Why it matters

The drug, called Opill, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration last year for sale without a prescription, will be the most effective method of contraception available without a prescription, research shows — more effective than condoms, spermicides and other nonprescription drugs . methods.

Reproductive health experts said its availability could be especially helpful for teens, young women and others who struggle with the time, cost or logistical hurdles associated with visiting a doctor to get a prescription. to acquire.

Some experts said they thought this could be a particularly good option for teens, who might otherwise have to rely on condoms.

Lupe M. Rodriguez, executive director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice, said in a statement Monday that “over-the-counter access to contraception will significantly reduce barriers such as transportation, cost, language and documentation.”

Opill is not a new drug; it was approved for prescription use 50 years ago. Reproductive health experts and members of an FDA advisory panel cited the long history of safety and efficacy. With normal use, it is 93 percent effective in preventing pregnancy. Women with certain conditions – mainly breast cancer or undiagnosed vaginal bleeding – should not use Opill. But for most women, “the risk is very low and virtually nonexistent if they read and follow the labeling,” Karen Murry, deputy director of the FDA’s Office of Nonprescription Drugs, said in a memo explaining the approval decision.

Since the Supreme Court overturned the nation’s right to abortion in 2022, accessibility to contraception has become an increasingly pressing issue. But long before that, the move to make a pill available without a prescription to all ages had received widespread support from reproductive health and adolescent health specialists and groups.

Opill’s endorsement was met with very little public opposition from conservative groups who are often critical of measures increasing access to abortion, emergency contraception and sex education. The resistance seemed to come mainly from some Catholic organizations and Students for Life Action.

In a research in 2022 by healthcare research organization KFFMore than three-quarters of women of childbearing age said they preferred an over-the-counter pill, mainly because of convenience.

The details

Opill is known as a ‘minipill’ because it contains only one hormone, progestin, unlike ‘combination pills’, which contain both progestin and estrogen. Cadence Health, a company that makes a combination pill, is also in discussions with the FDA about applying for over-the-counter status.

Perrigo said Monday that Opill can be pre-ordered from some online retailers. A three-month pack of Opill will also be sold by retailers for a price of $49.99. The company’s website Opill.com will also sell the three-month pack, as well as a six-month supply that costs $89.99.

In the announcement, Perrigo said the company would offer a “cost assistance program” to “help qualified, uninsured, low-income individuals obtain Opill at low or no cost.”

What happens now

Making the pill affordable for all women remains a goal for reproductive health advocates, many of whom said Monday that the cost would be out of reach for some populations.

“As a high school student in Texas who struggled to access birth control under the current system and faced social stigma while trying, I know firsthand the importance of ensuring young people can enter a store can walk and easily access the contraception they need. Maia Lopez, 17, a member of the FreeThePill Youth Council at the nonprofit Advocates for Youth, said in a statement. “While today is a huge step forward, the price is still high for many teens I know.”

The Affordable Care Act requires health insurers to pay for prescription contraception, but not for over-the-counter methods. Some states have laws mandating coverage of over-the-counter contraception, but most states do not.

The KFF research found that 10 percent of women would not be able or willing to pay out-of-pocket costs for contraception. About 40 percent would pay $10 or less per month, and about a third would pay between $11 and $20.

Three Democratic senators — Patty Murray of Washington, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada — issued a statement Monday urging passage of legislation to require insurers to cover over-the-counter contraception. They have also urged the federal government to do something similar under a executive order to increase access to contraception that President Biden issued signed last year.

“The work doesn’t stop here – more must be done to ensure that every American has access to the pill and can afford it without a prescription,” the senators said.

The research

The study, led by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, looked at the experiences of more than 6,000 patients in the months after the federal government began allowing the mailing of abortion pills, from April 2021 to January 2022.

The patients used one of three telemedicine abortion organizations – Hey Jane, Abortion on Demand or Choix – serving 20 states and Washington DC. The study, published Thursday in Nature Medicine, ended five months before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. causing a wave of state abortion bans and restrictions. Since then, more telemedicine services have opened, used by many patients who find the method more convenient, private and affordable than visiting clinics or doctors, especially if they have to travel to another state.

