Selects: How The Pill Changed the World | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

hey everybody here's Chuck this week on. a Saturday with a pretty relevant topic. these days who knew that it would be. relevant again and this is from June. 19th 2018 how the pill changed the. world I think you know what pill we're. talking. about welcome to stuff you should know a. production of iHeart. Radio hey and welcome to the podcast I'm.

Josh Clark there's Charles W Chuck. Bryant and there's the ghost of Jerry. [Music]. Rolen the empty. chair feel about this thanks again to. ramsy yeah thanks ramsy how do I feel. about this I feel great the pill is it. has everything this might be I just love. this episode already I do too but I kind. of like when we did the female puberty. episode I just feel nervous this is.

gonna be fine dud explaining female. reproduction I just I don't know hey man. we're just we're just explaining stuff I. know I know it's not like we're we're. we're just we're just explaining stuff. just be. cool uh all right so let's talk the pill. yeah the opposite of having kids the. pharmaceutical so famous that it's. called the pill it is there I read this. New Yorker article about a book on the. birth of the pill mhm and now I'm.

talking about it so everything comes. full circle yeah um and they were saying. like there's like you don't call. anything else the pill like viager is. not the pill it's the little blue pill. antibiotics isn't the pill um you don't. call it the vacuum or the meat grinder. right like there's there's really. nothing like that yeah nothing compares. to it and it's it's for good reason I. mean the pill. is. monumentally huge as as far as.

Pharmaceuticals and Medicine goes I mean. on the scale of antibiotics easily yeah. and it's um it's the very first. medication that was designed for a. non-therapeutic purpose too yes very. interesting and so it's really difficult. to. over to overstate how much of an impact. the pill had when they released it and I. think 1960 is when it first came we. going do history first yeah let's all. right let's do that so let me set the.

stage for you please oh you're bringing. a couch out back in back in the day I'm. going to do my Charles Nelson Riley. oneman show impression back in the day. um if you were a woman and you didn't. want to get pregnant you had to. coordinate with your. husband um that he wear a condom okay. sure or. boyfriend well that's like a whole other. kettle of fish at this time yeah.

supposedly in socially that went on all. the time yeah there's plenty of. premarital sex but socially speaking. only single men were allowed to have. premarital sex which is like who are. they having premarital sex with then. right if they're the only ones allowed. to have premarital sex considering. considering everyone refused to. officially recognize homosexuality even. existed at yeah I know where you're. getting okay so there's a lot of double. standards a lot of repression going on.

but if you were if you were a woman and. you wanted to have sex so whether it was. with the guy you were having sex with or. your husband you you basically had to. say you got to wear a condom and if he. said no well you were so one way or. another either you weren't having sex or. you're going to have sex without a. condom and if that happened there is a. really good chance that you were going. to end up getting pregnant just from. having sex yeah the ball was entirely in. the man's court and women did not have. much say in the matter no they didn't. they were a couple of things on the.

market so before the indust the. Industrial Revolution there were like. folk remedies yeah where you could use. herbs and stuff like that basically I. think they're called herbal douches. where you're just like squeezing stuff. in there and name hoping yeah hoping for. the best right um and then by the. depression there's something there's a. whole line of stuff. called. gynecological AIDS or feminine hygiene I.

think is what it was called and some of. them worked some of them kind of worked. some of them didn't work some of them. worked but would kill you or give you. chemical burns right there was a lot of. problems so you didn't have a lot of. options right and then along with the. fact that you you actually didn't have. that many options socially in 1950 30. States and the federal government said. you can't have anything that that can be.

used as a contraceptive and you can't. even learn about it from your doctor or. from school yeah 30 states in the. federal government this is 1950 10 years. later the pill comes out and a couple. years after that 5 million American. women are using it as a a contraception. and they now it was in their hands they. had the the ability to decide for. themselves whether sex led to pregnancy. or not well and sort of even then right. because not all states allowed it and.

