CONTRACEPTION PLUS: WOMEN’S HEALTH COMMUNITY

Welcome to the Contraception Plus community. This page is for young women and men who want trusted information about contraception, sex, periods and pregnancy.

We want to make sure you have the right information when it comes to making decisions about your body and choosing the right contraception method for YOU. This is all part of our vision of a world where every pregnancy is wanted.

We will share information about your period and premenstrual syndrome (PMS) so that you can get to know your body better. We will talk openly about sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and how to protect yourself. We also want to educate young women about folic acid and how important this nutrient is for you, even long before you consider having a baby. Through this community, we want to empower you to speak to your doctor about your contraceptive options and provide you with information to make the best decision for your body and lifestyle.

Let's create a space where we can exchange our ideas in an un-biased, non-judgmental manner. So that we can all be on the same page, please take a few minutes to read the information below for more details about our community guidelines and why content may need to be removed from our page.

Introduction

Contraception Plus is a social media page, created to provide information about sexual health and contraception and is brought to you by Bayer South Africa. Since Bayer is a company in the very regulated pharmaceutical industry, we are required to follow specific rules and guidelines when communicating publicly. Many of our medicines are used to treat serious medical conditions and need to be treated with care and only prescribed by trained medical professionals. Also, prescription only contraceptives require thorough medical counselling before individual usage to make sure that they are best suited to you and your unique medical needs. Since every one of us is unique, it would be irresponsible to provide medical advice through this channel as it is impossible to know what is best for you unless you have been thoroughly assessed and counselled by a medical professional. Because of this, we encourage you to talk to your doctor about your contraception goals and get the right advice.

Age restriction

We ask that you be at least 14 years old to participate on this page and if you are a minor in your jurisdiction (but at least 14), please do not post your comment without the knowledge and permission of a parent or legal guardian. If you are an adult, and your post contains the name or likeness of a minor, you must be the parent or legal guardian of that minor.

Community

We have a team of community managers monitoring the page regularly, so that our community can benefit from this page. We do our best to moderate and respond quickly to your comments and feedback and aim to check in several times a day during business hours. Please remember that this forum may contain the opinions and views of other users and while we are monitoring the conversation to ensure users’ posts comply with these guidelines, we cannot be responsible for the accuracy or reliability of any comments or materials posted by users. We also take great care to avoid unmonitored or unverified medical information being posted here so that we can make sure that everyone in our community is kept safe. Therefore we reserve the right to remove posts, comments, pictures or videos from our timeline at our sole discretion, when they are not consistent with our guidelines or the regulatory rules of the medical and pharmaceutical industry.

Comments

We welcome comments and these are highly appreciated. The reason we created this community for us to have open communication about contraception and safe sex. Our goal is to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, and with that in mind we have created a safe space for young people to ask questions on all topics concerning love, sex and contraception.

Our social media channels are currently only in English and so for now we will only be able to respond to your comments if you provide them in English.

Talking about products and medications

Comments, messages, posts or statements made by users on our social media channels do not necessarily reflect Bayer’s opinion, however, we are required to meet all the regulations that govern our industry. One regulation is to prohibit the promotion of any prescription medication to an audience of people who are not healthcare professionals. That is why we will remove any post(s) that refer to a pharmaceutical brand from any company, including Bayer, whether this post is positive or negative.

Talking to others on the page

As we respect all visitors of this page in return we ask that everyone treat each other with respect, even if we don't agree from time to time. It is not our intention to censor this page since we want to encourage open dialogue about sex, periods, pregnancy and contraception. We do, however, need to maintain this platform as a safe and credible space to share information. Because of this, there may be situations where we are required to remove comments, videos, images or posts and we reserve the right to delete any post(s) at our sole discretion.

We will not tolerate the following:

Disrespectful or vulgar language and profanity of any kind.
Insults, threats or harassment of organisations, Bayer employees or other users (whether part of the community or not), are not allowed.
Unfavourable comments about institutions, organisations or companies.
Any defamatory, indecent, hateful, sexist, racist, xenophobic, homophobic, disgraceful, vulgar, inappropriate, or any other prejudiced opinions or comments.
Hate propaganda or calls to violence of any kind.
Calls to join demonstrations or rallies of any political orientation.
Any violation(s) of the rights of third parties, in particular copyright.
Posts or comments that are off-topic or that do not relate to the messages or topics being discussed.
Offering of goods or services (whether commercial or private in nature), or using this social media channel as an advertising space.
Spam or any form of automatically generated content or repeatedly posting the same comment.
Repeated violations will be taken seriously and may result in our removing and/or banning these users from the page.

