1961 - Population

Population

Britain's National Health Service announces January 30 that contraceptive pills will be available beginning December 4. Made by G. D. Searle with 5 mgs. of hormone, Conovid pills will be the first oral contraceptives sold in Britain.

Some 800,000 U.S. women have prescriptions filled for The Pill (see 1960). Some complain of swollen breasts, weight gain, migraine headaches, nausea, or blurred vision but are assured that such side effects are temporary and will disappear with longer use (see 1962).

A birth control clinic opens at New Haven, Conn., but is forced to close after 9 days. The order will not be rescinded for nearly 4 years (see New York, 1929; Supreme Court decision, 1965).

The Lippes Loop intrauterine device for birth control will be implanted within 8 years in an estimated 8 million women worldwide. Not strictly speaking a contraceptive, the IUD developed by Buffalo, N.Y., physician Jack Lippes does not prevent the egg and sperm from coming together but rather makes the womb unreceptive to implantation of the fertilized egg, which is expelled as an early miscarriage in the monthly menses. Since it is not a drug, it has not been investigated for safety by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and its sales are not regulated (see Dalkon Shield, 1971).

The National Council of Churches sponsors the first American Conference on Church and Family, giving educators, public health officials, religious leaders, and sociologists vivid illustrations of the suffering caused by ignorance about frigidity, impotence, homosexuality, and contraception among thousands, if not millions, of people (see Calderone, 1964).

A Ladies' Home Journal poll of young women finds that "most" want four children and "many" want five, but U.S. birthrates have been dropping since 1957 and will continue to fall sharply as more women get education and jobs.

China's population reaches an estimated 650 million, India has 445 million, the USSR 215, the United States 185 (up from 141 at the close of World War II), Indonesia 100, Pakistan 97, Japan 95, Brazil 73, West Germany 58, the U.K. 54.

New York and its suburban environs have a combined population of 14.2 million, Tokyo 10 million, London 8.3, Paris 7.7, Shanghai more than 7, Buenos Aires 6.9, Los Angeles 6.6, Chicago more than 6, Moscow 5.2, Mexico City 5, Calcutta 4.5, Bombay 4.2, Beijing (Peking) 4.2, Philadelphia 3.7.

1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970