Word: pill
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...subjects are more likely to attract widespread TV and press coverage than an investigation of the dangers of the Pill, now used by 9,000,000 women in the U.S. alone. In full awareness of that fact, Wisconsin's Senator Gaylord Nelson used his monopoly subcommittee last week to conduct a highly publicized investigation of the oral contraceptive that at times seemed more like a trial than an empirical examination of the available medical evidence...
...subcommittee's announced intent, according to Nelson, was to "explore the question whether users of birth control pills are being adequately informed concerning the Pill's known health hazards." The fact is, they are not-either by the Pill's proponents or by its crusading critics. And as Nelson pointed out: "It is important that women be informed about all aspects of use of the Pill so that they are able to make an intelligent, personal decision about...
Fallopian Fallacy. But when Nelson lined up his witnesses, adamant critics outnumbered defenders by seven to one. Most conspicuously missing from the roster was Harvard's Dr. John Rock, co-developer of the Pill, a conscientious Roman Catholic and a thoughtful advocate of research to reduce the Pill's admitted and harmful side effects...
...some cases the Pill raises an unstable blood pressure so abruptly and severely as to cause a blowout in a brain artery-the hemorrhagic type of stroke. Another vascular disturbance is the migraine headache, which results from dilation of peripheral arteries in the head. Any woman who has ever had migraines is likely to find that they strike more often and more severely after she goes on the Pill. Others may suffer their first, alarming and hideously painful migraine when taking the Pill. Among other "contraindications," as doctors call them, are diabetes, liver disease, breast cancer and possibly rheumatoid arthritis...
...Medicine. Of all the reported side effects, the one of deepest concern to young women who have not had all the children they want, is that after they stop taking it their fertility may be reduced. Pro-Pill parenthood planners share this concern. There is indeed a definite suppression of fertility in some women who fail to menstruate or ovulate for a year or two after dropping the Pill. But the true incidence of Pill-induced infertility cannot yet be measured, Kistner points out, because if a woman has never had a child before going on the Pill and does...