Feeble Research on Birth Control : Report calls for congressional action to foster scientific progress
Many politicians in this campaign season have plenty to say about sexual abstinence and abortion, but a panel of medical experts reported this week that the most pressing need in the area of birth control is still new contraceptives and the research that produces them.
The study, drafted by a committee of the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences, said the problem is obvious: Worldwide, 228 million women are at risk of unintended pregnancy each year. In the United States, 57% of pregnancies--more than 3 million annually--are either unwanted, unintended or mistimed. Half of these, the panel said, are terminated by abortion.
If all unwanted pregnancies were prevented worldwide, the experts calculated, the rate of global population growth could be cut by as much as 19%, which consequently would greatly reduce the number of abortions. Meanwhile, for scientists, demographers and all of us, continued growth of the human population presents major pressures on available food, water and land.
There is, in short, need for more birth control choices and broader availability of existing options. While current options like birth control pills, condoms and intrauterine devices are effective, the panel said, no device works well for everyone all the time.
Despite the need for more research, powerful forces have impeded progress in this area, the 17-member panel of physicians and health educators pointed out. Fear of product liability lawsuits has braked research on some contraceptive devices and pharmaceutical agents that can prevent pregnancy. The panel recommended that Congress consider limits on product liability lawsuits in the area of contraceptive technology and that imposition of those limits be coupled with a more rigorous Food and Drug Administration approval process for birth control drugs and devices.
Heavy social and political opposition also impedes certain research approaches, such as those that work by interrupting pregnancy. This opposition has greatly delayed the introduction into the United States of the French abortive drug RU-486.
Panel members concluded that these political and legal forces contribute to a climate in which pharmaceutical makers are so uncertain about the markets for new contraceptives that they direct their work toward other, less controversial product lines.
The Institute of Medicine panel identified few easy “fixes” for the lack of adequate contraceptive options, but it has put a spotlight on the problem. Government regulatory agencies and lawmakers should look at it again.
