Long term hazards in immunological methods of fertility control

Abstract

Long term problems associated with future immunological methods of fertility control include the following: (1) reversibility, (2) unscrupulous use, (3) unphysiological intervention giving rise, among other possibilities, to carcinogenesis, (4) deleterious genetical selection operating on antigens, and (5) deleterious genetical selection operating on the immune response. The first three of these constitute a hazard to individuals, and the last two to populations. None is considered to constitute a threat so serious as to inhibit further research on the subject. We should keep under review future developments in relevant areas of immunology, including particularly cell-cell cooperation as a mechanism in autoimmunity, and immune response genes as the objects of immunoselection. It will be important also to come to terms with the social, political, and economic consequences of any cheap, widely-applicable form of birth control, such as might develop from immunological research. The possibility is raised of wide-spread immunisation against a synthetic immunological determinant, as an aid to fertility control. Another possibility is to make women grandchildless.