GET RID OF THE MORNING AFTER

To the Editors of The Crimson:

After a party Friday night in Comstock, a very drunk Harvard junior and a very stoned Radcliffe freshman went back to his room and spent the night. The next morning he woke up very hung over, and she woke up possibly pregnant. Rather nonchalantly, but slightly nervously, she went to the Health Services and received the Morning After pill. For five days she took 50 grams of the artificial estrogen diethyl stilbestrol (DES) a day, was very nauseated, and felt ill the whole time. Yet, at the end of five days, she knew she wasn't pregnant. What she didn't know is that she was also very lucky. DES is a dangerous drug, which should not be sanctioned by UHS.

The Food and Drug Administration banned the use of DES in cattle feed after a Nader task force reported it to be carcinogenic, i.e. cancer-causing. Yet in the Morning After pill, a dose 168,000 times as great as that found in food from DES-fed cows is given to unsuspecting women. Though banned from our food, the FDA has not banned DES from our bodies. The danger, according to Dr. Herbst of Massachusetts General Hospital, is that this massive dose of DES might "stimulate the growth of already existent pre-cancerous cells." According to a fact sheet published by Advocates for Medical Information at the University of Michigan, "The Morning After pill is 100% DES. DES has been known to cause cancer." That fact alone should be sufficient reason to ban Morning After pills from UHS. There are alternatives.

In the first place, probably about 50% of the women who take the Morning After pill have not even conceived. So, half of the Radcliffe students undergo five days of sickness for no reason. For the others, menstrual extraction could be performed if women do not have their regular period following their unprotected intercourse. Though more time-consuming for doctors and less lucrative for drug companies, this method of post-coital birth control does not endanger the women with cancerous complications. Dr. Roy Hertz of Rockefeller University states: "Addition of any artificial estrogen beyond the natural estrogen produced in the body disturbs a natural balance which even under ideal conditions is precarious..."

How the FDA can sit idly by and let women endanger their lives is one story--too big to be covered here--but UHS must not be allowed to follow the negligent practice of the FDA. The Morning After pill must not be administered to Radcliffe women. Ellen Cooper '75