POPULATION INCREASE

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28822, 17 February 1959, Page 9

POPULATION INCREASE

Need For Birth Control Stressed (N.Z Press Association—Copvrtghtt NEW DELHI, February 15. The British scientist. Sir Julian Huxley, today called for international research to develop a cheap and satisfactory oral way to check the rapid increase in the world’s population. Speaking at the sixth international conference on planned parenthood, Sir Julian Hufcley predicted that the world’s populatipn was likely to increase by 50,000,000 this year. It would rise to 5,500,000,000 by the year 2000 from an estimated 2,860,500,000 at the end of 1958, he said.

He said already two-thirds of the world’s people were undernourished. Deforestation and soil erosion had reduced the possibilities of raising agricultural production, and water supplies were proving inadequate in many Sir Julian Huxley said efficient birth control methods were required to counterbalance lower death rates/ India face’d political and social disaster if it failed to solve its population problem, he added. The head of the Atomic Energy Division of the Indian Ministry of Natural Resources and Science, Dr. Homi J. Bhabha, said India’s population problem could be solved immediately. A substance was needed which, when added to food, would not prevent conception but would reduce the probability of conception by about 30 per cent., he said.

Earlier today, a Japanese delegate told the conference that abortion was proving a more effective birth control measure in Japan than contraceptives. He said Japan’s campaign to limit the birthrate was showing results already.