The services in the study prescribed pills to patients who were ten weeks pregnant or less (one service had an eight-week limit) and screened patients for medical problems that make them ineligiblesuch as ectopic pregnancies or blood clotting disorders.

In most cases, the services' doctors, nurses, physician assistants and midwives were able to determine eligibility based on patients' written or verbal information about their pregnancy and health, without having to perform ultrasound scans, which is logistically difficult to obtain for some patients. . If medical eligibility was unclear, patients were asked to undergo ultrasound scans; 486 did so and were subsequently prescribed pills, which was about 8 percent of the 6,034 patients who received pills in the study.

The results

Researchers reviewed the services' medical records and were able to determine abortion outcomes in three-quarters (4,454) of patients. A large majority – 4,351 patients, or 97.7 percent – ​​completed abortions with the standard regimen: mifepristone, which stops the development of a pregnancy, followed a day or two later by misoprostol, which causes contractions to expel the tissue.

Of the remaining patients, 85 required additional measures to complete the abortion, usually with additional medication or a suction procedure in a medical facility.

Eighty-one patients visited the emergency department and 15 patients had serious complications. Ten patients were hospitalized. Six received a blood transfusion, two were treated for infections and one had surgery for an ectopic pregnancy.

Six patients turned out to have had an ectopic pregnancy, which would make them ineligible for the pills. Studies show that ectopic pregnancies cannot always be identified early, even with the help of ultrasound.

Of the patients who visited the emergency room, 38 percent ultimately did not require treatment. Patients sometimes visit the emergency room because “they don't know if what they're experiencing is normal and sometimes they don't have anyone to ask and they don't want to tell many people about their abortion,” says Dr. Ushma Upadhyay, a public health scientist at UCSF and a of the study authors.

No patients were found who were more than 10 weeks pregnant.

The effectiveness and safety figures were comparable to those in several major studies by personal medication abortion and from telemedicine abortion requiring ultrasound. They were also comparable to the Food and Drug Administration rates label for mifepristone.

Researchers also found no difference in safety or efficacy in patients who received real-time video consultations, compared to those who received prescriptions based on written information provided via text message, which most patients did.

Two patients asked about “abortion pill reversal,” a non-scientific theory that abortions can be stopped after taking the first drug. Both were told that “evidence-based recovery treatment does not exist” and were referred to urgent personal care, the study reported.

Bigger implications

Medication abortion is being challenged in a lawsuit filed against the FDA by abortion opponents who want to restrict mifepristone. One of the plaintiffs' claims is that abortion pills are dangerous. The FDA has cited overwhelming scientific evidence that the pills are safe, and two studies that abortion opponents cited to support their claims were recently retracted by a scientific journal publisher.

In August, an appeals court said mifepristone could remain legal, but imposed significant restrictions that would prevent it from being sent or prescribed via telemedicine. The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case next month. The new study results could be cited by those urging the court to keep abortion available via telemedicine.

Revolutionary weight-loss jabs that ministers hope will turn the tide in the war on flabbiness are wasting patients' muscles, a pharmaceutical boss has warned.

Injections such as Wegovy, which mimic a hormone that tricks the body into becoming full, have been approved in Britain to help tackle the obesity crisis.

But Pascal Soriot, boss of AstraZeneca, a company best known for its Covid vaccine, warned they could shrink patients' muscles.

Doctors have previously warned that this effect could make users metabolically 'fatter' as they will have a higher fat-to-muscle percentage, increasing the risk of regaining the pounds once they stop taking the medication.

“Today you lose weight, but you lose fat and you lose muscle,” Mr Soriot said The Telegraph.

'Most people gain back the fat once they stop taking the drugs, but not so much the muscle they have lost, unless of course they go to the gym.'

The weight loss drug market is predicted to be worth billions in the coming years as countries grapple with the financial and social costs of obesity.

Mr Soriot said pharmaceutical companies need to “improve the quality” of weight loss drugs to ensure the effects do not disappear when patients stop taking them, and to reduce side effects such as muscle loss.

He also complained about the environmental costs of single-use jabs.

