The Foundation's long-standing interest in population matters is reflected not only in grants made by the Population unit but also in support provided by other offices: for example, the Child Survival/Fair Start program (see page 7), a variety of actions on behalf of refugees and migrants (see pages 7, 33, and 61), efforts to reduce teenage pregnancy and improve child care among teenage mothers (see page 5), and projects addressing issues related to reproductive rights (see page 41). The Population unit itself continued to emphasize scientific research to develop new methods of fertility control; efforts in developing countries to improve the safety of contraceptives used in family-planning programs; and analyses of the links between fertility, health, and nutrition, and the economic and social well-being of poor communities, particularly in the Third World.

The targeted research program in the reproductive sciences, initiated in 1980 by the Ford, Andrew W. Mellon, and Rockefeller foundations, was assisted again this year with grants totaling some $900,000. The program focuses on areas of research believed to have the greatest potential for developing new methods of fertility control. Under one of the grants—$338,500 to the University of Texas—scientists are studying substances, extracted from testicular and ovarian fluids, that might interfere with the reproductive process. Grants for $276,400 and $95,000 to the Population Council and to Unigene Laboratories, respectively, are supporting investigations of new antiprogesterone methods of fertility control, which may eventually lead to a "once-a-month" pill. The University of North Carolina, which received $156,000, is concentrating on studies of sperm maturation and function. Advances in DNA research have made it possible to scrutinize the processes by which sperm develop motility and the ability to fertilize ova. Understanding those processes may lead to ways of interfering with the maturation and thus the fertilizing ability of sperm.

The contraceptive leads program of the International Committee for Contraceptive Research (iccr) received final support with a $1.3 million grant to the Population Council. Since its establishment in 1971 with Ford and Rockefeller funding, iccr has developed and introduced into general use the copper-clad intrauterine device (iud) and has begun arrangements for the manufacture of norplant™, a contraceptive implant inserted under the skin of a woman's arm, which has proved effective in large-scale field trials in the United States and several developing countries. iccr is continuing to test the vaginalcontraceptive ring, which can be inserted and removed without medical assistance, and a steroid-releasing iud that seems to have fewer side effects than plastic or copper-clad devices. iccr is making progress in developing a totally new mode of contraception, an antipregnancy vaccine.

The Foundation also granted the Population Council $500,000 in general support of the various facets of its work: biomedical research, which, in addition to the applied research of iccr, includes fundamental studies of the male reproductive system; research and analysis of population policies; demographic studies; and assistance to Third World family-planning programs, including the introduction of contraceptives developed by iccr.

Since contraceptive safety studies are generally well supported in the industrialized world, the Foundation has focused on helping developing countries—where family-planning programs are expanding rapidly—to assess the risks and benefits of various birth control methods.

This year Chiang Mai University in Thailand received funds to determine whether children exposed to Depo-Provera or other steroid contraceptives during early gestation suffered birth defects or abnormalities in growth and development. Using records from a long-term family-planning program at a nearby hospital, researchers will compare children exposed to the steroids and a group not exposed.

To assist developing-country institutions that have begun to train researchers in reproductive health and contraceptive safety, the Foundation granted the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta $100,000 to prepare and field-test a practical instruction manual for such research. The centers also received funds for workshops on methods of measuring contraceptive safety, for a review of contraceptives requiring safety studies, and for carrying out such studies.