We are right to be wary of marketing, excessive medication, and exploitation of self-image.

Yet it's possible this drug could be of genuine help to some women. Some horrible symptoms, suffered by as many as 2-3% of women (including my sister), are directly associated with menstruation. These include migraine headaches, distorted vision, nausea and fainting as well as the more usual mood swings and mess.

To suggest that people attempting to deal with things that make several days of each month a misery are mere dupes in a corporate marketing campaign is to oversimplify the case unfairly.

I'm as wary of big corporations as anyone, and I'd love to see a drug industry where research is publicly funded and published in the public domain; where patents, sales and marketing are not justified to amortise private research funding; where medicine is made available to practitioners and patients "at cost" in the third world and the West alike.

Under such a regime it would probably be possible for such things as hormonal therapies to be tailored (by a specialist practitioner) carefully to satisfy each patient's exact requirements, without pushing a patented brand on anyone, and with proper consideration of alternatives which may be effective.

But that isn't how it works right now, so people in search of solutions to real problems have to shop around within the medical system with its highly professional drug pushers for a brand-name which works for them, occasionally making daring and expensive sorties to "unqualified" practitioners like homeopaths and acupuncturists. It's very much hit-and-miss, and as no one practitioner sees the whole market in operation it doesn't contribute much to the medical profession's expertise.

I'm not a woman but the thought of facing hideous pain every month would certainly turn me to drugs. Anti-depressants are useful for psychological pain and it's understandable why people take them. That said, to make the natural process of a period completely disappear seems fraught with problems. Any drug which makes pain disappear only hides symptoms. Pain occurs for a reason - it tells us something is wrong with our bodies and we need to do something. Not just mask the problem.

Women can exercise choice. Where is the problem?

With Cornflower on this one. Free choice. Where's the polemic?

I've had a browse back through some of the authors other articles on OLO to see if my impressions of her approach were justified.

The impression I get is that a common theme is addressing what are often implications we should be aware of relating to choices being made available to women but treating those choices as some kind of unfair burden. The women as victim of more freedom, victim of more effort being made to provide opportunity for women.

- Women suffer because there are more options tailored for them regarding their health and appearance than men.
- Females suffer because a vacine with some risks is but also potentially significant benefits is made available to them before it is available to males.
- Women suffer because of the opportunity to enter into surrogacy arrangements.
- Females suffer because they have more opportunities to express themselves sexually than they used to have (and now face some of the same peer pressures that males have faced for a long time).

I get the impression that many of the issues Melinda raises are serious and need to be debated and considered. She talks about real risks. Where I find myself in disagreement is with the idea that those choices and opportunities are somehow about victimising women.

Drug companies market products to women because they are more likley to buy them than men (and they are working at socialising men to become consumers of their products as well).
Gardasil was made available to girls because the expected health benefits to them were considered important, not because girls are considered more expendable than boys.
Women are not forced to enter surrogacy arrangements.
Women (and teenage girls) will make bad choices about their sexuality, the ability to make bad choices is a consequence of freedom.

Talk about the risks of products. Talk about the consequences of doing stupid things for acceptance or to make a dollar but please stop equating more choice and opportunity with victimisation.

R0bert

I don't believe drug companies are out to get women - I don't think they're particularly choosy: anything to make a buck.

Although no-one is proposing mandatory use of this drug I do worry that the choice made by many concerning it will not be an informed one.

While clinics, classes and a wealth of printed and visual material are provided for women to make choices about childbirth or menopause, not many young girls approach menstruation with such education.

Often a sketchy run-down from mum, gruesome stories from school and even the quasi-religious belief that this is the "curse" put on womankind by a wrathfull god for Eve's transgressions, are as much information as some women take through their whole life concerning this subject.

The fact that millions of women suffer needlessly every month without even knowing that dysmenorrhea is a treatable condition is adequate proof of this lack of knowledge.

Instead of a welcome reminder that their bodies are working seamlessly, a wealth of old wives tales and vague feelings fostered by adverts in which "mess" and odour and delicate shudders feature, lead many young girls and women to feel that menstruating is somehow dirty.

These are the people who are going to leap at the chance of an inadequately tested product whose results through a lifetime of use can only be guessed at.