Period Number 5
I love bad puns and was googling “jokes about the number five” in case I could use something for today’s title. Nothing really worked but I thought I’d share one with you anyway, in case anyone is nostalgic for the Listicle Age of the Internet:
“How many Buzzfeed employees does it take to change a lightbulb? Ten, but number five will shock you!”
***
The 2023Debuts Twitter asked this week what album/song your book would be, which led me down a procrastination rabbit hole of re-listening to Tracy Bonham’s The Burdens of Being Upright, Joy Oladokun’s in defense of my own happiness, Florence & The Machine’s Ceremonials, LP’s Heart to Mouth, Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters, and Halsey’s If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power. Those all feel way too aspirational for a nerdy feminist author, but they are great listens if you’re a professor doing syllabus updates for the spring!
***
One other bookish thing: you can actually read the whole introduction of PERIOD on my publisher’s website. Just click the “look inside” icon below the cover!
A few cool links
1. My collaborators and I in the BLEEDVAX project have been clamoring for almost two years now for improved tracking of menstrual cycles and symptoms in clinical trial design. There have been some wins – meetings with people at the CDC, the Brighton Collaborative, the release of supplemental NIH funding to study menstrual changes with the covid vaccines, and even a change to the side effects now listed for the vaccines in Europe. All wins for increased transparency and feminist activism within science!
Now the CTI Exchange is soliciting stories of participants in clinical trials for contraceptives to learn whether they are ever asked about their menstrual changes/symptoms. If you have been a trial participant click this link to participate! Full disclosure: CTI Exchange is funded by FHI360, a group I am working with this year as one of a team of experts to develop a consensus statement on contraceptives and menstrual changes. Though I didn’t know about this effort (I don’t think?) until I was tagged about it on Twitter.
2. Remember the weird period fact from newsletter #4 about air quality? And how poor air quality/ventilation doesn’t just increase your risk of getting respiratory viruses but affects fertility as well as ovarian function? Aerosol scientists have been clamoring for improved health standards for indoor air since this pandemic started, especially in schools. Now, France looks to be leading the way in terms of setting those standards. Let’s hope other countries will follow suit in creating basic humane expectations for daycares and schools. Don’t forget: reproductive justice includes giving a shit about children!
UPDATE AS I WAS FINALIZING THE NEWSLETTER: California has now adopted a new OSHA standard about air quality (and masking!). I hope this momentum continues!
3. This piece, out just yesterday, is a devastating mini-memoir that reflects on family, agency, and the health care system – in particular how hard it can be to have dental work or a colonoscopy if you are a survivor of sexual trauma. My second birth broke me open in some big ways that I don’t feel like recounting here. While my own story is nothing like the author’s (which is my way of saying, don't go reading into it some similarity to my lived experience), I found myself nodding along to this piece, through tears.
One weird period fact
Both attached endometrial tissue and discarded endometrial tissue (a component of menstrual blood) contain mesenchymal stem cells. You know stem cells – the cells extracted from bone marrow for leukemia treatment! Not all stem cells behave exactly the same way, and they are found in other places too, like adipose tissue. Yet the fact that menstruating people excrete a significant amount of MSCs every cycle could lead to our using menstrual blood as a source for them for a number of conditions. Already endometrial MSCs have been used in experiments to treat pelvic organ prolapse, ovarian dysfunction, and are even explored in the context of their relationship to endometrial cancer. And there are several hints that the way eMSCs act has a lot in common with those found in bone marrow, which could expand their usage beyond the reproductive tract.
One of many sources for this, but it provides a good review: Bozorgmehr, M., S. Gurung, S. Darzi, S. Nikoo, S. Kazemnejad, A. H. Zarnani, and C. E. Gargett. “Endometrial and Menstrual Blood Mesenchymal Stem/Stromal Cells: Biological Properties and Clinical Application.” Front Cell Dev Biol 8 (2020): 497. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2020.00497.