We encourage the following:

We encourage our community and anyone participating in the conversation to keep it friendly, respectful and relevant.

The style of communication on this page should be:

Treat every other user as you would like to be treated yourself.
Everyone has the right to express their own opinion. Please respect this and not try to force your opinion on anyone else.
Respect the rights and choices of others.

The content available on our social media channel(s) is provided to our audiences for informational purposes only. The information is not intended to replace any individual medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please always speak to your doctor or healthcare specialist for individual medical care and advice. All medicines may cause side effects. If you would like to report an adverse event or product complaint related to a Bayer product, please contact your healthcare professional (doctor or pharmacist), or your local health authority.

Report adverse events here: http://pharma.bayer.com/en/treatment-care/report-a-side-effect/index.php
If you would like to report a product quality complaint to Bayer for pharmaceutical products please email zaqualityph@bayer.com
If you would like any further information on a Bayer product for human use please contact us on za-medinfo@bayer.com
Conditions of use

Medical References for Social Media

Should you wish to know more about Bayer, please visit our website: https://www.bayer.co.za/en/about-bayer/

Should you wish to know more about Bayer’s privacy policy, please follow this link: https://dps.bayer.com/ph/za/en/data_privacy_statement_0

Should you wish to know more about your contraceptive options, please visit our community website: www.yourlifenow.co.za

Cookies Used For Technical Purpose

Subject to your consent

We only use optional cookies if we have obtained your prior consent (section 11(1)(f) of the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013). Upon your first access to a banner will appear, asking you to give us your consent to the setting of optional cookies. If your consent is given, we will place a cookie on your computer and the banner will not appear again as long as the cookie is active. After expiration of the cookie’s lifespan, or if you actively delete the cookie, the banner will reappear upon your next visit to our and again ask for your consent.

How to prevent the setting of cookies

Of course you may use our Website without any cookies being set. In your browser, you can at any time configure or completely deactivate the use of cookies. This may, however, lead to a restriction of the functions or have adverse effects on the user-friendliness of our You may at any time object to the setting of optional cookies by using the respective objection option indicated in the table above.

Website Analysis

On our we use Google Analytics, a web analysis service of Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States (“Google”).

Google will analyze your use of our on our behalf. this use the cookies described in more detail in the above table. The information collected by Google in connection with your use of our Website (e.g. referring URL, our visited by you, your browser type, your language settings, your operating system, your screen resolution) will be transmitted to a server of Google in the US, where it will be stored and analyzed. The respective results will then be made available to us in anonymized form. Your usage data will not be connected to your full IP address during this process. We have activated on our Website the IP function offered by Google, which will delete the last 8 bits (type IPv4) or the last 80 bits (type IPv6) of your IP address. Moreover, Google is certified under the EU-US Privacy Shield, which ensures that an adequate level of data protection is maintained with respect to the processing of data by Google in the US.

You may revoke your consent to the use of web analysis at any time, either by downloading and installing the provided Google Browser Plugin or by administrating your consents in the above table, in which case an opt-out cookie will be placed. Both options will prevent the application of web analysis only as long as you use the browser on which you installed the plugin and do not delete the opt-out Cookie. Further information on Google Analytics is available in the Google Analytics Terms of Use, the Privacy and Data Protection Guidelines of Google Analytics and in the Google Privacy Policy.

Use of Visual Website Optimizer

Our website uses a testing tool from Visual Website Optimizer (http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com) to determine specific statistical values regarding the use of our services. The tool anonymously collects measured data. This test uses cookies to computer systems. The run time of these cookies is limited to the duration of the test. IP addresses are not saved in the process. You can opt out of having your anonymously collected data stored in the future at any time. (http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/opt-out.php)

Online behavioral advertising

This uses DoubleClick, a so-called targeted advertising service of Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States (“Google“).

Google will analyze your use of this . this use the cookies described in more detail in the above table. The information collected by Google in connection with your use of our Website (e.g. referring URL, our visited by you, your browser type, your language settings, your operating system, your screen resolution) will be transmitted to a server of Google in the US, where it will be stored and analyzed. We and our partner Google will use this information to better tailor our advertisements to you and your interests, to limit the number of times you are shown the same advertisement, to evaluate the efficiency of promotional campaigns, and to better comprehend the behavior of visitors after they have looked at a certain ad. When you visit another website of the so-called “Google Display Network”, customized pop-ups tailored to your interests can be presented to you on the basis of the information collected on our .

