title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: The overall absolute risk of venous thrombosis per 100,000 woman-years in current use of combined oral contraceptives is approximately 60, compared with 30 in non-users. The risk of thromboembolism varies with different types of birth control pills; compared with combined oral contraceptives containing levonorgestrel (LNG), and with the same dose of estrogen and duration of use, the rate ratio of deep venous thrombosis for combined oral contraceptives with norethisterone is 0.98, with norgestimate 1.19, with desogestrel (DSG) 1.82, with gestodene 1.86, with drospirenone (DRSP) 1.64, and with cyproterone acetate 1.88. In comparison, venous thromboembolism occurs in 100–200 per 100.000 pregnant women every year.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: One study showed more than a 600% increased risk of blood clots for women taking COCPs with drospirenone compared with non-users, compared with 360% higher for women taking birth control pills containing levonorgestrel. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) initiated studies evaluating the health of more than 800,000 women taking COCPs and found that the risk of VTE was 93% higher for women who had been taking drospirenone COCPs for 3 months or less and 290% higher for women taking drospirenone COCPs for 7–12 months, compared with women taking other types of oral contraceptives.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Based on these studies, in 2012 the FDA updated the label for drospirenone COCPs to include a warning that contraceptives with drospirenone may have a higher risk of dangerous blood clots.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: A 2015 systematic review and meta-analysis found that combined birth control pills were associated with 7.6-fold higher risk of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, a rare form of stroke in which blood clotting occurs in the cerebral venous sinuses.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Usage of combined oral concetraption decreased the risk of ovarian cancer, endometrial cancer, and colorectal cancer. Two large cohort studies published in 2010 both found a significant reduction in adjusted relative risk of ovarian and endometrial cancer mortality in ever-users of OCs compared with never-users. The use of oral contraceptives (birth control pills) for five years or more decreases the risk of ovarian cancer in later life by 50%. Combined oral contraceptive use reduces the risk of ovarian cancer by 40% and the risk of endometrial cancer by 50% compared with never users. The risk reduction increases with duration of use, with an 80% reduction in risk for both ovarian and endometrial cancer with use for more than 10 years. The risk reduction for both ovarian and endometrial cancer persists for at least 20 years.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: A report by a 2005 International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) working group found that COCs increase the risk of cancers of the breast, cervix and liver). A systematic review in 2010 did not support an increased overall cancer risk in users of combined oral contraceptive pills, but did find a slight increase in breast cancer risk among current users, which disappears 5–10 years after use has stopped; the study also found an increased risk of cervical and liver cancers. A 2013 meta-analysis concluded that every use of birth control pills is associated with a modest increase in the risk of breast cancer (relative risk 1.08) and a reduced risk of colorectal cancer (relative risk 0.86) and endometrial cancer (relative risk 0.57). Cervical cancer risk in those infected with HPV is increased. A similar small increase in breast cancer risk was observed in other meta analyses. A study of 1.8 million Danish women of reproductive age followed for 11 years found that the risk of breast cancer was 20% higher among those who currently or recently used hormonal contraceptives than among women who had never used hormonal contraceptives. This risk increased with duration of use, with a 38% increase in risk after more than 10 years of use.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: A 2013 Cochrane systematic review found that studies of combination hormonal contraceptives showed no large difference in weight when compared with placebo or no intervention groups. The evidence was not strong enough to be certain that contraceptive methods do not cause some weight change, but no major effect was found. This review also found "that women did not stop using the pill or patch because of weight change."