'If you consider that a billion people use one plastic pen every week, that's a lot of plastic. “All these plastic pens are going to be a problem at some point,” he said.

The Anglo-Swedish company has fallen behind rivals such as Denmark's Novo Nordisk, which makes Wegovy, and US company Eli Lilly, maker of the recently approved Mounjaro.

But it hopes an upcoming pill, cheaper than the jabs, will allow the country to gain ground in the market.

AstraZeneca has struck a £1.6 billion deal with Chinese biotech company Eccogene for an experimental pill they are developing.

Mr Soriot said the overall aim will be to combine the fat-burning pill with other drugs to help treat some of the consequences of obesity, such as high blood pressure and heart disease.

Although no price for the pill has been announced, slimming shots can privately cost between £180 and £300 per dose.

However, if prescribed by the NHS, people in England only pay a basic prescription fee of £9.65.

Novo Nordisk, the market leader, has its specific weight-loss drug Wegovy, as well as Ozempic, a diabetes drug that uses the same active ingredient and is controversially prescribed 'off-label' for weight loss.

This has led to some diabetes patients taking the drug experiencing supply shortages.

Novo Nordisk is enjoying a huge profit boost, revealing last month it was making £32 million a day, as countries grapple with the financial costs of flab fighting to get their hands on the jabs.

Great Britain is one of them. The latest data for England shows that almost two-thirds of adults are overweight, compared to just half in the mid-1990s.

Obesity also takes a financial toll, with consequent health consequences in terms of lost working years, healthcare costs and the price of NHS treatments, which are estimated to cost the economy £100 billion per year.

Although they are being hailed as a 'game changer' in the battle against bulging waistlines, the pricks also have drawbacks.

Patients must take the injection for life or see the kilos they have lost pile back up, doctors warn.

Second, like any drug, they can have side effects that vary in frequency and severity.

These include nausea, constipation and diarrhea, fatigue, stomach pain, headache and dizziness.

Stranger and much rarer side effects have also been reported, such as hair loss.

When I started sobbing on a daily basis, I knew something was seriously wrong. I began to feel paranoid, fretting about interactions I’d had with other people. If friends or family didn’t instantly reply to a message, I assumed they hated me. Some days, I didn’t get out of bed at all.

The truth was, I was depressed — but at the age of 21, with my whole life ahead of me, I had no obvious reason to be.

It was only later that I made the connection: the advent of my black moods coincided with my decision to take the Pill. 

After getting into a new relationship, I had gone to my GP looking for some reliable contraception and was immediately offered Microgynon, a combined form of the Pill, which includes two hormones, progesterone and oestrogen. 

It clearly didn’t agree with me. In fact, I felt so miserable, daily life felt like an uphill slog. I cried at the drop of a hat — in the pub, on the way to university. But still I soldiered on with it. Didn’t all women take it? Why was I being so pathetic?

Things finally came to a head when I found myself in tears, again, while attempting the weekly shop. That night, I threw my packet of pills in the bin and gradually, the sense of hopelessness hovering over me, the knot in my stomach, began to recede.

Eight years on, I now realise it’s not just me. Many women my age have had problems with what was sold to us as an easy, fuss-free solution to pregnancy worries, and are seeking alternative methods of birth control. 

The news that both the combined and the progesterone-only form of the Pill will now be made available over the counter at pharmacies, no GP prescription required, was announced with great fanfare last year. But, the fact is, many of my generation couldn’t care less because we have utterly lost faith in the Pill.

Data from the NHS’s sexual and reproductive health services in 2022/23 suggests a sea-change in attitudes. 

Use of the oral contraceptive pill has dropped by more than two thirds since records began in 2012/13, and while that figure isn’t entirely representative — just under 11 per cent of women use the progestogen-only mini-Pill, which has been available over the counter since July 2021 — it certainly shows a significant decline, especially among the 25-34 age bracket.

At the same time (though the figures are still relatively small), the number of women who say they’re now using app-based ‘natural methods’, with no hormones involved, has more than doubled.

That shift away may well be reinforced by the tragic death of 16-year-old Layla Khan from Lincolnshire who, it was revealed last month, died of a blood clot on her brain just weeks after starting the Pill in an attempt to ease painful periods. 

