9/29    birth control methods include failure percentages in a year, but of
        the successful percentages, how many of them are infertile? In
        another word do companies take in account of couples who can't
        conceive, and take them out of the statistics?
        \_ Think about this for a minute.
        \_ if you're infertile, why would you use birth control? and even if
           you did (because you didn't know), the product would still 'work'
           for you. Is this supposed to be a troll or just dumb? It seems
           more bizarre than troll.
           \_ This is actually a very important question. And yes, studies
              take this into account (or they should) when rating
              birth control products. Depending on how they conduct the
              study and who does it, the assumption is that couples are
              fertile and in their prime. Studies like this usually prescreen
              and preselect couples, and they typically have a control group.
              Since these studies are widely used in academia and are typically
              published in JAMA they should be relatively accurate. However,
              even the best studies have been proven wrong in the past. JAMA
              and the AMA as well as the FDA are hardly failsafe in their
              scrutiny.
              \_ Heh.  You should hear what an epidemologist I heard today
                 had to say about JAMA.  Meanwhile consider the statement
                 'If it's published in X, it should be Y,' for various values
                 of X and Y.  For instance X = internet, Y = true.
                 \- yeah my friends in stat/biostat also roll their eyes
                    when trying to do sophisticated statistics with doctors
                    who think they know everything. --psb
           \_ infertile != sterile.  infertile means the gametes are there
              but they have a tough time meeting or going forward in
              development after they do meet.
              \_ sort of like the bar scene?