The pill - a good idea for nuns

The Catholic Church should make the contraceptive pill freely available to nuns in a bid to tackle the health risks associated with chastity, Australian experts claim. This reported on www.itsmyhealth.com.au.

In a commentary published today in the Lancet, Melbourne researchers say the initiative would tackle the burden of ovarian and uterine cancer, and "give nuns' plight the recognition it deserves".

"Today, the world's 94,790 nuns still pay a terrible price for their chastity because they have a greatly increased risk of breast, ovarian, and uterine cancers: the hazards of their nulliparity (never having had children]," the authors said.

"If the Catholic Church could make the oral contraceptive pill freely available to all its nuns, it would reduce the risk of those accursed pests, cancer of the ovary and uterus."

The authors, Dr Kara Britt (PhD), a researcher with the Prostate and Breast Cancer Research Program at Monash University, and Professor Roger Short, a reproduction expert at the University of Melbourne, cited two large epidemiological studies to support their argument.

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