The chances of a blood clot on the combined Pill are three times greater than for someone not on it, although they are still very rare.

Most of my friends are no longer prepared to put up with even such tiny risks. Taking control of our fertility doesn’t end with a no-questions-asked blister pack of little white pills and a raft of side effects we are expected to endure without complaint. 

While our mothers and grandmothers were simply grateful for the freedom the Pill gave them, we’re looking harder at the consequences of taking it.

When I canvased 61 women online — aged from 23 to 34 — almost all said they had been on the Pill at some point in their lives, but only a third had stuck with it. 

The remaining two thirds were now using other methods, including the non-hormonal copper coil, condoms and fertility tracking apps, an option that has boomed since the advent of ‘femtech’ — female technology focused on women’s health.

‘Many young women in my surgery choose not to use hormonal contraception,’ says Dr Semiya Aziz, founder of Say GP, a North London private practice, ‘because they want to lead more natural lives, or have had unpleasant experiences in the past when they weren’t fully informed about all the side effects. 

‘Many are worried about the potential impact on their menstrual cycles, fertility, skin and mental health.’

A pillar of women’s emancipation when it was first approved in 1960, the contraceptive pill is still the leading method of birth control worldwide, with more than 40 brands now available. Yet all too often, even now in the UK, women aren’t given a choice about whether they want it.

Amelia, a 30-year-old clinical nurse specialist at a children’s hospice in Leeds, says no one asked her opinion as a teen. 

‘Going on the Pill was just the “done” thing. I got my first boyfriend and my mum booked me in with the GP. I just went with the first thing they suggested, because I was embarrassed and wanted the appointment to be over.’

Prior to starting her role at the hospice, Amelia was a senior nurse on a paediatric intensive care unit. ‘I came off [the Pill] two years ago because I actually looked after a teenage girl who had a blood clot from being on it. 

‘I realised I didn’t know anything about the Pill at all, and when I looked into it, I thought I should give my body a break. I didn’t feel overly moody — but after a decade, how would I know if the Pill did alter my emotions?’

Those worries are typical, and often amplified by social media. Type ‘the Pill’ into the search bar on TikTok and up come thousands of videos from young people warning of its side effects. 

One video shows user Brogan Perry holding up the lengthy leaflet of possible complications that comes with the contraceptive Rigevidon, and is captioned: ‘Lads, if your lass is on the pill, go give her a hug.’ It has had more than 1.1 million views, and 98.7k likes.

Last year, a Channel 4 documentary by presenter Davina McCall claimed 77 per cent of Pill users surveyed for the programme had experienced side effects, and 33 per cent stopped taking it as a result. 

Worryingly, a Danish study also found users of the combined pill, aged between 15-19, were 80 per cent more likely than non-users to be prescribed antidepressants — although UK guidance insists there isn’t a link between taking it and depression.

Though the Pill is proven to be 99 per cent effective at stopping pregnancy, side effects can include mood swings, nausea, breast tenderness and headaches. 

Last year, researchers from Oxford University showed the progestogen-only mini-pill carries the same very slightly raised risk of breast cancer as the combined pill — a risk that disappears ten years after stopping its use.

Women were understandably enraged to discover the research had only just been done on a product that has been available since 1973.

But if my generation are now largely swerving the Pill, how instead are we taking precautions?

The progestogen-only implant is one way. I had an implant before my disastrous experiment with the Pill, but the paradox here is the lack of control it gives women. 

A small, flexible stick inserted under the skin on the upper arm, it releases the hormone into your system for three years — and can only be removed with a GP visit and a scalpel.

The coil remains highly popular, despite horror stories of painful insertion. Gabby, 28, a paramedic from Leeds — who found the Pill caused debilitating migraines — has recently had the Mirena coil, a hormonal intrauterine device (IUD), fitted. 

Compared to the 75mcg of progesterone she was previously taking daily via the Pill, Mirena slowly releases progestogen (synthetic progesterone) into the body over five years at an estimated rate of 20mcg per day.

‘I was apprehensive about going back on contraception, because the Pill was very bad for me,’ she says. ‘I’ve had a few migraines since having the coil, but I feel a lot more like myself and less unstable.’

