Indian Women's Day in Court

A group of grassroots women's organizations, medical doctors and a journalist in India have halted, at least temporarily, the Indian government's use of an injectible contraceptive in field testing. This marks the first time that women have successfully challenged the use of hazardous contraceptives in India.

The contraceptive is Norethisterone-Oenanthate (Net-Oen), a form of the female hormone projesterone produced by the West German company Schering. Like the controversial drug Depo-Provera, a high dose of the hormone is injected intravenously once every several months. First marketed in Peru in 1967, the drug was withdrawn in 1971 after animal tests revealed medical complications. It was later reintroduced and, according to 1983 company data, is now available in 29 countries and is being field tested in 8 countries, most of them in the Third World. The drug is being distributed under the brand names Norigest and Norieterat.

In India, the drug had been administered to women on an experimental basis and the government had planned to introduce it to the Family Planning Program in the near future. However, on May 1, 1986, women and physicians opposed to the use of Net-Oen obtained a court order halting further trials of the drug and requiring that the government demonstrate the safety of the drug before resuming use. The Indian government had to respond by mid-July 1986.

The opponents include five Indian physicians, an Indian woman journalist and three grassroots Indian organizations - Saheli Women's Resource Center, Stree Shakti Sanghatana, and Chingari. They contend that more than 90 percent of the Indian women administered the drug experience a condition known as "menstrual chaos" caused by the disruption of their hormonal balance. They also report that the drug has a long list of contraindications ranging from liver disease, breast or genital cancer, to vaginal bleeding. While the World Health Organization approves Net-Oen, it admits that its safety is not yet established with regard to cancer risk and its effect on lactation, the reproductive system and other health functions.

"The potential hazards of this drug do not justify its introduction into the mass Family Planning program," state the group of opponents in a press release. They also report that centers testing Net-Oen have misinformed women in order to recruit them for testing. "[We] therefore contend that all further experiments on Indian women must be stopped and the drug be banned for use in India," they state.

Saheli, one of the grassroots women's groups, is appealing for international support for its campaign against Net-Oen. They would like you to provide the following information as soon as possible:

• Letters of support for its court case
• Information on the test and use of Net-Oen in your country
• Product information sheets distributed by Schering, the manufacturer of Net-Oen
• Details of your government's policy on Net-Oen
• Statements by medical practitioners for and against the use of Net-Oen
• Testimonies from women who have used or been exposed to the drug.

Materials and correspondence should be sent to:

Saheli Women's Resource Center
Unit above Shop 105 to 108 Shopping Centre Defence Colony Bridge (south side)
New Delhi 110 024 India

More and More Injectibles

The case of Net-Oen in India appears to be part of a rising trend toward the testing and marketing of injectible contraceptives, according to a recent report by the Women's Global Network on Reproductive Rights. The number of brands of injectible contraceptives available has grown dramatically since 1984, the year that Upjohn's patent on the hormone used in Depo-Provera ran out. At present there are at least ten different brands of injectible contraceptives being manufactured by producers ranging from multinational corporations to national companies to the Chinese government.

The rise is also attributable in part to a world-wide testing program of different brands of injectible contraceptives carried out by the World Health Organization's Special Program of Research, Development and Training in Human Reproduction. According to the Women's Global Network report, the program recruited 3300 women by the end of 1985 in participating centers around the world. The centers are located in: Bangkok, Hangzhou, London, Mexico City, Szeged, Allahabad, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Madurai, Stockholm, Alexandria, Birmingham, Havana, Jakarta, Karachi, Leningrad, Santiago de Cuba, and Huntingdon.

The Women's Global Network asks that women send more information about the brands of injectibles available in your country, the dosage of each brand, whether they are available only by prescription or over the counter, and the cost of the drugs. Please send the information to:

Women's Global Network on Reproductive Rights
P.O. Box 4098 1009 AB Amsterdam
Netherlands

Health on the Job

Farm working women tend fields amid clouds of pesticide. Women office workers suffer eyestrain and wrist pain from working on video display terminals. A mother nurses her disabled child, a victim of mercury poisoning from a nearby paper mill.

These are some of the situations around which working women in the United States and Canada are coming together for education and organizing. The last few years have seen the creation of many women's centers, networks, caucuses, task forces focusing on occupational and environmental health hazards for women. Through a variety of initiatives, they are working to strengthen women's position in the workplace and community, and define women's conditions of labor and living.

