Oral contraceptives and breach of warranty under the Uniform Commercial Code

This is a discussion of the issue as to whether a woman who either becomes pregnant while on pills or suffers side effects as a result of taking birth control pills has a breach of warranty cause of action under the Uniform Commercial Code. It is concluded that the woman has no cause for action against her doctor. In fact, it is unlikely that the woman will be able to support a claim of breach of warranty against anyone in the chain of supply, either the pharmaceutical company or the distributor. Previously decided cases offer no precedent as to when a breach of warranty can be found as a result of side effects produced by pills. Warnings which presently accompany oral contraceptives are insufficient. However, a woman claiming damages must prove that the side effects she suffered were directly caused from use of oral contraceptives. There is the assumption of risk issue, whether the woman assumes the risk by reading the information booklet and deciding to take the pills anyway. Revised warnings should certainly be included with pills.     

Genetic markers in human bone: I. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) analysis.

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) was isolated from a number of spongy and compact human bone tissue specimens, and the yield was estimated on a "per milligram of starting tissue" basis. DNA was, in addition, isolated from a number of corresponding blood and bone tissue specimens. Spectrophotofluorometry and ethidium bromide visualization on minigels were used to estimate the quantity and degree of degradation of DNA. The DNA from several blood-bone pairs is shown to give concordant restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) typing results by two different typing protocols with five different single-locus probes. DNA from several additional blood-bone pairs is shown to give concordant results for human leucocyte antigen (HLA)-DQ alpha phenotypes following polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification and hybridization to specific allele-specific oligonucleotide (ASO) probes, and for the variable numbers of tandem repeats (VNTR) length polymorphisms 3' to the human apolipoprotein B (APOB) gene following PCR amplification with specific primers and analysis of the products by electrophoresis and ethidium bromide visualization.