Pill “not cause of cancer”

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33062, 1 November 1972, Page 7

Pill “not cause of cancer ”

(N .Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, Oct. 31.

A six-year study of the effects of the contraceptive pill has produced no evidence that it can cause cancer, says a report from the Committee on Safety of Medicines, according to the Press Association. Official belief in the safety of the pill is underlined by the fact that 10 new contraceptive preparations, including five of the mini-pill, pro-gestogen-only formula, have now been approved in Britain. and licences for their production will be issued shortly. Progestogen-only preparations were banned after an American report that they might be linked with cancer of the liver in experimental animals. No evidence to support this has been found in British studies. “NATURAL STUDIES” Britain’s Chief Medical Officer, Sir George Goober, said he would have no hesitation in advising the young women in his family—he has two daughters-in-law and a 30-year-old daughter—to use the pill’. The pill, he said, consists of substances related to natural substances circulating in the body at similar doses.

The animal studies on which the present report was based involved giving rats and mice 200 to 400 times the dose, in relation to bodyweight, which a woman on the pill would take. Tens of thousands of rats and mice were given heavy

doses of the chemicals used in contraceptives and then sacrificed. MICROSCOPE Altogether 250,000 microscope slides of their vital organs were studied to try to identify cancerous changes. The report—mainly American work with Beagle hounds —showing an increased incidence of liver cancer and! liver damage. Cancer of the breast did occur, but predominantly with oestrogen, the other sex hormone used in the pill, and only with doses several; hundred times those used in human contraceptive doses. Even at two to four times the human dose the effects! were not observed. The report said women tak-; ing the pill should be moni-i tored carefully for cancer of the breast. PITUITARY TUMOURS The studies did reveal i large numbers of tumours of the pituitary gland—which I controls the production of sex hormones. This, said Professor Eric I Scowen, the chairman of (he! committee, might help to ex- , plain why some women failed to regain fertility when they stopped taking the pill. Previously this had been thought the result of a functional failure of the pituitary and the part of the brain which controls the sex life.

| It seems it might not be (due to anatomical changes. ; Family doctors have been asked to report all such cases so that a full study can be undertaken.