Depo-Provera: the case for?
DEPO-PROVERA is a contraceptive drug that is injected and whose effects last for three months.
Upjohn, the US manufacturers, have appealed against last year's decisions by the Health Minister, Kenneth Clarke, not to license the drug for long term use.
Women injected with Depo-Provera have suffered from prolonged heavy bleeding and other side effects including a delayed return to fertility, weight gain and depressions.
The public hearing presently being conducted has revealed some very disturbing facts. These have been made public by petitioners who are *for* the licensed use of the drug in Britain. (Groups opposing the license are not allowed to speak at the hearing!)
A lot of research on the drug has, as usual, been conducted in third world countries.
Conclusions on the drugs effects on endometrial cancer were made from a test on Thailand villagers, but it was admitted that as only 12 women were exposed to the drug, these were inconclusive.
The drug has been used as a short-term contraceptive in Britain. At the London Hospital in the east end it was revealed in 1977, only 22 per cent of women given the drug were told about it and discussed with by their doctor.
Many of these women were Bengalis.
A junior doctor at the hospital said: 'It's no use explaining about beagle dogs (a reference to cancer tests) she's an illiterate peasant from the bush'.
Male assault
FIGURES on the colour of assailants for 'mugging' offences aroused criticisms of racism when they were released last year by Scotland Yard.
The Met said they wouldn't be given in their public announcement of the figures this year. The data is still collected, however, for robbery and other violent thefts.
Although many columns of *Hansard* (the official record of parliamentary proceedings) on 22 and 28 March are devoted to an analysis of assailants' colour, such attention is not given to the *sex* of assailants in assault cases.
Labour MP Frank Dobson asked the question, how many women were victims of male assault?
The answer from Patrick Mayhew was that 'information seperately identifying male assailants is not collected in the Metropolitan police district and could be provided only at a disproportionate cost'. *(City Limits)*
Stop Halimat's deportation
HALIMAT Babamba came to Britain in September 1980 from Nigeria to join her husband.
In July 1982 she left him because of his violence towards her. Halimat is now settled in Leeds with her two young children, Hakeem and Mustapha.
Halimat says: 'If I go back to Nigeria, my children will be taken from me. I will face the same violence from my husband.
'I will not be able to work, I have no family to go to and no home there. I believe my home and my children's home is in this country'.
*• For further information, speakers etc. contact Friends of Halimat Babamba, Box HB, 59 Cookridge St, Leeds LS2 3AW.*
Compiled by HILARY DRIVER. Send contributions to 'Male Order' Socialist Action, 328 Upper Street, London N1 2XP to arrive not later than Thursday a week prior to publication.