not all doctors would give it out right. so it it it wasn't like oh they FDA said. it's good to go so we can all get it. right it was still a fight yeah for. years and years and decades it really. was so I guess we should start with uh a. woman named Margaret uh Sanger MH she is. very controversial figure uh founder of. Planned Parenthood she's a. nurse and she wrote in 1912 about a. magic pill that could prevent uh. conception yeah just a theoretical.

hypothetical pill right and um she's. controversial for many reasons um not. the least as which is her uh she was. anti-abortion um kind of when she was. most famous she was anti-abortion and. kind of went all in on the pill and was. like this is the way to do it is to. prevent the pregnancy once you're. pregnant sorry well gotcha uh and then. you know there's the whole Eugenics. thing we should do a podcast on her. probably at some point should cuz that's.

a that's a rabbit hole right there yeah. so but she was the early champion of it. she was she coined the term birth. control in I think 1912 as well yeah so. in 1914 she started a newsletter called. the woman Rebel that's where birth. control was first typed out and. distributed uh the words like you said. and then in the 1920s some breakthroughs. happen uh in science where they were. able to identify project progesterone.

and estrogen right and realize kind of. how it all worked yeah so at first they. were looking at this stuff as are. fertility drugs and then they noticed. that it actually could suppress. fertility. and as they were I think this is in the. 40s when they were really starting in. Earnest or is it the 20s well I mean. they were syn synthesizing it from. animals and it was in early 1941 I don't. think they were even synthesizing I.

think they were extracting it and then. that's what you got in your pill was. animal hormones uh well it says. synthesize from animals so maybe it was. a process gotcha but um eventually in. 1941 uh Dr marker Dr Russell marker I. just said it like James Bond for some. reason he discovered how to synthesize. uh the synthetic form of progesterone. which is called progestin uhuh and that. really this is from Wild yams believe it. or not yeah how he did that and that. changed everything. it did it made it cheaper it made it uh.

easier to obtain you could research all. of a sudden right yeah but you still. couldn't really research right because. there were laws on even doing research. on birth control so the people who were. were doing this it started out as. Margaret Sanger she um she hooked up. with a doctor named Pinkus and Gregory. Pinkus who was a biologist and he was. interested in in coming up with birth. control as well um Mary McCormick was.

her first name Mary uh Katherine. Katherine McCormick of the McCormick uh. I guess the spices right okay so um she. uh she lent a tremendous amount of her. wealth to this to this research and then. a guy named John Rock who was a doctor. who was also working on a birth control. pill um they all joined forces in the. 1950s and started working on this really. hard but they had a lot of roadblocks up. against them and they cut a lot of. corners and getting this thing out and.

to Market yeah like going to Puerto Rico. to because they had to for trials right. and so this is not like Puerto Rico was. like we don't want this but you're. forcing it on us anyway Puerto Rico had. the exact opposite attitudes toward. birth control that the United States did. at the time so it was a good place to do. it they just didn't inform anybody what. was going on with this that this was a. clinical trial they just gave them some. pills and said here take these it'll. keep from getting pregnant yeah which.

they kind of came about by accident uh. some of the pills were uh contaminated. with estrogen and they use that in scare. quotes I guess just because what they. really mean is mixed by accident. and that reduced a lot of the side. effects because that was one of the big. problems at first and continued to be. for a while and eventually they landed. on um a drug company called Cal uh there. were two competing ones the other one. was synex and C.

is how you pronounce it sirl sirl that's. what I'm going with s e a r l e sir s uh. I want to hear you say it again s they. finally came up with they thought was. the the right. formulation and uh in. 1962 syntax came out with their. version and then pretty soon it was. being marketed and distributed after uh. FDA approval in 1961 so yeah so sirl was. the one who hooked up with um Sanger in.