But the most popular birth control seems to be condoms or apps that track fertility, such as Clue Birth Control and Natural Cycles.

Sara, 29, started using the Pill to control her painful and irregular periods — and also to help with acne — but kept forgetting to take it, so stopped altogether: ‘My long-term boyfriend and I were using condoms anyway and I realised I felt great without the Pill. I learned to understand my cycle properly.’

She’s also started using an app to track her ovulation. ‘My periods have been regular since then, and I haven’t taken the Pill again because I don’t want the extra hormones. 

‘I’m not too stressed about the risk of pregnancy. I hate how much it’s on us as women to worry about getting pregnant. Of course, I care, but I don’t want to live in fear, and being more informed about my cycle allows me to work out when I should be more careful.’

Natural Cycles was the first app to be approved officially for contraception anywhere in the world (by the German health department in 2017). Developed by former CERN particle physicist Elina Berglund and her husband Raoul Scherwitzl, it uses body temperature readings to calculate when it’s safe to have unprotected sex (green days in the app calendar) and when to use contraception or abstain (red days). 

This is possible because of the rise in progesterone levels after ovulation that makes women’s bodies up to 0.45c warmer than during the rest of their cycle.

Natural Cycles is very big online and among social media influencers, who rave about its ‘back to nature credentials’. Made In Chelsea’s Tiffany Watson and Coronation Street’s Lucy Fallon have endorsed the apps, calling them ‘the golden ticket’.

But Amelia admits to nerves. ‘To start off with, I was terrified on the app and still used protection as I didn’t trust it,’ she explains. 

‘It was only after a few months and knowing I was like clockwork that I felt better. I was also at a point where falling pregnant wouldn’t have been the end of the world, which felt like a safety net… I don’t want to have anything hormonal ever again.’

Older women, who’ve happily used the Pill for decades, may shake their heads at women putting their trust in an app claiming to chart their cycle. But Natural Cycles claims that with ‘perfect’ use, its method has a 98 per cent success rate. 

With ‘typical’ use — in other words, among women who use withdrawal on a ‘red day’ — it’s 93 per cent effective.

However, it also warns that the app can occasionally give a wrong ‘green day’ (its research shows the likelihood of this happening is 0.5 per cent, with fewer than one out of 100 women becoming pregnant as a result).

Not everyone is convinced. In 2018, an ad for Natural Cycles in which it was described as ‘highly accurate’ was banned by the Advertising Standards Authority, while a number of women complained about becoming pregnant while using it.

A spokesman for Natural Cycles insists its method is reliable: ‘The published effectiveness and real-life effectiveness rates remain the same — 93 per cent effective with typical use and 98 per cent with perfect use.

‘It’s an unfortunate reality that no method, including Natural Cycles, is 100 per cent effective in preventing pregnancy, even when used perfectly. We continue to educate prospective and new users on the importance of understanding how to maximise our product’s effectiveness.’

Yet, while conception has increased post-Covid — against all expectation, the number of pregnancies fell during lockdown — so, too, have abortions. 

In 2021, the number of abortions in England and Wales hit a record high of 214,869, the highest number since abortion was legalised in 1967. That means almost one in five pregnancies ends in termination.

‘In choosing non-hormonal contraception, women risk relying on their natural cycles, or having accidents with barrier methods, increasing their likelihood of pregnancy,’ says Dr Semiya Aziz.

A few of my friends admit to keeping the ‘morning-after pill’ in their bedside cabinets, just in case. 

They tell me they are not relying on this as a method of birth control, but for those who now won’t take the Pill, it’s sometimes a necessary precaution and, since 2001, has been readily available over the counter at pharmacies.

As with the contraceptive pill, my friends agree that we should be more open about the side effects of this powerful treatment. 

Indeed, not enough is known about any of our contraceptive options, believes Georgina O’Reilly, of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), and there has been a staggering lack of progress on new ones, too.

‘Women seeking alternative ways to control their fertility is an understandable consequence of the woeful lack of innovation in contraception over the last 50 years,’ she says. 

‘While there are more contraceptive options on the market, aside from the copper coil, all prescription methods are variations on the same synthetic hormones used since the 1960s.

