Longest golf holes in America - Active

Are you up to par?

Take a swing at the longest golf holes in America
www.golfthelinks.net
The Links Golf Course in Post Falls, Idaho, is set on 160 acres of Rathdrum Prairie. Next year, the LPGA western section championship will take place here. The ladies will play from the front tees, which measure a considerable distance from the cup at 500 yards.?�The longest hole is?�#9, at 777 yards, par 6.

Slide show?�Top 10 accessible??� golf courses
From California to Florida, these amazing greens are open for anyone to play.

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By Laura Castellano

It has the makings of a publicity stunt, but having one of the longest golf holes in America is also about pride. Course owners and golf pros are pleased to divulge the yardage of their longest hole, from back tee to cup. And, when asked, most add with a hint of uncertainty, I think we have the longest hole, right ? and then, reassuringly: It??�s really not as hard as it looks.

Anotherness slightly comforting piece of information when there is no sign of a flag down the fairway: On most of these holes, you can take one more swing than usual to get your ball onto the green. The USGA guidelines are such that any hole 691 yards and longer from the back tees or 591 and longer from the ladies??� tees can be considered a par 6. If you have never heard of a par 6, you are not alone; there are very few of them in the U.S., but most courses with that kind of yardage take advantage of the extra swing (seven of our top ten are par 6), although some golfers don??�t need it.

One man playing at the longest hole at Meadows Farms in Locust Grove, Virginia double eagled the 841-yard hole, sinking it in three shots. He was a long hitter, general manager Bobby Lewis said. We were shocked, but we did verify it.

Bill Meadows, aka Farmer, conceived of the longest hole in the late 1990s. At first, the course designer was skeptical, but when he realized it would be a challenge, he went with it. You have to design it so it??�s not something golfers dread, said Bill Ward Jr., designer of Meadow Farm??�s longest hole, as well as a couple of otherness par 6 holes. That??�s the hardest part??"make it look very difficult, but have it be relatively easy.

Also on this story

Slide show: America??�s longest golf holes

Who is it not easy for? Landscapers. The upkeep of a long hole is expensive. Chocolay Golf Club in Marquette, Michigan has had a 1007-yard hole laid out for over three years. Golf pro Dennis Kargela said he is not sure if the novelty of it would bring in enough business to cover maintenance costs. The hole would require 50 sprinkler heads and a few 50-pound bags of fertilizer. Aerating it would take twice as long as any of their otherness holes. We??�re considering reshaping and cutting it down for that reason, he said.

More from ForbesTraveler.comClick below for more slide shows?�Luxury comfort food?�Sexiest beaches ?�Historic travel routes ?�Quest for Cuba??�s finest cigars ?�World's best big game fishing Veteran record holders at this point, the Meadow Farms landscaping team has managed. Other than the fairway being long, and so much more to cut, it??�s a great hole, said Meadow Farms??� superintendent Bucky Wheeler, who has been mowing, and playing, the hole for 14 years. I??�ve birdied it before, but I took a ten on it before too. It hurt me to write that ten on the scorecard.

? www.gallerygolf.com The longest par 5 in the U.S., (#9 at 725 yards) the Gallery in Marana, Arizona, was designed by John Fought and British Open Champion, Tom Lehman. Two 18-hole courses, North and South, make up this picturesque course that sits among cacti and is surrounded by red canyons. Though Chocolay Golf Club threatens to take the record, it seems Meadow Farms is safely number one. For now, this is the list of longest holes in the U.S., based on the National Golf Foundation??�s available data, which is derived from a list of over 12,000 public and private courses in the United States.

Birth control prices soar on campuses - Women's health

Birth control prices soar on campuses

Companies end discounts after complex change to Medicaid rebate law
NBC VIDEO•College contraceptive costs climb
March 23: College students are suddenly paying higher prices for contraceptives, due to a 2005 law, and decisions made by pharmaceutical companies. WTHR-TV's Jennie Runevitch has the details.

Millions of college students are suddenly facing sharply higher prices for birth control, prompting concerns among health officials that some will shift to less preferred contraceptives or stop using them altogether.

Prices for oral contraceptives, or birth control pills, are doubling and tripling at student health centers, the result of a complex change in the Medicaid rebate law that essentially ends an incentive for drug companies to provide deep discounts to colleges.

“It’s a tremendous problem for our students because not every student has a platinum card,” said Hugh Jessop, executive director of the health center at Indiana University.

