World Population 
no experience in Europe. I only know that these drugs are 
sold in the countries where contraception is accepted. 
Wright: I gather, Dr. Pincus, that the tablet method is 
better than mechanical means so far as ‘‘accidents’’ are con- 
cerned, but you did give examples where women forgot to take 
tablets and conception occurred. Has the possibility of in- 
corporation in some other form, such as food, been considered ? 
I am thinking particularly of condiments such as salt—some- 
thing that would normally be used in the household but that 
could be easily differentiated for particular individuals within 
the household, and that would not normally be forgotten as 
tablets can so easily be. 
Brain: Isn’t part of the problem the fact that at present 
something requires to be taken daily for a long period, and it is 
important to know whether it will be possible to have some- 
thing that can be taken at much longer intervals? 
Pincus: Of course the question of incorporation into food 
has been brought up before. At the meeting of the International 
Planned Parenthood Federation in Delhi in 1959, Dr. Bhaba of 
the Indian Atomic Energy Commission said that economic 
progress required a 30 per cent reduction of the fertility of the 
Indian people, and he asked if one might put something in the 
food which would reduce fertility. Dr. Parkes and Dr. Noble 
said they knew something that might work (although this was 
still experimental), but because of the normal variation of 
individual response to any drug, it might result in some people 
being sterilized who did not want to be, with perhaps no effect 
on others who wanted to be sterilized. Therefore voluntary 
control appears to be the only possibility, even in countries 
where there is good motivation. Of course in a totalitarian 
régime one might take a different view, but like Professor 
Klein I am anti-totalitarian. 
The question of “‘simpler use’’ comes up every time we discuss 
this problem. In this connexion, I might mention one experi- 
mental study that was carried out in the United States on a 
substance which, theoretically, would be active at about mid- 
cycle; it would destroy the fertilized egg. This was offered to a 
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