‘The Pill works for many women, but many others find it doesn’t meet their needs. For too long their voices have not been heard on the basis that the Pill prevents unwanted pregnancy and that is what matters most.’

No wonder so many have decided to take matters into their own hands and bin the Pill. Rather than criticise them for exploring new options, maybe we should be asking why we haven’t prioritised their safety in this critical area of women’s health.

A 16-year-old girl died from a blood clot in her brain just weeks after she started taking the birth control pill to ease menstrual pain.

‘Beautiful and intelligent’ Layla Khan, from Immingham, Lincolnshire, died last Wednesday after a scan revealed a blood clot in her brain.

Just weeks earlier, the schoolgirl began experiencing painful menstrual cycles and was advised by friends to take a birth control pill to ease her symptoms.

She started taking them on November 25, but on December 5 she developed a headache – and by the end of the week she started vomiting.

When her concerned family contacted the 111 NHS helpline, they were told there were ‘no red flags’ and to simply take her for a check-up the next morning.

But last Monday night, she started screaming in pain and collapsed in the bathroom at home. Her family then took her to Hull Royal Infirmary, where a CT scan identified a blood clot in the brain.

She underwent emergency surgery but died two days later, leaving her family heartbroken.

The teenager had three young brothers and a sister, had only been at university for a few months and was already seen by her teachers as a potential Oxford student.

She made new friends three months after starting college and was in a new relationship when disaster struck.

Her family has been left devastated by her sudden and unexpected death.

Layla’s family have now spoken out to raise awareness about this rare complication of taking the birth control pill, which they believe is likely the cause of the fatal clot.

Her cousin Alicia Binns, 17, said Layla suffered from painful menstrual cycles and decided to take the pill after friends said it helped them.

After taking the pill on November 25, it seemed to help with “a problem she has had for so long.”

But just ten days later, she started experiencing migraines and vomiting.

Layla’s aunt, Jenna Braithwaite, told Yorkshire Live: ‘On Sunday evenings she was often ill. She was actually vomiting every 30 minutes, so they got a doctor’s appointment on Monday morning, they took her to the doctor.

‘Even though she was sick the whole time at the GP, they gave her anti-sickness tablets and told her they thought it was a stomach flu.

“They said there were no warning signs to go to the hospital, and to go to the hospital on Wednesday if it continued like this.”

On Monday, December 11, she screamed in pain. When the teenager collapsed in the bathroom, her mother and Mrs Braithwaite carried her to the car to take her to hospital.

She was taken from the family home in Immingham, North Lincolnshire, to the nearest hospital, about 10 miles away in Grimsby.

A scan revealed a blood clot and Layla was taken to Hull Royal Infirmary where she underwent emergency surgery. She was subsequently pronounced dead on Wednesday, December 13.

Ms Braithwaite said words cannot describe how devastated the family are, saying: ‘The fact that they said there were no red flags and that she was brain dead the day later is beyond comprehension.

Ms Braithwaite said words cannot describe how devastated the family are, saying: ‘The fact that they said there were no red flags and that she was brain dead the day later is beyond comprehension.

“My sister, she has newborn babies to take care of and there are other children, and she has all of that at the same time. It’s just such a shock. She has just started studying and has a job. It’s just a shock. The family is completely devastated.”

Miss Binns commented: ‘Her family had to say goodbye for the last time, knowing there was nothing more the doctors could do for her. “They made the selfless choice to donate Layla’s organs and save the lives of five other people before Christmas, which is the greatest gift they can give to anyone right now.”

She said doctors know of no other cause for the blood clot and told the family there was no infection.

Ms Binns said the family came forward because “the risks aren’t talked about enough.”

She paid tribute to her cousin online, saying Layla was “beautiful and intelligent, loved and cherished by so many people, and had her whole life ahead of her.”

She added that she had “a beauty that would light up a room and an intelligence that even her university interviewer gave her hope of getting into Oxford University.”

The NHS website states: ‘The risk of developing a blood clot is very small, but your doctor will check whether you have any risk factors before prescribing the pill.’

