Norplant

The governor's plan to give Norplant to poor women passed with surprising ease. His budget escaped virtually unscathed. One of his gun control bills is on the move, and at least part of his crackdown on "deadbeat parents" appears headed for final approval.All in all, for a lame-duck governor whose popularity peaked years ago, William Donald Schaefer is not having a bad year.Although he's not winning the victories he did during his first term -- when a voter mandate swept him into office -- he's not suffering the losses he did at the start of his second term in 1991.

Regrouping after a devastating ruling in the Norplant product liability case, 15 women from Maryland have filed a lawsuit in federal court in Baltimore, claiming they suffered through a series of medical maladies from the surgically implanted device.The suit is part of a flurry of cases that lawyers say will be filed in federal courthouses around the country. Last month, a U.S. judge in Texas denied class-action status to more than 50,000 women who say the device caused blurred vision, moods swings and other medical woes.

After several years of litigation, American Home Products Corp. said yesterday that it had agreed to pay cash settlements to 36,000 women who contended they were not adequately warned about the possible side effects of the company's Norplant contraceptive. Under the terms of the settlement, American Home Products is expected to pay out between $50 million and $75 million, according to Turner Branch, one of the lead attorneys for the plaintiffs. Women who choose to settle their lawsuits will receive $1,500 each, far from the jackpot attorneys had hoped for. "It's a total disappointment," Branch said.

While the debate over Norplant goes on at City Hall, some of Baltimore's teen-age mothers and mothers-to-be say they don't need any help from politicians in making choices about birth control."

Norplant, the contraceptive implant effective for five years, has been drawing attention across the state, but county doctors say there is little demand for the prescription among Carroll women."

Nearly a year after the Food and Drug Administration approved Norplant, the contraceptive that works for as long as five years after it is implanted in a woman's upper arm, public health officials and family-planning clinics say the device works well and is on its way to wide usage.State public health officials say the demand for Norplant at subsidized family-planning clinics is so large that it is impossible to keep up with."We've done 1,200 insertions, and we have waiting lists all over for the next 800 we ordered," said Carla Schmidt of the Florida Family Health Service.

Norplant, widely hailed as the most revolutionar contraceptive since the birth-control pill, has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.America's first implantable contraceptive, Norplant works by slowly releasing a synthetic hormone into a woman's body through six thin capsules that are surgically embedded in her upper left arm during a brief office procedure.Left in place for five years or less, the capsules have about a 99 percent success rate in preventing pregnancy, studies have shown -- making Norplant more effective than any birth-control pill or intrauterine device currently on the market and as effective as surgical sterilization.

Norplant, the first new contraceptive available to American women in 30 years, will slowly make its way into Baltimore-area doctors' offices over the next few weeks -- but some physicians say its high price may be an obstacle to women who lack insurance coverage.Some 60 doctors showed at a Planned Parenthood-sponsored seminar in Towson yesterday to learn how to implant, monitor and remove the device and how to counsel patients seeking it. Norplant is a system of six matchstick-sized tubes that are injected under the skin of the upper arm.The tubes release a trickle of contraceptive hormone into the bloodstream for five years but can be removed any time a woman wants to become fertile.

Opponents of the city's plan to offer the contraceptive Norplant to sexually active teen-age girls denounced the proposal yesterday as social engineering and said it could have dire health implications that are being overlooked.A broad range of opponents, including religious leaders representing the Archdiocese of Baltimore and the Nation of Islam, asked the City Council to stop the Health Department from offering the contraceptive through the agency's eight school-based clinics.Norplant is now available at municipal health centers and at a clinic in the Laurence Paquin School for pregnant girls and young mothers.

In an article Tuesday about birth control, The Sun misstated the price Planned Parenthood of Maryland charges for oral contraceptives. The price, over a five-year period, is $540.) The Sun regrets the errors.The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved yesterday the first new birth control method available to U.S. women in 30 years -- an implant that prevents pregnancies for five years once it is inserted under the skin of the upper arm.The implant, called Norplant, consists of a fan-shaped arrangement of silicone rubber capsules -- about the size of small matchsticks -- that slowly release steroid hormones into the bloodstream.