There are days for us, as women, where we don’t even expect people to understand how life differs for us. This is mostly because we end up having to ask for empathy – something that should be a given. On such days, we do what works for us, and move on. Consuming medication to treat menstrual cramps is one example. It is a tool, per se – it is derived from logic. However, the recent alert around Meftal reminds us how the world can be unfair to women even when there is “nothing extra” that society is doing for us.
The Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission (IPC) has recently released a cautionary alert for healthcare professionals and patients concerning the usage of the widely used pain reliever, Meftal. It has been stated that the component, mefenamic acid, induces Drug Reaction with Eosinophilia and Systemic Symptoms (DRESS) syndrome, which is a serious allergic reaction. The symptoms include a skin rash, elevated body temperature, haematological abnormalities, or even internal organ involvement.
The medication was initially released around 1962. So the fact remains that it took all this time to finally research on a medication that exists as a routine in so many women’s lives. Women’s bodies are either put on pedestals that people don’t talk about it, or there’s just lack of concern, which again, makes people not want to talk about it. So, all of this ends in misinformation and just lack of ways to help women.
Science is expected to come without biases, given how it’s based around reasoning. To imagine that we have the means to help people, but we choose not to, is deeply hurtful. To know that the one THING that is meant to help us feel less pain, can cause more harmful effects which people didn’t care for, for over 30 years, is hurtful. Of course, this could totally come of as an overreaction. But too many incidents have proved that medical research just neglects women. That said, encountering issues in research is understandable – that’s how Science evolves. To go out of the way to not care isn’t understandable, though.
That things are uncomfortable for us medically, is an important issue – but it’s not even that, at this point. Here, it’s about the bare minimum. The only expectation is to acknowledge that women exist and their bodies differ from men.
