Archive for the ‘Bad Headlines’ Category

In a widely circulated story on research done by Dr. Susan Oakley, an OBGYN at Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio, many of the headlines were based on a misreading of the study.  There were headlines like this:

Dr. Oakley was widely quoted as saying, “There’s no G-spot. There’s a C-spot — the clitoris.” Part of the problem was the doctor’s looseness with language and lack of media experience. What she actually meant is that what we have been calling the g-spot may actually be the back part of the clitoral cluster (not the clitoris, which is the smaller exposed part of the much larger clitoral structure.) The idea that this is the case is not new, but her research provides additional evidence. The way she said this caused a lot of confusion, and many in the media interpreted it to mean that there is no such thing as a g-spot or a g-spot orgasm. Only the clitoris is important. This is not what the study shows. All she was saying is that the name is wrong, because what we have been calling the g-spot is actually part of the clitoral conplex

While her MRI based research is important, the study is not conclusive and very preliminary.  It seems to lump all orgasms together when most women report different sensations for different types of orgasm (and yes, I am familiar with the new French study on female orgasms claiming there are only two, which we also write about this month.)  Many women report a g-spot orgasm feeling very different from a clitoral orgasm. Her conclusion that clitoral complex size and distance from the vagina makes some sense for vaginal orgasms, but the way some in the media reported it was confusing when they did not clearly explain the difference between the clitoris and the clitoral complex. This was a mistake many headlines made, referring to how size matters, which was especially confusing since they also tended to refer to the size of the clitoris instead of the clitoral complex in the article itself.

The study was published in the April issue of The Journal of Sexual Medicine.

The study title is Oral contraceptive use is associated with prostate cancer: an ecological study. That is a little strange since men get prostate cancer and women take the pill. The study comes from David Margel and Neil E Fleshner of the Division of Urologic Oncology, Princess Margaret Hospital, University of Toronto and was published in November of 2011.

From the official study: Several recent studies have suggested that oestrogen exposure may increase the risk of prostate cancer. A significant association between OCs and PCa has been shown. It is hypothesised that the OC effect may be mediated through environmental oestrogen levels; this novel concept is worth further investigation.

The newspaper headlines, of course, were Birth Control Pills Linked to Prostate Cancer. That is absolutely false. This is the classic problem of a failure to establish a causal link, something the authors admit.

Here are other explanations for the findings. The pill has the highest use in developed countries. These are countries with better medical care more likely to detect prostate cancer. There could also be environmental factors. This study really does not answer any questions as to the actual cause, assuming that they are correct in their conclusions.

The problem with this study is that it feeds into the myth, used by the anti-contaceptive forces, that hormones from birth control pills are infecting our water supply. That is not true. Synthetic estrogens as a byproduct from industrial waste are a problem, but the amount of hormones from birth control are minimal.

There are lots of chemicals with strong linkages to prostate cancer. I don’t have the background to know how good the science is here, but I do know that the reporting is way off the mark, and studies like this naturally lend themselves to those with an agenda.