Concerning the British Data

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
To the Editor:— Drill and Calhoun1differ from the British Medical Research Council2and from the British Committee on Safety of Drugs3in the conclusions that they draw from our work on the relationship between the use of oral contraceptives and the development of thromboembolism. This, we suggest, is because they have misunderstood or misinterpreted our findings. For example: They dismiss the results of Vessey and Doll's study4because it led to the conclusion that the hospital admission rate for "idiopathic" venous thrombosis in young married women not using oral contraceptives was 0.05 per 1,000 per year, a figure which "is so far out of line from other American and English statistics that it cannot be accepted as comparable." In fact, it is directly comparable with the figure of 0.5 per 1,000 in women who were using oral contraceptives but were otherwise similar, since exactly the