Of pills and ills

Valerie Beral has just recruited the millionth woman to her women's health research project. She talks to Geoff Watts about the pill, pregnancy, and cancer

“The scientists hate publicity; the clinicians tolerate it; the epidemiologists crave it.” The man who offered me that rule of thumb was a senior staff member of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (ICRF). Although it was meant (I think) as an observation rather than a gibe, Professor Valerie Beral, director of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund's cancer epidemiology unit, bridled a bit when I asked what she thought of it. “One of the major deterrents when I was offered the ICRF job in 1989 was the thought of being so much in the public eye. It's not my nature.”

On reflection though—and when I emphasised that it was not meant as a put down—she conceded that there was some truth in the dictum. Clinicians have the personal rewards of helping an individual; epidemiologists' findings amount to little if no one takes any notice and nothing changes. “Yes, I suppose you have to go out and say things. I do see it as part of my job.”

Indeed it is—and has been for years. With oestrogens in …