HC Deb 12 May 1969 vol 783 cc956-9
21. Miss Lestor

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will initiate, through the National Health Service, an inquiry into the adverse effects of oral contraception.

The Secretary of State for Social Services (Mr. Richard Crossman)

It is the responsibility of the Committee on Safety of Drugs to monitor adverse reactions to all drugs, including oral contraceptives. This work is supplemented by a number of research projects into the long term effects of oral contraception.

Miss Lestor

Would my right hon. Friend not agree, though, that statements which are continually being made, presumably by people in authority, on the causal connection between, for instance, thrombosis and the pill and cancer and the pill, are causing a great deal of concern among many women, and would not an inquiry of the nature suggested here, with publication of the results, do a great deal both to allay the fears and to add some knowledge on the subject?

Mr. Crossman

We have to consider carefully whether the announcement of yet another inquiry might stimulate doubts. No, the Medical Research Council, the Family Planning Association and the Royal College of General Practitioners are all conducting research into this subject, and will announce the results as soon as possible.

23. Miss Lestor

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what programme of health education on the use of oral contraception is being followed by the Health Education Council.

Mr. Crossman

My hon. Friend will be glad to hear that as a first step the Council is setting up an Advisory Panel on Sex Education, whose priority task will be to consider the problem of educating the public in the use of all kinds of contraceptives. It will also be asked to advise on the extension of training and education of professional and lay workers in this field of health education.

Miss Lestor

Is my right hon. Friend aware that this news will be received with pleasure by large numbers of people, but would he not agree that unless local authorities face their responsibilities in this matter—which is, of course, the other side of the problem of abortions—a lot of this work will be wasted, and would he not consider making it mandatory upon local authorities actually to set up family planning clinics?

Mr. Crossman

I would not disguise from my hon. Friend that I myself would like to make it mandatory, but it would be unfair to make it mandatory unless money were available, and that is the reason why we are not doing so at present.

Dr. David Kerr

But are there not other alternatives which my right hon. Friend will note? Would he consider that, if local authorities are failing to provide these services, he might offer the assistance of regional hospital boards and the general practitioners to provide alternative sources of advice and appropriate appliances and drugs?

Mr. Crossman

I am grateful for that suggestion. The hospital boards and the hospitals themselves have responsibility for the patients in hospital. As for the general practitioners, I should like to tell my hon. Friend that we have this year extended the grant to the Family Planning Association to assist in the training of general practitioners for what is a wholly desirable part of their duty.

26. Mr. Brooks

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what representations he has received asking him not to publicise evidence linking the contraceptive pill with thrombosis or cervical cancer; and what is his latest estimate of the statistical risk of contracting either illness, and of death due to either illness, as a result of taking the pill regularly.

46. Mr. John Hall

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if, following the evidence given at a recent inquest at Dudley, he will require the Dunlop Committee on Safety of Drugs to examine the results of recent research in the United States of America, details of which have been sent to him, which suggest that there are six times more cases of womb cancer in women who take the pill than in those who do not.

Mr. Crossman

No such representations have been made to me. The estimated annual risk of venous thrombo-embolism requiring hospital admission is about 5 per 100,000 for women not using oral contraceptives and about ten times higher for those using them. The estimated annual risk of death from pulmonary embolism or cerebral thrombosis in healthy women not using oral contraceptives is 0.2 per 100,000 in those aged 20–34 and 0.5 per 100,000 in those aged 35–44, and is also about 10 times higher in those using them. I am advised that a statistical correlation between the use of oral contraceptives and cervical cancer has not been established, but I am asking the Committee on Safety of Drugs to examine the published article referred to in recent Press reports.

Mr. Brooks

I welcome the efforts of my right hon. Friend to establish the scientific facts, but will not he agree that certain irresponsible allegations have recently been made in coroner's courts which have caused unnecessary anxiety to many women and quite gratuitous offence to the pharmaceutical industry?

Mr. Crossman

There is something in what my hon. Friend says. The committee on Safety of Drugs has carefully considered all the evidence and has decided that, despite the evidence of adverse reactions to oral contraceptives they should still be on sale. I absolutely trust the Committee on Safety of Drugs. If there had been the vaguest doubt, the Committee would not have said that.

Dr. David Kerr

Will my right hon. Friend seek early opportunities to offer assurance on this question not merely to the House but to the many women who have grave reservations about a drug which should be widely used? Will he, please, in presenting figures, compare not the age groups which do and do not use the drugs, but the expected frequency of thrombo-embolic phenomena in pregnant women, which is what this form of oral contraception protects women against? This figure, as I am sure he will agree, is much more striking.

Mr. Crossman

I am grateful for the support of my hon. Friend, but it is important to present the figures as strictly objectively as possible, because one may be counter-productive if one does not, and I have presented them in an absolutely objective way.