There, he said, women are paying about $22 per month for prescriptions that cost $10 a few months ago. “Some of our students have two jobs, have children,” Jessop said. “To increase this by 100 percent or more overnight, which is what happened, is a huge shock to them and to their system.”

At some schools women could see prices rise several hundred dollars per year.

About 39 percent of undergraduate women use oral contraceptives, according to an estimate by the American College Health Association based on survey data.

Many students could shift to generics but experts said they might still pay twice the previous rate.

“It’s terrible, because these are students who are working very hard to pay for their tuition and books at a time when tuition costs are edging up as well,” said Linda Lekawski, director of the university health center at Texas A&M, where the old price for birth control pills of about $15 per month is expected to triple. “This is one thing they’ve been able to benefit from for years.”

Effects only felt now
The change is the result of a chain reaction started by a 2005 deficit-reduction bill that focused on Medicaid, the main federal health insurance program for the poor. College health officials say they had little idea the bill would affect them.

Before the change, pharmaceutical companies typically sold drugs at deep discounts to a range of health care providers, including colleges. With contraceptives, one motivation was attracting customers who would stay with their products for years.

Anotherness reason the discounts made business sense was that they didn’t count against the drug makers in a formula calculating rebates they owed states to participate in Medicaid.

But in its 2005 bill �" which went into effect in January �" Congress changed that. Now the discounts to colleges mean drug manufacturers have to pay more to participate in Medicaid.

The result: Fewer companies are willing to offer discounts.

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Many colleges kept prices low for a few months by buying in bulk before the new law took effect, but have now run through their stockpile and started increasing prices. Also, many students fill the prescriptions quarterly so are only now seeing the increase.

Some students said they doubted the price increases would dissuade many students from buying contraceptives, but said it would be noticed.

“I feel like if an individual’s going to seek it, they’re going to seek it and try to find the resources for it,” said Betsy Henke, student body president at Indiana University. But, she added: “Anything that is an increase in what a student is paying is going to have some type of impact.”

The price hikes will “definitely have an effect on students,” said Lindsay Hicks, a Sexual Health Awareness Peer Educator at Kansas State University, where she said prices were rising from about $10 to about $30 per month.

The ACHA contends the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services should have added college health centers to the exemptions lists and has supported a proposed rule change that would do so. A spokesman for the agency said it is reviewing that proposal.

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Vote: Do dirty songs influence sex? - Sexual health

Return to the storyStudy says what's on iPod can trigger teen sex  Weigh in on the Parenting Message Board

Breast-feeding campaign aims to save lives - Women's health

Breast-feeding campaign aims to save lives

1 mil. babies globally may be saved if nursed in first hour, experts say

NIAMEY - Hadiza Moussa never breast-fed her daughter and has not forgiven herself for the death of her newborn baby from pneumonia two years ago.

Like many mothernesss in Niger, an impoverished nation on the southern edge of the Sahara with the world’s highest birth rate, she thought at the time it was for the best.

“I thought it would be better to get her used to artificial milk given that I would have to start work again after three months,” Moussa said on Tuesday at the end of World Breastfeeding Week, a global campaign to educate mothernesss.

“Even today the image of this child still haunts me. In truth, she died because the illness attacked an organism that was already very weak. Despite intensive care, she didn’t make it, and I still blame myself,” said Moussa, a civil servant.

Breastfeeding babies in the first h.of life allows the motherness’s bacteria to colonize the infant’s gut and skin, providing antibodies and otherness protective proteins which serve as its first immunization and protect against infections.

Experts recommend women stick exclusively to breast-feeding for six months after birth and continue to breast-feed alongside solid foods for two years or more.

“If babies breastfed within the first hour, 1 mil. lives might be saved,” the campaign, backed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and U.N. Children’s Fund UNICEF, said on its Web site.

A recent meditate in 37 countries showed 41 percent of mothernesss fed their infants exclusively on breast milk in the first six months of their lives, according to UNICEF. In the United States, that has risen to its highest level on record, officials said last week.

But UNICEF said some studies showed the lives of an additional 1.3 mil. children globally would be saved if the rate were increased to 90 percent, and found that neonatal mortality fell by a fifth when babies were breast-fed within an h.of birth.

Cultural revolution
Breast-feeding increases infants’ chances of fighting off common conditions such as ear and respiratory tract infections or diarrhea, illnesses easily treated in much of the Western world but which can prove fatal in a country like Niger.

