Rindge to Dispense The Pill

Following a vote by the Cambridge School Committee last month, Cambridge Rindge and Latin (CRLS) will become the first high school in Massachusetts to offer birth control pills and other long-term contraceptives.

The 4-3 vote, which came after weeks of debate among parents and town officials, allows school doctors to dispense contraceptive drugs through the school's Teen Health Clinic.

"We're very pleased with the vote," said City Commissioner of Health Dr. Melvin H. Chalfen, who heads the Cambridge Health Policy Board, which proposed the measure.

Physicians in the school's health center are currently authorized to prescribe contraceptive drugs to students. Under the new measure, they will be able to dispense the drugs directly.

School physicians will fill prescriptions for three different drugs: birth control pills, which are taken daily; Depo Provera, an injection providing three months of birth control; and Norplant, an implant that provides birth control for five years.

The availability of such powerful drugs, however, has at least one school committee member concerned.

Alfred B. Fantini, who voted against the proposal, said Norplant may have very serious side-effects including acne, weight gain, excessive bleeding, mood swings and depression.

He said 400 women filed a class action suit against the company that produces Norplant, but he did not know the result of that case.

Supporters of the vote said the policy does not drastically alter the school's role in administering birth control.

"The [school] health center has always prescribed birth control," said City Councillor Katherine Triantafillou, "It's not a radical departure from what has been going on."

"If young boys can get condoms, young girls should be able to have access to birth control pills," she said.

In 1990, CRLS became the first high school in the state to make condoms available to its students, serving as a model for similar programs in neighboring communities.

But critics of the vote said the measure will increase promiscuity and reduce the condom use among students.

A 1992 study on teenage health found that making condoms available in school did not increase sexual activity among students, according to the Boston Globe.

Robin Harris, a school committee member who voted for the proposal, said making contraceptive drugs available in school would be an improvement over the current system of condom distribution in combating teenage pregnancy. "I think it is a good idea only because we have had [467] girls in the high school who have been pregnant," she said.

But Fantini is not sure that the availability of the new drugs will curb pregnancies in Rindge and Latin.

"The health clinic did not guarantee us... one iota of success in the reduction of teenage pregnancy," he said.

Fantini wishes that efforts had been focused only on reducing teenage pregnancy through education.

"I had no comfort level at all [with this decision]," said Fantini, who added an amendment to the decision which he hopes will increase parent involvement and input in the health center.

"In this particular Teen Health Center, there is no dialogue with parents, nor is there an attempt to have any," he said.

Newly elected City Councillor Anthony D. Galluccio said he disagreed with the school committee's vote because working class families were unable to partake in the process.

"It moved too quickly. I really don't think there was the amount of parental involvement that there should have been," Galluccio said. "I would have been better equipped to make a decision on this issue if working class parents had been involved."

"We are becoming two different cities and the concerns of the working class people are becoming different than [those of] the people on Brattle Street," he said.

But Triantafillou and Chalfen said parents from all parts of the community had ample opportunity to voice their opinions.

"There were several meetings and they even extended the time; the opportunities were there," Triantafillou said.