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The Journal of the Libertarian AllianceVol. 3 : No.1 1982 - Article 1 of 6 useful in the prevention of anaemia. This Contraceptives and
is especially beneficial in regions of theworld where health care is fairly drug regulation
rudimentary. Its clinical record is betterthan the Pill at a comparable stage ofdevelopment.
n May 1980 Upjohn Limited, amajor international drug company Iapplied to the Government for a exist for its long term use in many injectible contraceptive Depo-Provera. In Committee on the Safety of Medicines(CSM). There has been widespread MISSED OPPORTUNITIES
debate over the drug and it is thought theparticular Health Minister concerned had The US has one of the strictest regulatory to the 'limited benefits' of the drug, the turns out to be the costliest in terms of medical and social risks were too high.
missed opportunities for improvedhealth. As the Friedmans show in Free to Choose the FDA has many pressures on the world. The other is Norigest which is use any other method of birth control.
approve a drug that turns out to have un- anticipated side effects resulting in death the same way as oral contraceptives - the progestogen and oestrogen, the injections injectible contraceptive. It can be taken and that individual will be villified across difficult future. Yet if the second mistake easier to forget to take a pill one night than it is to miss the quarterly injection.
and miss the drug. It is not surprising that of the drug leads to a slightly higher level Free Life Archive on the Web from the website www.libertarian-alliance.org.uk Vol 3 No 1 Contraceptives and drug regulation - James Alexander The Libertarian Alliance is an independent, non-party group, with a shared desire to work for a free society. futility and damage that it causes. Itsessential uselessness is illustrated by the to be in the right place at the right time they also lost a reputation that in the long for their quarterly dosage. As many birth people do not want it they will stay away reluctance to accept and buy new drugs.
unless, as in India, they are forced at the powerful regulatory mechanismpreventing the introduction of unsafe or often raise the notion that there should be'informed consent' before a patient can be said to have agreed to the treatment.
the field of drugs. They are just one set were being lost unnecessarily through the difference between a doctor prescribing adrug to clear up some ailment and you DEPO-PROVERA IN THAILAND
being sold a car to drive around in.
Unless a person is a motor mechanic (or neither an experiment nor an exposé ofsome sinister state birth control particularly protective editorial expressedfears that the drug would be pressed by It should be noted first that attitudes to vidual responsibility, what is the fear? It is the fear of the drug reaching one of its Free Life Archive on the Web from the website www.libertarian-alliance.org.uk Vol 3 No 1 Contraceptives and drug regulation - James Alexander The Libertarian Alliance is an independent, non-party group, with a shared desire to work for a free society. reliable and the most easy to carry out.
the Pill's case the benefits are thought to making a "free decision" but then we do thought of injectible contraceptives.
not live in a perfectly enlightened andpressure-free world. No one can ever women will suffer, many women willbecome unnecessarily pregnant. As with DEPO-PROVERA IN PRACTICE
many other drugs, the state prevents theiruse and so decreases personal and social experience irregular menstrual bleedingthat can cause discomfort and someconfusion if it is taken as a sign of beingat a certain part of the menstrual cycle.
A DRUG REGULATION READING
But a London clinical trial with Norigest found that this was a very minorproblem. The drug may also cause some Articles
delay in a woman's return to fertilitywhen she stops using it. But here it contraception, The Listener 4th March that 92-97 per cent of women becomesuccessfully pregnant within two years of 2. "Rejecting scientific advice", The British Medical Journal 15th May 1982.
evidence that the CSM advised doctors tobe aware of before prescribing the drug - 1 Milton and Rose Friedman, Free to warned that 'tumours had developed inmonkeys given 50 times the normal Pharmaceutical Innovation, American man has not been established'. This is not altogether surprising since monkeys haveacted up like this on a number of 3. Henry Grabowski, Drug Regulation Depo-Provera, Depo Provera, 1980.
breast cancer have been reported inwomen taking Depo-Provera but nocausal relationship has been established'.
The preliminary results of a study intothe effects the drug on the 80,000 womenin Thailand are showing no extralikelihood that women will get breast cancer if they are on the drug. Whereas it Free Life Archive on the Web from the website www.libertarian-alliance.org.uk Vol 3 No 1 Contraceptives and drug regulation - James Alexander

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