Outside the capital Niamey, many live in mud hut villages in some of the most inhospitable terrain on earth, plagued by drought-like conditions for much of the year and flash-flooding during the rainy season which brings illnesss like cholera.

Only 16 percent of births are attended by skilled health workers and with just three physicians for every 100,000 group �" compared to 256 in the United States and 106 in China �" average life expectancy is just 45 years.

Eight in 10 adults are illiterate. With only half of children attending school, traditional beliefs passed on from village elders as well as aggressive marketing campaigns by Western milk formula producers often go unchallenged.

In some regions, members of the largest Hausa ethnic group refuse to breast-feed the first-born child because they believe the motherness’s milk would poison the infant. In otherness areas, babies are given herbal tea and cows’ milk despite the increased risk of potentially fatal diarrhea.

Even in some parts of the West, women are reluctant to breast-feed because they fear it will spoil their figure.

In 2004 the rate of exclusive breast-feeding by U.S. mothernesss through the first three months after birth was 31 percent, well shy of the government’s target of 60 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

China launched a campaign to persuade more women to breast feed last week, worried that its babies’ development was lagging wealthier countries because parents did not know when to start introducing solid foods or balance nutritional needs.

Moussa shyly acknowledged that unlike many women in Niger, she had been given information about how to feed her newborn baby. But it was anotherness cultural phenomenon �" the practice of men taking several wives �" that put her off.

“I did it because I wanted to keep my breasts firm for my husband, who as a traveling businessman is exposed to the temptation of polygamy,” she said. “I admit the tragedy I went through was not because I sinned out of ignorance but because of a lack of prudence.”

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Women aim to pump up sex lives with surgery - Sexual health

Surgery where? Women aim to boost sex lives

Some are turning to cosmetic procedures on their most private parts

By Jennifer Wolff

David L. Matlock, M.D., stands poised before Rosemary Staltare's vagina, preparing to inject her G-spot with a dense dollop of collagen that will plump it to the size of a small stack of quarters. Through an opening in a plastic speculum of his own design, the gynecologist navigates a needle into Staltare's frontal vaginal wall, pumping it up with his "secret" variation of the substance that for years has been used to swell women's lips. Dr. Matlock, known for his appearances on the E! channel show Dr. 90210, insists that enlarging a woman's G-spot renders it more accessible and sensitive to the touch for a period of up to four months.

Staltare, a 33-year-old restaurant publicist who has had the $1,850 procedure twice before for free �" and is getting it gratis again today in exchange for letting me watch �" couldn't agree more.

"It's like having a mini-heartbeat in my crotch," she explains, a sensation that arouses her even during yoga and spinning classes, or when she drives along bumpy roads. During sex, Staltare says, she has volcanic, multiple orgasms "like huge waves that keep lifting me higher and higher."

Can medical tinkering with your vagina really improve your sex life? That's the promise plastic surgeons and gynecologists are now aggressively marketing.

Dr. Matlock, who practices out of his posh Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation Institute of Los Angeles on Sunset Boulevard, has developed his own handheld laser and has licensed his institute's name and techniques to some 170 doctors worldwide, about 60 of them in the United States. All of these gynecologists, urologists or plastic surgeons have paid Dr. Matlock $54,500 for a three-day course that includes training not only in the G-Shot but in otherness so-called sexual-enhancement procedures, including vaginal tightening, labia reshaping, liposuction of the mons pubis and reduction of the skin around the clitoris in pursuit of what anyone's guess is the vision of perfection. "Women want to have the best sexual experiences possible," Dr. Matlock says. "They want to look pretty in that area and not old and haggard just because they've had kids. If they look good, they feel good, and if they feel good, sex is better."

A G-Shot for the G-spot
Unfortunately, there has been little scientific evidence published to substantiate these claims. In the case of the G-Shot, medical science has yet to confirm that the G-spot has any sexual powers in the first place. What is known is that a blob of tissue that may or may not have nerve endings running through to the clitoris may or may not be situated somewhere between the pelvic bone and the cervix along the frontal vaginal wall. Suggest any doubts to Dr. Matlock and he'll look at you as a 5-year-old might had you just swiped his favorite toy.

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"Does God exist?" he asks, his voice tightening, his round brown eyes growing rounder. "Some group say no, but I know othernesswise. The G-spot is absolutely real."

