Petition: Get the FACTS

Natural Womanhood and Fertility Appreciation Collaborative to Teach the Science (FACTS) are two organizations in the fight to bring fertility-based awareness methods (FAM or FAMB) to the table as a viable option for women’s reproductive health in both the lay and medical communities, respectively.

One of the most significant obstacles to spreading the word about FAM (and thus NFP) is that so many doctors and influencers receive incorrect information regarding its effectiveness. One of the main propagators of such misinformation is, unfortunately, the national Center for Disease Control (CDC).

On their website, the CDC currently states that the failure rate for FAM is 24 percent, a number taken from an old, methodically-flawed study which lumps FAM in with literally anything that can be considered “natural,” including the unreliable rhythm method.

Because many health professionals rely on the CDC for accurate information, many doctors, nurses and patients are painfully unaware of the ever-increasing, high-quality body of research that illustrates FAM’s near-perfect effectiveness — simply because it doesn’t appear on the CDC’s website.  In fact, according to more rigorous studies, FAM’s effectiveness can range anywhere from 95.2 percent to 99.6 percent with typical use, depending on the chosen method.

While this research is “new” relative to the study cited by the CDC, it’s by no means new to the world of FAM at large. The CDC’s neglect — or outright refusal — to update its studies is both an ethical poverty and a serious disservice to doctors, families and women across the country.

Natural Womanhood and FACTS have banned together to petition the CDC to update their pages, as they should have long ago. You can find their letter to the community here, and the actual petition here.

— Forest Hempen
Marketing and Communications Associate