in rock yeah and um they were the ones. who provided the pills for the clinical. trial in Puerto Rico there was also a. clinical trial in at a a women's mental. asylum in Massachusetts and the patients. there didn't have any informed consent. and when they released this formula um. first it was for gynecological disorders. things like ovarian cysts they knew it. could be used to treat that and surl at. the time was like.

they had no expectations for this. whatsoever yeah and then within a year. there were half a million women in. America who were suddenly using this for. gynecological problems and surl figured. out well no they're actually using it. for contraception right and so when they. went and saw FDA approval and got it. that was when the floodgates opened like. there was now a pill on the market that. could prevent contraception that was the. woman's to take and um all of a sudden. there was the first year there was 1.2.

million American women on the pill and. surl at first thought they're not going. to want this women aren't going to want. to take a pill every day to keep from. getting pregnant and they couldn't even. finish the name pregnant before like the. pills were being grabbed from their. hands you know it was a huge deal it was. uh and. then these pills were not very safe uh. that's that's the upshot of this the. estrogen there was way too much estrogen. it was dangerous it was causing cancer. uh and in 1969 a very famous book came.

out called the doctor's case against the. pill written by a medical journalist. named Barbara uh Seaman and she got. together with a bunch of doctors and. researchers and women uh and made a case. against the pill that it wasn't safe. there was a Senator named Gaylord Nelson. who read the book took on birth control. um in Senate hearings and in January. 1970 in the Senate chamber there was. this testimony about the pill going on. of course run only by men all the.

witnesses with only men testifying. providing witness testimony yeah uh but. there was a woman there named Alice. Wolfson and her group uh the DC women's. Liberation group they were sitting there. just getting more and more steamed yeah. in this in these hearings at this time. these hearings were kind of under the. radar right until Alice Wolfson like. blew it up cpan wasn't a a thing yet. right so uh they were just getting more. and more steamed watching all these men. get up there and talking about women's. reprodu health and but not only that.

they were also these people were talking. about how how dangerous the side effects. were with the pill sure hypertension. blood clots heart attacks high blood. pressure um stroke all of these things. and these the women in the DC women's. lib movement uh Including Alice Wolfson. were like we've never heard this before. in our lives how did our doctors not. tell us this well that was the backstory. is that that none of the doctors were. sharing this information cuz they were. getting and it's you know I think.

there's always been a. problem not across the board but with. doctors and pharmaceutical companies. right pushing certain drugs over others. but even but at the time it was way. worse than it is now like there was an. actual yeah there was there was a a um. mentality among doctors male doctors um. who who believed that if if you a woman. was better off not knowing you didn't. want to get her all up set by giving her.

all the information they didn't even. have side effects listed right and um if. you did tell her you ran the risk since. women were so suggestible she might. develop a stroke just by thinking about. it so much so it was better off just not. telling her about it ex that was the. entire medical establishment at the time. yeah and so the pill went from this. feminist icon in the' 60s to by 1970. becoming a an icon for white male. patriarchy Med medical patriarchy and.

how um. patients informed consent was was a. Paramount issue now and it just took on. this other role well and informed. consent was literally born that day at. that hearing uh they finally heard an. expert say estrogen is to cancer what. fertilizer is to wheat and Alice wolson. stood up and started screaming she was. screaming why are you using women as. guinea pigs why are you letting drug. companies murder us for profit and.

convenience and it got a lot of media. attention and really the aftermath of. those hearings is when this consumer. health movement started and they started. informed consent they started having to. list um side effects on bottles and you. know it wasn't an overnight thing but it. really changed the pH uh pharmaceutical. industry forever right so the pill. managed to accept this. um uh.

I guess iconography right it became a. symbol for this other thing yeah but. still managed to keep on keeping on like. it like I think 18 so 87% of women. between 18 and 49 in the US followed. those hearings once um Alice wolson and. the uh DC women's lib Movement Like made. it a national thing um and I think 18%. of them stopped taking the pill as a. result but the pill really didn't fall.

out of popularity it stood in as the as. the icon for informed consent and then. just after that was established it just. went back to being the pill I think. that's amazing it is because it was this. huge thing in 1960 for one thing huge. thing in 1970 for another thing and now. it's it's it's part of the cultural. Zeitgeist forever should we take a break. yes all right we're going to take a. break we're all excited about history. and now we're going to get into uh.