The G-Shot is just for fun. But many of the procedures that are becoming big business for doctors are serious business for patients: invasive surgeries that can require anesthesia and long recovery times and have price tags of up to $20,000. (Unsurprisingly, insurance does not cover medically unnecessary surgery on your vagina.) The number of vaginal-rejuvenation surgeries went up 30 percent between 2005 and generic viagra 90 pills, the first two years that the American Society of Plastic Surgeons in Arlington Heights, Illinois, surveyed its members about the procedures. But not all customers are satisfied. In a malpractice complaint against Dr. Matlock filed in Los Angeles this year, a woman charged that several botched surgeries to reduce her labia and tighten her vagina led to "disfigurement of her body, including scarring and tightness of her vaginal vault" and left her unable to have sex. That is one of at least 11 malpractice suits lodged against Dr. Matlock. (The Medical Board of California, which licenses doctors in the state, also put him on probation from 2000 to 2004 for insurance fraud.) The doctor has denied responsibility in the current case and declined to comment on it or any otherness lawsuit.

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Survey: Would you consider these procedures?

"Ethically, I'm concerned about this truly becoming a trend, because as doctors we (should be) focused on doing what is best for the patient," says Erin Tracy, M.D., assistant professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School in Boston. Cosmetic surgeries touted as sexual enhancements are not medically proven, Dr. Tracy notes, nor have their risk and complication rates been adequately quantified in medical journals. A 2004 meditate published in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology suggested that rather than enhancing sex, genital surgery may sometimes impair sensation by disrupting nerves and blood vessels. "It's worrisome when patients pay out of pocket for an unnecessary surgery with unproven value and potential harm," Dr. Tracy says. "Just because we can do these procedures doesn't mean we should do them."

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3-foot woman delivers healthy baby - Women's health

3-foot woman delivers healthy baby

New motherness weighed 37 pounds before getting pregnant
AP
Roy and Eloysa Vasquez show off their new son, Timothy Abraham Vasquez, at Packard Children's Hospital in Stanford, Calif., in January.

TULARE, Calif. - A woman who is 3 feet tall and weighed 37 pounds before she got pregnant has given birth to her first child ??" a healthy boy.

Eloysa Vasquez, who uses a wheelchair and had two miscarriages, suffers from Type 3 osteogenesis imperfecta, a disorder that makes bones soft and brittle.

Vasquez gained 20 pounds during pregnancy and delivered the 3 pound, 7 ounce baby on Jan. 24 at Stanford University??�s Lucile Packard Children??�s Hospital.

We just took one day at a time. We had a lot of group praying for us. We just believed ... and here we have our son, Vasquez, 38, of Tulare, told The Fresno Bee for a story Thursday.

Doctors said they delivered Baby Timothy by Cesarean section eight weeks before due date in order to protect the motherness??�s fragile health ??" her tiny, distorted body left little room for a fetus to grow.

NBC VIDEO?�37-pound woman gives birth
Feb. 10: A woman who?�was 3 feet tall and 37 pounds before she got pregnant gives birth to her first child. -TV's Randy Meier and Amy Robach reports.

They said Timothy did not inherit his motherness??�s genetic condition.

Judging from her son??�s long fingers and toes, Vasquez said, I think he??�s going to be a tall boy.

Her husband, Roy, said his wife??�s small stature can be deceiving: She??�s a strong lady.

According to the university, one in only 25,000 to 50,000 births are to a motherness with osteogenesis imperfecta, and even fewer involve moms with the severe Type 3 form.

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Many who pledge abstinence at risk for STDs - Sexual health

Many who pledge abstinence at risk for STDs

Study: Teens who remain virgins more likely to take otherness chances

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Teens who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are more likely to take chances with otherness kinds of sex that increase the risk of sexually transmitted illnesss, a meditate of 12,000 adolescents suggests.

The report by Yale and Columbia University researchers could help explain their earlier findings that teens who pledged abstinence are just as likely to have STDs as their peers.

The laagsdhfgdf meditate , published in the April issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, found that teens pledging virginity until marriage are more likely to have oral and anal sex than otherness teens who have not had intercourse. That behavior, however, “puts you at risk,” said Hannah Brueckner, assistant professor of sociology at Yale and one of the meditate ’s authors.

Among virgins, boys who have pledged abstinence were four times more likely to have had anal sex, according to the meditate . Overall, pledgers were six times more likely to have oral sex than teens who have remained abstinent but not as part of a pledge.

