Sunday, March 11, 2012

Fight Birth-Control Battle Over the Counter - Bloomberg

Right now, the American women who have the most choice are those who live near the border with Mexico, where pharmacies sell oral contraceptives without a prescription, generally for about $5 for a one-month supply. A group of researchers including Grossman have conducted extensive interviews with more than 1,000 women who live in El Paso, Texas. Roughly half the women get birth-control pills from local clinics, often free, while the other half go across the border to pharmacies in Ciudad Juarez. The researchers find, not surprisingly, that those who cross the border have more ties to Mexico; 77 percent were born there, compared with 60 percent of clinic users. But there are also differences in priorities.

“Among pharmacy users, very large percentages noted both not having to go to a doctor to get a prescription and being able to send a friend or relative to pick up their pills as advantages of Mexican pharmacies,” the researchers write in a June 2010 article in the American Journal of Public Health. Clinic users, on the other hand, cite low cost and the availability of other health services.

Posted via email from Jack's posterous

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