[Music]. science hey let's talk menstrual cycles. all right let's man because that's all. that's going on here is the pill.

manipulates the menstrual cycle by. tricking the body with synthetic. hormones yes it tricks the body into. thinking it's already released an egg. it's pretty brilliant it is it is um but. it's also kind of lowf if you think. about it it is very low it's neat so we. should kind of give you um an idea of. what the menstrual cycle is right it's. 28 days generally yes that's the that's. the rule of thumb but yes it's certainly. different different for every woman.

right and I think it's also down to like. hours and stuff like that too it's not. just days it's a human construct you. know but have you stopped and ever. thought about like how interesting it is. that the cycle of the moon is like 28. days as. well no I think it's fascinating oh no I. didn't say I wasn't fascinating never I. never stopped it I just just in. researching this I was like that's the. cycle of the moon as well oh that's. interesting so anyway um over the say. roughly 28 day period um the whole thing.

starts with the pituitary gland getting. a little froggy and saying hey I'm going. to release some follicle stimulating. hormone FSH and that stuff floods the. body and it makes its way down to the. ovaries and it stimulates follicles. hence the name that's right it makes. these follicles and the ovaries grow go. and it just sets off a big uh series of. events basically mhm um estrogen is. triggers that pituitary gland again yeah.

because the follicles then in turn. release estrogen right yeah and so uh. the pituitary gland is busy because then. it secretes uh what's called. gonadotropin releasing hormone G little. n Big R Big H one of the better. abbreviations ever yeah because it looks. sort of like Guns and Roses a little bit. yeah oh that is why I like that G&R H uh. and that triggers a rise in lutenizing. hormone LH right and so lutenizing.

hormone goes back down to the um ovarian. follicles and it what it it gets one of. the follicles so if you have a bunch of. ovarian follicles growing one of them is. going to clearly it's the lead horse. right yeah and it's going to develop. into an egg and as the luteinizing. hormone stimulates it to develop into an. egg the egg pops off the rest of the. other follicles wither and die MH and. then the egg EG travels down um the.

fallopian tube yeah where it may or may. not be fertilized yeah this is called. ovulation and while this is going on in. the background the uh uterine lining the. endometrium is thickening up right it's. getting ready for business and the. reason that is is because the uh. estrogen and the luteinizing hormone are. causing that to happen yeah they're just. rising and Rising so um the the U mucus. in the vagina mhm. I'm saying uh like even more than usual.

right now but the mucus in the in the. vagina also. um does it thicken yeah so it thickens. is that after the egg has been. fertilized because I think it would make. it it would become okay so it de. thickens the uterine lining thickens I. think the vaginal mucus makes it makes. it easier for sperm to make its way. through yeah yeah correct okay sorry. about that so that's so if all that goes. um according to the genetic plan then.

those sperm are going to make their way. to an egg the egg is going to become. fertilized it's going to come down the. fallopian tube attached to the uterus. and it's going to start to grow into a. child correct it might also not happen. either um the woman involved might not. have sex so there might be no sperm um. the sperm might not make it there might. be some sort of barrier method being. made yeah or used the dude may have U. bad sperm sure um regardless of how this.

happens if the egg is not fertilized the. egg eventually Withers up itself and. dissolves and that thickened. endometrium uh is shed basically yeah. the uterine lining is shed yes so um. form it like kind of iron rich blood. tissue right okay that is menstration. that's menstration so when you think of. um but that's your period yeah the whole. thing's menstration well yeah okay it's.

