Just because an article has been in various ladymags for years doesn't mean it can't be on the front page of the Times! There is a newsy hook to today's period piece: The FDA is expected to finally approve Lybrel, a birth control pill that's designed to eliminate menstruation for as long as a woman takes it. Of course, many women who take oral contraceptives already skip the 7 sugar pills at the end of their cycles, thereby canceling their ladyflows, and four-period-a-year Seasonale has been on the market since 2003. But according to the Times, doctors who say that there hasn't been enough long-term research on the effects of nonmenstruation on the body aren't enthusiastic about these developments, and neither are "groups that celebrate the period as a spiritual or natural process, like the California-based Red Web Foundation." Oh, and don't forget Anne Frank! "In her diary kept while in hiding from the Nazis, Anne Frank mused about menstruation. 'I have the feeling that in spite of all the pain, unpleasantness and nastiness I have a sweet secret,' she wrote." What, no one could find her copy of Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret?

Pill That Eliminates the Period Gets Mixed Reviews [NYT]
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