Medicine: Perils of the Pill

Although the Pill is the most effective method of contraception yet devised, it has not proved an unmixed blessing to all of the 8,000,000 American women who use it. Many women on the Pill experience minor problems such as nausea, headaches and breast tenderness; others have menstrual irregularity and are temporarily infertile after they give it up.

For a relatively small number of users, however, there are more serious side effects. Studies carried out in the U.S. and Great Britain have shown that women who use the Pill are more prone to circulatory...

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