Capsules

REASSESSING THE PILL'S RISKS

Heart attacks, stroke, hypertension, gall bladder disease, cervical cancer, benign tumors, blood clots, diabetes: all have been linked to the Pill. Now a twelve-year study of 16,000 women in California suggests that the fears about oral contraceptives may be exaggerated. The findings to be published this summer may well be disputed once they are examined by other researchers. But the study's research director, Dr. Savitri Ramcharan, argued last week that "the risks of the Pill, if they exist at all, are negligible."

The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, involved healthy women, ages 18 to 54, enrolled at the Kaiser-Permanente Medical Center in Walnut Creek. A quarter of them took oral contraceptives regularly. Among the findings: Pill users did not have higher mortality rates than nonusers, if they did not smoke, and ran no greater risk of developing circulatory problems or cancer of the breast, ovaries or lining of the uterus. Though the researchers did note a slight increase in lung cancer, they said that it was probably caused by the women's heavy cigarette smoking. Similarly, they said, a significant increase in cervical cancer could be attributed not to the Pill, but to sexual habits, including sex at an early age and multiple partners.

BLACK LUNG DISEASE BROUHAHA

Since Congress enacted legislation compensating coal miners disabled by black lung disease a decade ago, more than $9 billion in benefits have been paid to them or their survivors. Yet the federal program is still a matter of hot dispute. The United Mine Workers says that the Government is not generous enough; critics complain of a giveaway. Last week the controversy was fueled anew by a skeptical medical report.

At the University of West Virginia Medical Center in the coal-mining center of Morgantown, Dr. W. Keith Morgan and his colleagues examined 200 miners who had claimed black lung benefits. Only eight qualified by existing compensation criteria; they had somewhat impaired breathing ability. Even so, none showed any indication of progressive massive fibrosis, a stiffening of lung tissue that doctors regard as the true sign of permanent disability.

Morgan notes that the eight miners were smokers or ex-smokers and suggests that tobacco, not coal dust, was the real culprit. In an editorial accompanying the report in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Editor William Barclay is even blunter: "The taxpayer will be penalized twice; first in subsidizing those who grow tobacco and then in compensating coal miners who smoke tobacco."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.