VR. [LNA \ is entitled to per-my severe with his pessimistic evaluation of the C.M.A C.'s ability to cope with some of the tasks entrusted to it. His grounds for doing so however are becoming increasingly misleading and incorrect. Since he is not impressed with to facts.
figures, confine myself m
He complains of the lack of experimental evidence and the need to follow strict scientific canons which require a test and a control group to assess the efficiency of birth regulation methods. For the last few years this has been superseded by 1 ietwas method which uses the couples themselves as their own controls and expresses results in terms of failure rate per 100 couple years of use.
This is then compared with other methods and it is the standard current technique used in the trials conducted on behalf of the pill.
It is precisely this formula which the C.M.A.C. is using currently in assessing a live-year survey of the infertile period by the calendar method as well as for its next survey using the temperature method due to start shortly.
He writes further: "I strongly doubt whether the C.M.A.C. has the talent and the lime, the money and the interest to embark on a scheme comparable to that of Georgetown University".
As reported in the CATHOLIC HERALD (Oct. 11) she scheme which Georgetown is just starting aims at determining the length and other characteristics of the normal menstrual cycle.
This study has already been carried out in England by the C.M.A.C. It was completed in June of this year and will shortly be published.
It followed a more difficult study, not yet attempted by Georgetown, of the normal characteristics of the basal temperature curve which had the statistical advice of Professor P. Armitage. Professor of Statistics in the University of London, and which appeared in the British Medical Journal of January 12, 1963.
The 207 doctors working in over 50 centres throughout the country have at their disposal a imique and um twilled experience of the medical needsfacing the Catholic
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We are aware more than ever of the need for research not only in the matter of the infertile period hut in other fields as well. such as, for example, the psychological factors responsible for marital breakdown.
A preliminary report of work carried out in this latter field appeared in the "Lancet" in August of this year.
This vital research is being carried out and placed at the disposal of other countries such as on the occasion when the C.M.A.C. arranged and was the host of the first International Fertility Conference held in London in the summer of 1962.
Plans are already being made for another conference to be held, Possibly next year.
The pattern of our work has become the prototype eagerly sought by others in South America and elsewhere.
The urgent need is for more doctors to participate in this vital and rapidly expanding apostolate. J. Dominian, Hon. Secretary of the General Medical Committee of the C.M.A.C.