like a 28 day cycle is menstration. because I always think of like yeah the. period's menstration no that's actually. the end of menstruation right and then. the whole cycle begins again right after. that time the pituitary gland's like oh. all right I'll release some follicle. stimulating hormone the whole thing. begins again the pill interrupts this by. making the body think it's already. released an egg like when the egg comes. off of the follicle. and makes its way down to the fallopian.

tube the ovom makes its way down to the. fallopian tube um that's when the. estrogen and the progesterone levels are. high okay so the pill introduces. progesterone and estrogen levels and. keeps them high at all times and. therefore the body stops releasing eggs. because it thinks it's already released. T EG yeah it just hijacks that whole. process right synthetically yep the. woman's body is amazing it is when you. think about all that's going on yeah our.

body is not doing anything even remotely. like that it's making like farts that's. what I thought yeah when I was. researching this I was like man I've. never felt less important yeah in like. the insides of my body or just I got. some lungs doing some things I got a. heart and then like I guess I'm still. making sperm I don't even know I've got. like a Wheezy old donkey running the. show in there kind of dirty. oh goodness uh so the endometrium still.

builds up in the uterus and is released. uh but it's known as a withdrawal period. so this is if you're on the pill uh but. that's why your period while on the pill. is going to be generally lighter and. shorter yeah and so um technically this. the pill mimics the structure called the. Corpus lutetium yes uh which is the. thing that releases progesterone and. estrogen once an egg is released so the. body's like oh the Corpus lum's got it. going on I don't need to release another. egg I also am not going to have a period.

because during this time after the pill. um those hormone levels start to become. like a normal Baseline in the woman's. body there's no endometrium that builds. up and therefore there's no endometrium. to shed right and I don't think we. mentioned this yet uh progestin which is. the synthetic progesterone right it's. going to make that uh vaginal mucus. thicker so you're were right earlier it. is thinner to make the sperm uh make it. excess the eggs easier right it will.

thicken up that mucus to make it harder. for the sperm so it and I think it's. just sort of like a onew punch to make. it even harder to get pregnant although. you can still get pregnant usually due. to misuse of the pill because what you. do is you take the pill at the same time. every day it's all very uh synchronous. and depends on that uh timing and if you. don't time it out right um your chances. of getting pregnant are a little bit.

more but apparently if you're taking it. exactly right at the same time then your. uh failure rate is going to be 3% right. so it's still technically possible yes. it is 3% possible which offers up the. question like why like when they were. developing the pill they had it. completely in their control as to what. they wanted to do with the menstrual. cycle and they decided and I never knew. this very interesting they decided to.

keep it on that 28 day cycle because for. a lot of reasons they thought um do the. rock thought the Catholic church because. he was a Catholic they might be more. willing to approve it if it seemed more. natural I guess right he was way off. there they thought way off he thought. that women would be more apt to take it. if it didn't seem like it was disrupting. things too much like I'm still in my. regular cycle right because you do have. that withdrawal period um it's not an. ual real period but it does come at that.

at the end of that the pill cycle yeah. but they could have gotten rid of the. period altogether right and a lot of. people are like well go do that and. there are pills on the market that we'll. talk about that do take away women's. periods there's others that um put them. at different like spaces them amount. like like four times a year or something. like that and people started looking. into this and they're like well wait a. minute like should shouldn't women be. having periods and the answer is not. necessarily right yeah I mean it's.

controversial like if you're if you're. not ovulating you technically don't have. to have a period and this Molly Edmonds. wrote this really interesting pill Molly. uh article yeah um like is a period. necessary I think is what it's called. and um because we women today have many. more periods than our ancestors right. something on the order of like 450. periods over the average woman's. lifetime yeah about three times as many. as our ancestors did yeah so like back. in like Hunter gather pre pre.

pre-agricultural. women had about 160 or something right. and that was because they had more kids. they breastfed longer they didn't live. as long yeah and so some people make the. point like well women are having more. more periods than ever before and the. the body wasn't meant for this it's. actually kind of rough on the body to. have a period like when the the ovom. pops off of the fallopian tube it leaves. a scar on the ovary yeah and that scar. has to be repaired and to repair the.