A main thrust behind the organizing drive has been to challenge the medical establishment, labor unions, and occupational health movement to go beyond the standard framework for assessing workplace hazards: studying men only or women only for reproductive hazards. They are also working to counter the image of women concerned about such issues as "hysterical housewives" or "industry phobes."

Following is a partial list of women's occupational health groups currently active in the US and in Canada.

Women's Occupational Health Resource Center
Columbia University School of Public Health
600 W. 168th St.
New York, NY 10032
USA

One of the leaders of the women and occupational health movement, this center initiates many campaigns to alert women to hazards in the workplace and to adopt strategies for change. It produces a newsletter, factsheets and information packets.

Ontario Workers Health Center
1292 Barton St. East Hamilton, Ontario L8H 2W1 Canada

This center has been especially effective in raising the connection between occupational health and women's rights. Among other activities, it has initiated a campaign to make sexual harassment a compensable injury equal to other occupational health hazards.

Double Exposure

Women Against Reproductive Health Hazards
P.O. Box 1324 Brookline, Massachusetts 02146 USA

This newly formed group investigates toxins in the workplace and community which affect the reproductive health of both men and women. It also identifies and exposes corporate policies which discriminate against pregnant women under the guise of "protecting the unborn."

Integrated Circuit

The National Network for a New High Tech Agenda
138 S. 20th St. San Jose, California 95116 USA

A network of health, environmental, labor and other groups. Integrated Circuit works to expose myths about high tech and to raise a range of concerns, including the economic and social impact on women and minorities, the role in military policies, and implications for the Third World.

National Women's Health Network

Committee on Occupational and Environmental Health 224 7th St.,
SE Washington, D.C. 20003 USA

The committee is currently producing a Women's Guide to Occupational and Environmental Health to alert women to issues and organizing attempts in this area.

The above information is based on an article which appeared in a recent issue of Listen Real Loud, the newsletter of the American Friends Service Committee, Nationwide Women's Program. For a more complete discussion of the issues and references to other groups, you may request the issue from AFSC at 1501 Cherry St., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19102, USA.

From Madre with Love

The Bertha Calderon Women's Hospital in Managua, Nicaragua now owns a four-wheel-drive pickup truck and a shiny new ambulance, thanks to the From Madre With Love campaign of North American women. In addition, a group of North American midwives have worked alongside midwives in rural communities in Nicaragua under the Midwifery Work Exchange Project.

Spearheading these initiatives is MADRE, an independent organization of direct aid from North American women to Nicaraguan women. MADRE was created in 1983 after Nicaraguan mothers urged a group of visiting American women to "please urge the women of your country to support us. Use your strength to stop the killing of our children." The Americans decided that one way they could counter the US government's destructive policies toward that country was to work jointly with AMNLAE, the national Nicaraguan women's association, to provide assistance directly to Nicaraguan women. In a short time, they had attracted some financial backing and the support of prominent women activists such as Audrey Lorde, Alice Walker and singers Holly Near and Bernice Reagon.

Most of MADRE's efforts so far have been in the area of health. In addition to the programs mentioned above, MADRE carries out a series of other projects:

• a Milk and Cereal Campaign, through which a ton of fortified powdered milk and a ton of baby cereal was sent to Nicaragua on March 8, 1984 1984
• delivery of medical supplies and supplies for a maternal milk bank conservation research project
• the construction of a maternal/child health clinic in the Miskito Indian region on the Atlantic Coast
• the construction of a women's hospital in the war zone of Matagalpa, where rural health centers and child care centers have been a special target of the contras
• a "twinning program" pairing local day care centers in the US with child care centers in Nicaragua.

These campaigns of support, say MADRE organizers, "reflect the need for the women everywhere in the world to have decent health available to her, and to have the power to understand better her own and her child's health needs."

MADRE urges all concerned women in North America to join in their effort by organizing education and fundraising activities locally or by making a contribution of money or medical supplies. The national office will gladly provide logistical support such as press materials, and videos and slideshows for events.

For further information, contact:

MADRE
853 Broadway Ave,, Room 301
New York, New York 10003 USA
Tel. (212) 777-6470