Music lovers have dusted off their party gear and traveled to Canberra for Spilled Milk, but it could be a wet start to the summer festival season, with storms expected to dampen festivities into the evening.

The one-day festival runs from 11am to 11pm on Saturday with more than 40 artists, including Post Malone, Lime Cordiale and Peach PRC, performing on five stages.

Other artist highlights include Dom Dolla, Cub Sport, Lastlings, Aitch, Pacific Avenue and Ocean Alley.

Thousands of attendees were all smiles as they entered the highly anticipated annual festival in Canberra’s Exhibition Park.

However, some may regret choosing fashion over function as heavy thunderstorms are expected to hit the city after 5:45 p.m.

The Bureau of Meteorology warned that large hailstones, damaging winds, flash flooding and lightning could hamper the event.

‘Stay indoors, away from windows,’ the ACT State Emergency Service warned,

“Never drive, walk or ride through floodwaters.”

Festival goers will have access to free pill testing for the first time this decade.

The service, run by Pill Testing Australia, allows visitors to test for deadly ingredients in medicines before taking them.

Pill tests were last available at Groovin the Moo in 2019.

That year, seven cases of deadly ingredients were discovered and all participants threw away the dangerous pills.

The ACT Government’s pill testing site at the City Community Health Centre, CANtest, has also extended its weekend hours.

It was open Friday from 4:00 PM to 9:00 PM and Saturday from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM.

Pill Testing Australia announced free testing at Spilled Milk online on Friday.

“We are heading to Spilled Milk Canberra to offer free pill testing services to customers,” it said.

‘We are the only organization to have offered pill testing services at Australian festivals and are able to do this thanks to our incredibly dedicated team of qualified health, medical and analytical volunteers.

‘We rely on generous donations from the public to provide this free service.’

Canberra is the first of the Spilled Milk festivals with events in Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia over the next two weekends.

Spilled Milk heads to the Gold Coast on Sunday, where festivals will take over the city’s sporting precinct from 10:30am to 10:30pm.

Organizers will get just five days’ rest before heading to Victoria Park in Ballarat, about 115km northwest of Melbourne, on Saturday, December 2.

The final festival ends on Sunday December 3 in Perth.

Tickets for the Gold Coast and Ballarat events are sold out.

Novo Nordisk, the company that produces Wegovy and Ozempic, funded both studies.

“I suspect there are a lot of people who don’t use these treatments because they require an injection,” said Dr. Robert Gabbay, the chief scientific and medical officer of the American Diabetes Association. “If you could say, ‘Well, not really,’ that’s great.”

The higher the dose of oral semaglutide, the more side effects it seems to come with. In the trial of overweight or obese people, 80 percent of those taking oral semaglutide reported gastrointestinal problems such as vomiting, nausea, constipation or diarrhea. Nearly 13 percent said they experienced an “altered sensation of the skin,” such as tingling. The majority of the study participants were white and female, the authors noted, meaning the results may not apply to the broader population of obese people.

The second trial, in people with diabetes, showed similar side effects: 80 percent of those taking the 50-milligram dose reported side effects, mostly gastrointestinal problems, that were more common in people taking the higher doses than those taking 14 milligrams. Thirteen percent of the people who received the 50-milligram dose stopped taking the medication because of the side effects. Injectable semaglutide causes similar side effects; in a previous study74.2 percent of participants who received 2.4 milligrams of injectable semaglutide (the amount contained in Wegovy) weekly experienced gastrointestinal distress.

Another trial presented at the conference and published Friday the New England Journal of Medicine looked at another oral compound, orforglipron, which is in the same class of drugs as semaglutide. The study was funded by Eli Lilly. Pfizer also tested its own pill in that drug class.

Oral semaglutide isn’t new: There’s already a tablet form of the compound on the market, sold under the name Rybelsus. The Food and Drug Administration has only approved that drug for adults with type 2 diabetes, and the tablets are available in relatively smaller daily doses, up to 14 milligrams. The tablets work similarly to semaglutide injections, which regulate insulin, lower blood sugar and slow stomach emptying, helping people feel fuller longer, said Dr. Andrew Kraftson, a clinical associate professor at Michigan Medicine.