Word: pills
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...LIVER. If a woman has had pregnancies marked by either jaundice or pruritus (diffuse itching), she should not go on the Pill, suggests Dr. Robert A. Hartley of Baltimore. Both these conditions result from impaired liver function, and the Pill is likely to reproduce the effects of pregnancy. Some gynecologists, however, believe the Pill is safe if the woman has had infectious hepatitis and has fully recovered from her jaundice...
...FERTILITY. In the early days of enthusiasm for the Pill, the word was that, far from interfering with fertility, it seemed to enhance it. Women who had just stopped taking the Pill seemed more likely to become pregnant within a couple of months. This is not true, certainly not for all women, says Dr. Alan F. Guttmacher, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Some who have taken it for two years or more, then stopped because they wanted a baby, have failed to menstruate and ovulate, and therefore to conceive, for as long as 18 months. Guttmacher prefers...
...CANCER. The claim was once made that while estrogens may cause cancer, as they do in many laboratory animals, the Pill seemed actually to afford some protection against breast cancer. More cautious now, the experts claim no protective effect, but assert unequivocally that they have seen no case of breast cancer that might have been caused by the Pill. Still, to stay on the safe side, they will not prescribe it for any woman who has cancer or any suspicious change in a breast...
...greatest controversy today concerns cancer of the cervix. Again the trouble is insufficient data. What is indisputable is that many, if not most, women on the Pill undergo cellular changes in the cervical region. The question is whether these are precancerous. Two researchers, Drs. Milliard Dubrow and Myron R. Melamed, conducted a three-year study of almost 35,000 women at Manhattan Planned Parenthood clinics. Their report has not been published, and may never be, because technical reviews of the study suggest that it was badly designed. But bits and pieces of the findings have been carefully leaked...
Second Generation. Not even the most enthusiastic supporters of the Pill in its present form believe that it is the ideal contraceptive. In addition to its side effects, it has the disadvantage of requiring close calendar watching. Researchers are working strenuously to produce a morning-after pill, a one-a-month pill or a once-a-year injection to achieve the same result with greater certainty and less fuss. What may well be the second generation of oral contraceptives is already undergoing extensive tests...