REBUILDING CONFIDENCE IN ORAL-CONTRACEPTIVES - A NEW IMPERATIVE IN FAMILY-PLANNING

On December 14, 1995, the first public presentation of results of the Transnational Case-Control Study of Oral Contraceptives and the Health of Young Women was made at the winter meeting of the British Pharmaco logical Society at Brighten. Four weeks later, those results and furth er analyses were published in the British Medical Journal. There has b een much debate about them in Europe and elsewhere. I feel privileged to have been invited to write a Leading Article about the safety of co mbined oral contraceptives in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmaco logy. These are personal opinions about the meaning of all the recent pharmacoepidemiological findings. With an historical context as the ba ckground I have added my personal reflections as a scientist and a pub lic health doctor. These views do not necessarily reflect the views of my co-investigators.