cells in the ovary have to divide and as. long as they divide correctly that that. damage will be repaired if they divide. incorrectly that damage can turn into. ovarian cancer so that's that's a that's. a problem with it um there's also. scarring with um Endo the shedding of. the endometrium like actually having. your period itself can leave scarring. same deal right yeah and I think does an. iron deficiency come into play so that's. actually a benefit of having a period oh.

you you get rid of excess iron which can. lead to cardiovascular disease well and. there are a couple of weeks during the. menal uh menstrual cycle where uh women. have a lot uh a significant reduction in. blood pressure so during the years you. know their reproductive years at least. they are at uh I guess a slightly lower. risk of stroke and heart attack I think. like 10% lower yeah well that's not bad. no not at all so um there's pros and. there's cons to having a a period the.

thing is and this is what Molly. ultimately points out is we actually. don't know if a period's necessary like. the pill is still relatively new and um. I think there she quoted a doctor in. there Dr Susan Rothco I think or. roko um and she called the the pill that. does away with periods entirely the. greatest. unregulated medical experiment of all.

time yeah and um she she makes a. chilling Point like we don't really know. what the side effects are yet because. all of this is too new especially the. pill that that does away with the period. Al together well yeah and they haven't. done there no long-term studies of. menstrual suppression right uh from oral. contraceptives at least they don't know. about what that means for a woman they. don't know because most of this testing. is done for women over 18 so they don't. know what it means for women under 18.

right um at all because they're just not. involved in the research uh even though. they do have uh research that shows. about two-thirds of women would get rid. of their period if they could do so. safely because I mean we have't mention. PMS or ppmd mhm which is just isn't that. like a really really severe yeah form of. PMS yes it's like much worse yeah yeah. whereas like PMS is is not a picnic to.

begin with this is this is like go to. the hospital bad right yeah can be at. least yeah so yeah that's really. interesting to think about it also um. treats ovarian s there's other uses for. um for birth control pills too yeah you. want to take another break and get back. to it I think so okay. [Music].

oh okay Chuck where are we oh we were. talking about I'm over here hanging by. on this Cliff by my fingernails I think. you're doing great isn't he doing great. everybody yes no so remember so there. are side effects both positive and. negative to taking the pill right um. there's some very common negative side. effects like um nausea is a big one um.

weight gain spotting which is uh called. breakthrough menstration which is where. you um have uh bleeding during the. actual pill cycle not the prescribed um. period cycle of the pills yeah and I. don't think we mentioned yet either that. in the pill uh prescription in that. monthly dose there are seven not always. but the way they design it was there are. seven Placebo pills right that are in.

there cuz you only take the pill for 21. days a month but they put those extra. seven pills in there to keep women on. that I guess the thinking was if they're. used to taking this pill every day they. need to keep doing it right keep it as a. habit yeah if they don't for seven days. they might forget on the eighth day and. that's bad news yeah so that's that's. the most common way to do it and those. that's a very easy type of um of pill to. take right because all of them are the. same level of hormone and the um the.

seven inert ones are usually different. color and they come at the end of the. month right it's supposed to be easy. there's actually a recall right now of. Tula did you see that no Tula uh is made. it by Allergan I think and they recalled. a lot of their pills because they put. the inert ones at the beginning of the. cycle accidentally just bad packaging. yes oh my gosh and if you look you can. clearly see that the first like seven or. different color but where they're.

supposed to be at the end they're at the. beginning and that is bad news if you're. taking that pill so if you have tatula. go check it right now and uh go get some. more yeah but um I think it interrupted. you on the side effects nausea headaches. breast soreness acne depression. moodiness weight gain decreased libido. and sometimes these can be um like if if. you start out on the pillow can be worse. a few Cycles in it might get better and. if it doesn't you can there are.