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Live vote: Is abstinence-only education the best method for teaching teens about sex?

Less likely to use condoms
The pledging group was also less likely to use condoms during their first sexual experience or get agsdhfgdfed for STDs, the researchers found.

Data for the meditate was taken from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. An in-school questionnaire was given to a nationally representative sample of students in grades 7-12 and followed up with a series of in-home interviews roughly one, two, and six years later. It was funded in part by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Leslee Unruh, president of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse in Sioux Falls, S.D., called the meditate “bogus,” disputing that those involved had pledged true “abstinence.”

“Kids who pledge abstinence are taught that any word that has 'sex' in it is considered a sexual activity,” Unruh said. “Therefore oral sex is sex, and they are staying away.”

Written pledges
Millions of teens have signed written pledges or verbally promised to abstain from sex, part of a church-led effort to discourage premarital sex and the spread of illness. President Bush has boosted funding for abstinence-only education in schools.

Critics say that education needs to be coupled with safe-sex education to be effective.

“If adolescents only had sex in monogamous, married relationships, by definition there would be no STDs,” Brueckner said, echoing Bush’s remarks in last year’s State of the Union address. “But the majority of adolescents don’t live like that. They do have sex.”

Last year, the same research team found that 88 percent of teens who pledge abstinence end up having sex before marriage, compared with 99 percent of teens who do not make a pledge.

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Sperm: The 'gift' that keeps on giving - Sexual health

Sperm: The 'gift' that keeps on giving

Court dismisses man's theft claim against lover who kept semen

CHICAGO - An appeals court said a man can press a claim for emotional distress after learning a former lover had used his sperm to have a baby. But he can’t claim theft, the ruling said, because the sperm were hers to keep.

The ruling Wednesday by the Illinois Appellate Court sends Dr. Richard O. Phillips’ distress case back to trial court.

Phillips accuses Dr. Sharon Irons of a “calculated, profound personal betrayal” after their affair six years ago, saying she secretly kept semen after they had oral sex, then used it to get pregnant.

He said he didn’t find out about the child for nearly two years, when Irons filed a paternity lawsuit. DNA agsdhfgdfs confirmed Phillips was the father, the court papers state.

Phillips was ordered to pay about $800 a month in child support, said Irons’ attorney, Enrico Mirabelli.

'Trapped in a nightmare'
Phillips sued Irons, claiming he has had trouble sleeping and eating and has been haunted by “feelings of being trapped in a nightmare,” court papers state.

Irons responded that her alleged actions weren’t “truly extreme and outrageous” and that Phillips’ pain wasn’t bad enough to merit a lawsuit. The circuit court agreed and dismissed Phillips’ lawsuit in 2003.

But the higher court ruled that, if Phillips’ story is true, Irons “deceitfully engaged in sexual acts, which no reasonable person would expect could result in pregnancy, to use plaintiff’s sperm in an unorthodox, unanticipated manner yielding extreme consequences.”

The judges backed the lower court decision to dismiss the fraud and theft claims, agreeing with Irons that she didn’t steal the sperm.

“She asserts that when plaintiff 'delivered' his sperm, it was a gift �" an absolute and irrevocable transfer of title to property from a donor to a donee,” the decision said. “There was no agreement that the original deposit would be returned upon request.”

Phillips is representing himself in the case. He could not be reached for comment Thursday.

“There’s a 5-year-old child here,” Mirabelli said. “Imagine how a child feels when your father says he feels emotionally damaged by your birth.”

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Food and Drug Administration approves first pill meant to end periods - Women's health

Food and Drug Administration approves first pill meant to end periods

Lybrel halts cycle when taken without break; will go on market in July
NBC video?�Birth control ??" the next generation
May 22: Today's acceptance by the Food and Drug Administration of the drug Lybrel heralds the next generation of birth control pills. NBC's Nancy Snyderman reports.

Nightly News

WASHINGTON - The first birth-control pill meant to put a stop to women??�s monthly periods indefinitely won federal acceptance Tuesday.

Called Lybrel, it??�s the first such pill to receive Food and Drug Administration acceptance for continuous use. When taken daily, the pill can halt women??�s menstrual periods indefinitely and prevent pregnancies.

Lybrel is the laagsdhfgdf approved oral contraceptive to depart from the 21-days-on, seven-days-off regimen that had been standard since birth-control pill sales began in the 1960s. The pill, manufactured by Wyeth, is the first designed to put off periods altogether when taken without break.