You may withdraw your consent to this type of analysis of your use of this Website at any time either by administrating your consents in the above table, in which case an opt-out cookie will be placed, or by downloading and installing the Google Browser Plugin offered by Google. Both options will prevent the use of web analysis only as long as you use the browser on which you installed the plugin and do not delete the opt-out Cookie. Further information on Google DoubleClick is available on the Google Data Protection Guidelines for Advertising.

Use of contact forms

You can contact us directly via the contact forms available on our . In particular, you may provide us with the following information:

Name, surname, gender and title
Contact data (e.g. address, phone number)
Message

We collect, process and use the information provided by you via the contact forms exclusively for the processing of your specific request.

External services or content on our

We include third-party services and/or content on our. When you use such third-party services or when third-party content is displayed, communication data are exchanged between you and the respective provider for technical reasons.

The respective provider of the services or content may also process your data for own additional purposes. To the best of our knowledge, we have configured the services and content of providers known to process data for own purposes in such a way that either any communication for other purposes than to present their services or content on our is blocked, or communication only takes place once you have actively opted to use the respective service. However, since we have no control over data collected and processed by third parties, we are not in a position to provide binding information regarding the scope and purpose of such processing of your data.

For further information regarding the scope and purpose of such collection and processing of your data, please consult the privacy statements of the providers whose services and/or content we include and who are responsible for the protection of your data in this context:

Use of the recommendation function

If you wish to recommend us to others, you can do so by using the recommendation on our Website. You may, in your and our legitimate interest, send a message to any person if you assume that the recipient wishes to receive such information.

Persons, who do not wish to receive messages via our recommendation function, may request to be included in a list of blocked recipients by following the directions included in the respective message.

Hotjar

We use Hotjar in order to better understand our users’ needs and to optimize this service and experience. is a technology service that helps us better understand our users experience (e.g. much time they spend on which pages, which links they choose to click, what users do and don’t like, etc.) and this enables us to build and maintain our service with user feedback. uses cookies and other technologies to collect data on our users’ behavior and their devices (in (captured and stored only in form), device screen size, device type (unique device identifiers), browser information, geographic location (country only), preferred language used to display our website). stores this information in a user profile. Neither Hotjar nor we will ever use this information to identify individual users or to match it with further data on an individual user. For further details, please see Hotjar’s privacy policy by clicking on this link.

You can opt-out the creation of a user profile, Hotjar’s storing of data about your usage of our site and Hotjar’s use of tracking cookies on other websites by following this opt-out link.

Information on side effects and quality complaints

This is not intended or designed for communications regarding side effects, lack of therapeutic effect, medication errors, market products/counterfeit medicine, incorrect or off-label use, quality complaints and/or other issues regarding the safeness or quality of Bayer products. If you wish to report side effects or make a quality complaint, please contact your health care professional (e.g. or pharmacist), your local health authority, or use our Website for the report of undesirable side effects.

If you nevertheless report to us undesirable side effects or other issues regarding the safeness or quality of Bayer products, we will be legally bound to deal with your communication and may have to contact you for clarification purposes. Subsequently, we may have to notify the competent health authorities of the issues reported by you. In this context, your information will be forwarded in form, i.e. information by which you may identified will be passed on. We may also have to forward these notifications to our group companies and cooperation partners, to the extent these are likewise obliged to notify their competent health authorities.

Transfer of data for commissioned processing

For the processing of your will to some extent use specialized service contractors. Such service contractors are carefully selected and regularly monitored by us. Based on respective data processor agreements, they will only process personal data upon our instruction and strictly in accordance with our directives.

Information regarding your rights

The following rights are in general available to you according to applicable data privacy laws:

Right of information about your personal data stored by us;
Right to request the correction, deletion or restricted processing of your personal data;
Right to object to a processing for reasons of our own legitimate interest, public interest, or profiling unless we are able to proof that compelling, warranted reasons superseding your interests, rights and freedom exist, or that such processing is done for purposes of the assertion, exercise or defense of legal claims;
Right to data portability;
Right to file a complaint with a data protection authority;
You may at any time with future your consent to the collection, processing and use of your personal data. For further refer to the chapters above describing the processing of data based on your consent.

If you wish to exercise your rights, please address your request to the contact indicated below.

Contact

For Bayer Pty Ltd in South Africa:

Data Privacy Manager
27 Wrench Road
Isando
1601
za_data_privacy@bayer.com

Amendment of Privacy Statement

We may update our Privacy Statement from time to time. Updates of our Privacy Statement will be published on our . Any amendments become effective upon publication on our . We therefore recommend that you regularly visit the site to keep yourself informed on possible updates.

Last updated: 1.07.2021.