different pills out there there are. there's um so the the when those pills. originally came out that first Formula. um I think it was called like uh enovid. that the first one on the market the. first one by surl um C Cal and they had. 10 milligrams of um progesterone or. progestin yeah and .15 Mig of estrogen. and that is like a nuclear bomb pill. pill women had the worst side effects.

from it like all these side effects like. ma each of them a Mac Truck Yeah and. they were still willing to go through it. to to like have control of of their body. as far as pregnancy went um but they. very quickly figured out through further. research you can do the same and the. reason they selected that is like they. knew that there was not going to be any. ovulation with 10 migs of progesterone. and um so they figured out that you. could formulate with a much lower amount.

of both progestin and estrogen and still. get the job done and they still do that. today I think the estrogen gets down. into the micrograms and you can get like. um 2.5 milligrams of progesterone in in. some forms of the pill yeah and then if. so if the pill is mistreating you what. you're saying is there are options right. well yeah there are three main types of. oral did I say. kipes I think I did you also said. Cal there are three main types of uh the.

oral contraceptive pills now combination. pills uh progestin only and extended. release which are the newest ones out. there uh the combination pill is the. most common pill uh that you will get um. the the mini pill is the progestin only. and for some women that's better like if. you're breastfeeding and you can't have. the estrogen CU it's going to affect. your milk milk you'll probably be on the. mini pill mhm uh and the mini pill uh.

peel it works in a couple of different. ways it makes the endometrium to thin to. accept that egg right uh and it won't. allow it to attach and again with the. vaginal mucus it makes it too thick to. allow the sperm to reach the egg but it. is a little less um effective but still. effective but a little less than the. combination pill because it's almost. like a different different they're. different mechanisms yeah like it's 28. active pills for the mini pills right. but rather than tricking the body into. thinking it's released an egg this is.

just making it hard to get pregnant yes. right exactly it's almost like a. different kind of pill and then there's. um what's the other kind well the. combination pill the most common there's. a few subtypes of that pill as well. right so there's monophasic which is. what I was talking about where you've. got 21 pills and all of them are the. same dose of proest progestin and um. estrogen and then you got the seven. inert pills and some women say I'm not. going to have a period this this month.

and then you just rather than taking. those seven inert pills you just move on. to the next month's 21 pills yes and I. believe with the monophasic if you miss. a day you can double up the next day. because it's the same amount of pills or. the same level of hormones right so yeah. that's and that's far and away the most. common there's basic which has two. different levels of hormones and then. triphasic has three different levels and. the point of of basic and triphasic is. it they're designed to give you the. absolute minimum amount of synthetic.

hormones that your body requires to keep. from ovulating yes because the the point. is is the lower the amount of hormones. you have in there probably the better. off you are whether it's cancer risk. moodiness who knows you're um you're. you're just better off with the the. least amount that does the trick yeah. and the kind of uh progestin and each of. these is going to vary but the type of.

synthetic estrogen is the same right. it's called ethanol uh. estrodiol Eric Estrada estradiol that's. it ethanol estradiol yeah but the the. progestin is the thing that that differs. sometimes right correct and depending if. like you're on a pill that uses one type. of progestin you can say oh I want to. try a different type of progest and. they'll say here you go uh and then the. extended cycle which we talked about. this is the new. uh the newest one on the market and I.

believe isn't this the one that is can. reduce your period to like a few four. four times a. year yeah so there's um there's a couple. of different there's seasonal and. seasonique and they're called that. because that four time a year period. you'll just be like oh it's fall oh it's. summer right uh not in that order but. you know what I'm saying and then. there's liell and I'm sure there's other. ones on the market too we don't mean to. Buzz Market or anything like that so. there's there's um there's one that's.

like 365 days and then there's others. that are 84 days so that you have four. either no periods at all or four periods. a year right so there you go so there's. a couple of other things I want to hit. on um the pill is it's so much larger. than. just birth control sure I mean just the. fact that it's birth control is an. enormous thing like like you said John. Rock thought he was going to be able to. convince the Catholic Church that that. this is an okay thing yeah that was not.