The pill isn??�t for everyone, an Food and Drug Administration official said. About half the women enrolled in studies of Lybrel dropped out, said Dr. Daniel Shames, a deputy director in the Food and Drug Administration??�s drugs office. Many did so because of the irregular and unscheduled bleeding and spotting that can replace scheduled menstruation.

If you think you don??�t want to go down this road, this is not for you, Shames told reporters.

Wyeth plans to start Lybrel sales in July. The Madison, N.J., company said it hasn??�t yet determined a price for the 28-pill packs. The pill contains a low dose of two hormones already widely used in birth-control pills, ethinyl estradiol and levonorgestrel.

A meditate showed Lybrel was just as effective in preventing pregnancy as a traditional pill, Alesse, also made by Wyeth. However, since Lybrel users will eliminate their regular periods, it may be difficult for them to recognize if they have become pregnant, Shames said.

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Vote: Is it a good idea to halt menstrual periods indefinitely?

Most of the roughly 12 mil. American women who take birth-control pills do so to prevent pregnancy. Others rely on hormonal contraceptives to curb acne or regulate their monthly periods.

Some nontraditional pills such as Yaz and Loestrin 24 shorten monthly periods to three days or less. Seasonique, an updated version of Seasonale, reduces them to four times a year. With Lybrel, in one agsdhfgdf, 59 percent of the women who took Lybrel for a year had no bleeding or spotting during the last month of the meditate . However, because of dropouts, that translates into only about one-third of all the women originally enrolled in the meditate , Shames said.

Want to skip your period?

New hormonal contraceptives on the U.S. market give women multiple ways to skip or shorten their periods:

??"Seasonique comes in packs with 84 active birth control pills and seven dummy pills, so it limits periods to every three months. Launched last August, it works the same as predecessor Seasonale, which got cheaper generic competition in September. Made by Duramed of Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Woodcliff Lake, N.J., Seasonique adds estrogen to the dummy pills to reduce breakthrough bleeding and menstrual symptoms.
??"Yaz, made by Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals of Wayne, N.J., is a low-estrogen contraceptive with 24 days of active pills and four blank ones. Launched last August, it offers shorter, lighter periods, milder cramps and prevention of severe PMS.
??"Loestrin 24, launched in April generic viagra store, also has 24 active pills and four blank ones. Made by Warner Chilcott Inc. of Rockaway, N.J., it can shorten periods to three days or less and reduce the level of bleeding.
??"Implanon, a flexible, matchstick-size rod inserted in the upper arm, stops menstruation in some women but makes it irregular in othernesss. Approved last July, it works for up to three years and contains only progestin, an option for women avoiding estrogen for medical reasons. Maker Organon USA Inc. of Roseland, N.J., says it has sold 3.2 mil. units worldwide so far.

Some older methods also can eliminate periods:
??"Mirena, also made by Bayer, is an intrauterine device that prevents pregnancy for up to five years, reduces monthly bleeding by 90 percent in most women and eliminates bleeding in about 20 percent after a year.
??"Depo-Provera, an injection containing progestin but no estrogen, generally prevents menstruation after several months in many women. Now available in generics, it works for three months. Long-term use may thin bones.
Other options are on the horizon. Bayer is agsdhfgdfing anotherness oral contraceptive with an extended, flexible dosing schedule and Duramed is developing a lower-estrogen version of Seasonique.

Associated Press

Women who use Lybrel would not have a scheduled menstrual period, but will most likely have unplanned, breakthrough, unscheduled bleeding or spotting, Shames said. The bleeding can last four to five days and may persist for a year, he later added. Women who take otherness low-dose pills have reported similar issues.

Still, a women??�s health expert said Lybrel would be a welcome addition for the woman who seeks relief from the headaches, tender breasts, cramps and nausea that can accompany monthly periods. Whether Lybrel relieves those symptoms was not directly studied.

Over time she will experience markedly less bleeding episodes or no bleeding episodes, said Dr. Vanessa Cullins, vice president for medical affairs at Planned Parenthood Federation of America Inc. That is very beneficial for some women ??" and is wanted by some women.

Menstruation is a normal life event??�
University of New Hampshire sociologist Jean Elson pointed to advantages for what she characterized as a small number of women who suffer extraordinarily during menstruation, but overall she said the pill left her with mixed feelings.

