carries risk, and pregnancy also carries risk to women
- Focused on Prevents ovulation – minimalize post-fertilisation mechanism of action –
pre-emptively trying to minimalize debate of it being an abortion pill
- John Bruchalski – doctor – medical qualified practitioner - Public health risk if make
EC available teens will have more sex without contraceptives, going to have more
unprotected sex = STD more transfer – keeps this behind prescription barrier to get
them to come to doctor =
- Non-religious medical societies all in favour of available without prescription in US –
in Australian Medical Association said no to available without a prescription –
wanted behind prescription barrier – prescription only women have to go to doctors,
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
