Female Ohio University students offer divided opinions about a birth control pill approved Tuesday by the Food and Drug Administration that would eliminate a user’s menstrual period.

Lybrel is a low dose oral contraceptive that can be taken every day without the monthly placebo week built into most birth control plans, said Natalie deVane, a spokesperson for Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. Continual use of the pill suppresses menstruation and caused 80 percent of women in clinical trials to cease having periods within one year, deVane said.

OU senior Alycia Bashaw said the new option in birth control could be a huge help to some women who have heavy periods, but she is not sure that stopping a natural process is safe.

“It sounds too good to be true,” Bashaw said, adding that she would like to see information about long-term trials before deciding if Lybrel is safe to use.

Lybrel is similar to other birth control pills that contain low doses of estrogen and progestin, but is the first contraceptive to be tested for continual use, deVane said. It is difficult to tell whether other pharmaceutical companies will begin testing their birth control pills for continual use, she said.

Wyeth plans to make Lybrel available in pharmacies nationwide by this July.

Senior Leslie Gray said she is also concerned about how the drug will affect women’s health.

“We have a period for a reason,” she said.

Wyeth conducted one- and two-year tests in preparation for FDA review and recorded side effects similar to those of other birth control pills, deVane said.

DeVane said the drug is not unsafe or unnatural because the human body constantly cleans itself, even without a period. Periods are caused by a monthly decrease in hormones in a woman’s blood stream, she said. Taking a contraceptive, like Lybrel, keeps hormone levels steady, so a period does not occur.

In a survey Wyeth conducted, 93 percent of doctors said that preventing a period would not be unnatural, and 52 percent said they already prescribe continual use of low-dose birth control for women with extremely heavy periods.

Lybrel could have many advantages for any woman concerned about the pain or inconvenience of periods, senior Shaina Reissig said. She said that stopping a period should not be a major concern for women because many other hormonal drugs regulate or stop periods for unnaturally long periods of time.