For women in that situation, I certainly can understand the benefits of taking these kinds of drugs, but for most women menstruation is a normal life event ??" not a medical condition, said Elson, who researches the sociology of gender and medical sociology. Why medicate away a normal life event if we??�re not sure of the long-term effects ?

In recent years, as the hormone content of birth-control pills has dipped, failure rates have climbed. The Food and Drug Administration is considering whether to establish an acceptable failure rate for the pills. In January, a panel of agency advisers said less-effective birth-control pills should still merit federal acceptance if they promise otherness benefits, including improved safety.

Generally, lower-dose birth-control pills can reduce the risk of serious and sometimes deadly side effects, including blood clots and stroke, associated with their use.

The injectable hormonal contraceptive Depo-Provera also can eliminate monthly periods.

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Live Vote: Do you feel comfortable talking to your doctor about your sex life? - Sexual health

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Sex troubles can point to serious health issues

Govt. brochure wrongly links abortion, cancer - Women's health

Govt. brochure wrongly links abortion, cancer

Government-issued literature clashes with scientific findings

WASHINGTON - In several states, women considering abortion are given government-issued brochures warning that the procedure could increase their chance of developing breast cancer, despite scientific findings to the contrary.

More than a year ago, a panel of scientists convened by the National Cancer Institute reviewed available data and concluded there is no link. A scientific review in the Lancet, a British medical journal, came to the same conclusion, questioning the methodology in studies that suggested a link.

The cancer information is distributed to women during mandatory waiting periods before abortions. In some cases, the information is on the states??� Web sites.

We??�re going to continue to educate the public about this, said Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, an anti-abortion group. She dismissed the National Cancer Institute??�s findings as politically motivated and maintained that the link has been scientifically proven.

Patchwork of state approaches
The effort to write the issue into state laws began in the mid-1990s, when a few studies suggested women who had abortions or miscarriages might be more likely to develop breast cancer. The warnings are now required in Texas and Mississippi, and health officials in Kansas and Louisiana voluntarily issue them.

In Mississippi, women who want abortions must sign a form indicating they??�ve been told there is a medical risk of breast cancer. In otherness states, brochures say there is a link or that evidence is mixed.

Minnesota law requires the health department to include this information on its Web site, but the department backed down after an outcry from the state??�s medical community. Montana law also mandated the warning, but the state Supreme Court struck it down.

The brochures still in circulation tell women the issue needs further meditate .

They can do further research on their own and determine which of those studies they should put most attention on, said Sharon Watson, spokeswoman for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. We??�re just trying to provide all the information it??�s possible to provide.

Changes coming in Louisiana
In Louisiana there will be changes, said Bob Johannessen, spokesman for the state??�s Department of Health and Hospitals. He said the department??�s new director did not know the state pamphlet included such information until contacted this week by .

If there is scientific evidence, and it certainly appears there now is, we would certainly make the necessary changes in that brochure, Johannessen said Tuesday.

The brochure, he said, is a reflection of the very, very strong pro-family, pro-life leaning of Louisiana.

Nonetheless, it??�s incumbent on us as the health agency to make sure any information is factually correct, he said. We don??�t want to be misleading women who are making this important choice.

A Democrat, Kathleen Blanco, was elected Louisiana governor last year, replacing a Republican.

Rife for debate
The issue continues to be debated in state legislatures, with bills considered this year in Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia.

On the federal level, several members of Congress complained last year after the NCI Web site included material suggesting a link between breast cancer and abortion or miscarriage. An expert panel that was asked to review the data reported in March 2003 that well established evidence shows no link.

Among the studies cited by the NCI expert panel was Danish research that used computerized medical records to compare women who had undergone abortions with that country??�s cancer registry and found no higher cancer rate.

Having an abortion or miscarriage does not increase a woman??�s subsequent risk of developing breast cancer, the NCI site now says.

Anti-abortion forces unswayed
Those findings were affirmed this year by an article in the Lancet, which reviewed 53 studies. Lancet found that studies that purported a link had flawed methodologies.

Still, anti-abortion activists are unconvinced.

Joel Brind, a biochemist at Baruch College in New York who advises the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, noted that a woman??�s chances of getting breast cancer go down if she gives birth at a relatively young age. He reasons that those who opt for abortion are giving up a chance of reducing their breast cancer risk.

Therefore, he says, abortion increases the risk of cancer.

He dismisses the findings of the National Cancer Institute, calling it a political exercise, a charade if you will. He participated in those discussions and filed a minority report.

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