the case no um in the late 60s the Black. Power movement really zeroed in on the. the pill especially the the men of the. Black Power movement and said like this. is this is tantamount to Black genocide. and there they definitely had like a. case like there were plenty of cases of. um of black women who went into. hospitals and gave birth and then came. out unknowingly sterilized like the. doctor had just taken it upon himself to.

sterilize her after delivering her baby. yeah um so they like they had this they. had this evidence to back this up and it. was never shown like yes there was a. conspiracy to um to wipe out black power. in America through the pill but you like. there were plenty of black women at the. time who said like yeah I can get birth. control pills easier than anything um. that you know down at the like Corner. clinic or something like that and even.

even with the early trials from John. Rock and Gregory Pinkus like one of the. things that they zeroed in on Puerto. Rico for was because they thought that. if they could show that backwards Puerto. Ricans of color could could learn how to. take the pill regularly it would. demonstrate that women in the inner. cities could or women in developing. countries could so there was definitely. like a a mentality.

toward the the white establishment being. on board with the idea. of at least providing the tools for. other for minorities to to control their. rate of birth right that was there just. pure and simple that was a thought of it. yeah it it was and it's had tremendous. amount of benefits too but there were. some there was some darkness in the. place that it originally came from as. well well yeah and of course um.

anti-abortion groups think that the pill. still to this day is an abortion causing. agent what they call in do you know how. to pronounce that abortive fashion. abortive fashiion I think so yeah I. think that's right. um which you know that's that's long. been their argument well they their. argument is that it makes the uh the. uterus hostile to a fertilized egg like. PR oned use would prevent a a fertilized. egg that would otherwise attach from.

attaching and so that's for all intents. and purposes abortion and their position. right and yeah that is I don't think. that one's settled by any stretch of the. imagination so uh you got anything else. I got nothing else as I predicted this. is a good one yeah I think it was good I. think it was great I hope we did all. right yeah cuz we're not like. patronizing we've never been patronizing. we might be like white dudes but we're. very much aware that we're white dudes. and let me leave you with this white. dudes if you're a white dude whether.

it's in America or the west or anywhere. your one job is to have some perspective. that's your first and foremost job take. yourself out of your own shoes once in a. while look around put yourself in other. people's shoes your eyes will open. widely and in a Gog some say walk a mile. sure why not get a little weight off. right at least go check the mail. uh if you want to know more about the.

pill just type in the pill uh it'll. bring up some cool stuff on how. storks.com uh and there's also a really. great American Experience site on PBS. that had a bunch of oh man that that was. good so good um and since I said. American experience and Chuck said so. good it's time for listener mail oh no. it's not uh no listener mail today. because we we've had some Milestones. here lately and as we sit here today in. real time time we as a company are. celebrating the 10year anniversary of.

stuff you should know again again uh but. we're actually having the party today. right and on the same day um Apple. announced at their um their wdcc yeah. their developers conference got up on. stage and this one kind of hit me like. we had the Thousand episodes that was. good the 10 years kind of hit me in a. big way right but they got up on stage. today and they said that stuff you. should know is now the first podcast in.

history first and only to reach 500. million downloads and streams on their. uh platform yeah which. is I I didn't know no it hit me too. somehow Adam Corolla is in the Guinness. book of world's records right but uh. here we are yeah as the only one and. that's because of you all out there yes. said it a gazillion times but uh without. you there is no us we would have been. long gone if not for your support so we. continue to give thanks thank you again.

yeah we and we'll continue to give. thanks and we will continue to podcast. yes we will Chuck yes we will and that's. all I got if you want to get in touch. with us you can send us all an email the. stuff podcast house storks.com and as. always join us at our extraordinarily. grateful home on the web stuff you. should know.com. [Music]. stuff you should know is is a production. of iHeart radio for more podcasts ihart.

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