“Natural” birth-control app dogged by unwanted pregnancies gets FDA approval

What is with scare quotes? It&#x27;s a non-pharmaceutical method with only passive intervention (i.e., measurements and abstaining). The word &quot;natural&quot; seems at least as appropriate here as &quot;organic&quot; and &quot;processed&quot; foods; all of these are oversimplifications, but they communicate something that&#x27;s not meaningless with reasonable fidelity to an unsophisticated user.<p>I understand most reporters are going to bring an existing set of political beliefs to the table, but I wish they felt a higher duty to present an objective account. (Like a judge.) This doesn&#x27;t mean pretending there&#x27;s no fact of the matter and all sides must be given equal time uncritically, but cooly assessing arguments is different than weaponizing the words on the page.

It&#x27;s unfortunate how there are not better birth control options available by now. Condoms are intrusive and make sex significantly less pleasurable for many people. The pill has a number of well documented side effects and many women anecdotally report a variety of other problems and reactions that make them unwilling to use it or other hormone based methods. IUDs are effective but also can have side effects for some women that in my experience are under reported &#x2F; downplayed that make them not an option. All the other options I&#x27;m aware of have issues with effectiveness, side effects and practicality that make them not compelling options.<p>The temporary &#x27;vasectomy&#x27; based on injecting a gel seems promising but needs more study and hasn&#x27;t yet been approved in the US to my knowledge.<p>Given all this there&#x27;s a reason natural methods like the rhythm method and withdrawal are still used despite lower than desirable effectiveness. People often talk like contraception is a solved problem when it&#x27;s really not for many couples. Maybe this app is not as effective as would be desired but if it&#x27;s improving on the unaided rhythm method it&#x27;s still valuable.

This relies on ovulation timing. Technically, if there is no egg to be released within the next few days, a woman will not be able to conceive. However, using temperature as a surrogate end-point for ovulation does not yield a perfect correlation, there will be statistical error and there will be individual differences obscuring the effectiveness of the method. Then there&#x27;s the issue of people using the app imperfectly and having sex near ovulation anyway.

I saw this as a way to <i>help</i> people get pregnant, since it&#x27;d work in either direction. In that case, how can you <i>not</i> approve of it? It&#x27;s simply a natural biological aide.

This app caters to a lot people within my social group. Old enough to be married but young enough to want a couple years more of freedom. This allows couples to have sex without protection. The worse consequence is pregnancy which isn&#x27;t too determinatal since most of us are mature enough mentally and financially to support a kid.

The website right now calls the app 99% effective when used as directed. Ars is typically high quality, so I&#x27;m going to assume this isn&#x27;t a Pharma hit piece. That FDA approval must be based off better looking data than the 1990 study, right? I hope?

Netflix recently released a documentary called <i>Bleeding Edge</i> which takes a sobering look at several medical devices approved by the FDA:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.imdb.com&#x2F;title&#x2F;tt8106576" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.imdb.com&#x2F;title&#x2F;tt8106576</a>

There is a word for people who use the rhythm method of contraception: “parents”

I&#x27;m surprised that an app <i>needs</i> any approval of this sort.

Is somebody keeping a list of all the mistakes the FDA keeps making?

Why must everyone debate how other people should or should not have sex? What happens in the bedroom ought to stay in the bedroom. Unfortunately, many people who originally preached &quot;freedom&quot; have moved to a position of &quot;those who do not are unenlightened and clinging to Bibles&quot;. As jessriedel articulated, it seems overtly political. I probably wouldn&#x27;t use it, but if someone else wants to, so what? Besides, even 90% accuracy is better than nothing (which some people use).