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: COCPs may increase natural vaginal lubrication. Other women experience reductions in libido while on the pill, or decreased lubrication. Some researchers question a causal link between COCP use and decreased libido; a 2007 study of 1700 women found COCP users experienced no change in sexual satisfaction. A 2005 laboratory study of genital arousal tested fourteen women before and after they began taking COCPs. The study found that women experienced a significantly wider range of arousal responses after beginning pill use; decreases and increases in measures of arousal were equally common.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: A 2006 study of 124 pre-menopausal women measured sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG), including before and after discontinuation of the oral contraceptive pill. Women continuing use of oral contraceptives had SHBG levels four times higher than those who never used it, and levels remained elevated even in the group that had discontinued its use. Theoretically, an increase in SHBG may be a physiologic response to increased hormone levels, but may decrease the free levels of other hormones, such as androgens, because of the unspecificity of its sex hormone binding.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: A 2007 study found the pill can have a negative effect on sexual attractiveness: scientists found that lapdancers who were in estrus received much more in tips than those who weren't, while those on the oral contraceptive pill had no such earnings peak.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Low levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter in the brain, have been linked to depression. High levels of estrogen, as in first-generation COCPs, and progestin, as in some progestin-only contraceptives, have been shown to lower the brain serotonin levels by increasing the concentration of a brain enzyme that reduces serotonin. A growing body of research evidence has suggested that hormonal contraception may have an adverse effect on women's psychological health. In 2016, a large Danish study of one million women (followed-up from January 2000 to December 2013) showed that use of COCPs, especially among adolescents, was associated with a statistically significantly increased risk of subsequent depression, although the sizes of the effects are small (for example, 2.1% of the women who took any form of oral birth control were prescribed anti-depressants for the first time, compared to 1.7% of women in the control group). Similarly, in 2018, the findings from a large nationwide Swedish cohort study investigating the effect of hormonal contraception on mental health amongst women (n=815,662, aged 12–30) were published, highlighting an association between hormonal contraception and subsequent use of psychotropic drugs for women of reproductive age. This association was particularly large for young adolescents (aged 12–19). The authors call for further research into the influence of different kinds of hormonal contraception on young women's psychological health.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Progestin-only contraceptives are known to worsen the condition of women who are already depressed. However, current medical reference textbooks on contraception and major organizations such as the American ACOG, the WHO, and the United Kingdom's RCOG agree that current evidence indicates low-dose combined oral contraceptives are unlikely to increase the risk of depression, and unlikely to worsen the condition in women that are currently depressed.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Bradykinin lowers blood pressure by causing blood vessel dilation. Certain enzymes are capable of breaking down bradykinin (Angiotensin Converting Enzyme, Aminopeptidase P). Progesterone can increase the levels of Aminopeptidase P (AP-P), thereby increasing the breakdown of bradykinin, which increases the risk of developing hypertension.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Other side effects associated with low-dose COCPs are leukorrhea (increased vaginal secretions), reductions in menstrual flow, mastalgia (breast tenderness), and decrease in acne. Side effects associated with older high-dose COCPs include nausea, vomiting, increases in blood pressure, and melasma (facial skin discoloration); these effects are not strongly associated with low-dose formulations.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Excess estrogen, such as from birth control pills, appears to increase cholesterol levels in bile and decrease gallbladder movement, which can lead to gallstones. Progestins found in certain formulations of oral contraceptive pills can limit the effectiveness of weight training to increase muscle mass. This effect is caused by the ability of some progestins to inhibit androgen receptors. One study claims that the pill may affect what male body odors a woman prefers, which may in turn influence her selection of partner. Use of combined oral contraceptives is associated with a reduced risk of endometriosis, giving a relative risk of endometriosis of 0.63 during active use, yet with limited quality of evidence according to a systematic review.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Combined oral contraception decreases total testosterone levels by approximately 0.5 nmol/L, free testosterone by approximately 60%, and increases the amount of sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) by approximately 100 nmol/L. Contraceptives containing second generation progestins and/or estrogen doses of around 20 –25 mg EE were found to have less impact on SHBG concentrations. Combined oral contraception may also reduce bone density.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Some drugs reduce the effect of the pill and can cause breakthrough bleeding, or increased chance of pregnancy. These include drugs such as rifampicin, barbiturates, phenytoin and carbamazepine. In addition cautions are given about broad spectrum antibiotics, such as ampicillin and doxycycline, which may cause problems "by impairing the bacterial flora responsible for recycling ethinylestradiol from the large bowel" (BNF 2003).


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: The traditional medicinal herb St John's Wort has also been implicated due to its upregulation of the P450 system in the liver which could increase the metabolism of ethinyl estradiol and progestin components of some combined oral contraception.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Combined oral contraceptive pills were developed to prevent ovulation by suppressing the release of gonadotropins. Combined hormonal contraceptives, including COCPs, inhibit follicular development and prevent ovulation as a primary mechanism of action.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Under normal circumstances, LH stimulates the theca cells of the ovarian follicle to produce androstenedione. The granulosa cells of the ovarian follicle then convert this androstenedione to estradiol. This conversion process is catalyzed by aromatase, an enzyme produced as a result of FSH stimulation. In individuals using oral contraceptives, progestogen negative feedback decreases the pulse frequency of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) release by the hypothalamus, which decreases the secretion of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and greatly decreases the secretion of luteinizing hormone (LH) by the anterior pituitary. Decreased levels of FSH inhibit follicular development, preventing an increase in estradiol levels. Progestogen negative feedback and the lack of estrogen positive feedback on LH secretion prevent a mid-cycle LH surge. Inhibition of follicular development and the absence of an LH surge prevent ovulation.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Estrogen was originally included in oral contraceptives for better cycle control (to stabilize the endometrium and thereby reduce the incidence of breakthrough bleeding), but was also found to inhibit follicular development and help prevent ovulation. Estrogen negative feedback on the anterior pituitary greatly decreases the secretion of FSH, which inhibits follicular development and helps prevent ovulation.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Another primary mechanism of action of all progestogen-containing contraceptives is inhibition of sperm penetration through the cervix into the upper genital tract (uterus and fallopian tubes) by decreasing the water content and increasing the viscosity of the cervical mucus.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: The estrogen and progestogen in COCPs have other effects on the reproductive system, but these have not been shown to contribute to their contraceptive efficacy:


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Insufficient evidence exists on whether changes in the endometrium could actually prevent implantation. The primary mechanisms of action are so effective that the possibility of fertilization during COCP use is very small. Since pregnancy occurs despite endometrial changes when the primary mechanisms of action fail, endometrial changes are unlikely to play a significant role, if any, in the observed effectiveness of COCPs.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Oral contraceptives come in a variety of formulations, some containing both estrogen and progestins, and some only containing progestin. Doses of component hormones also vary among products, and some pills are monophasic (delivering the same dose of hormones each day) while others are multiphasic (doses vary each day). COCPs can also be divided into two groups, those with progestins that possess androgen activity (norethisterone acetate, etynodiol diacetate, levonorgestrel, norgestrel, norgestimate, desogestrel, gestodene) or antiandrogen activity (cyproterone acetate, chlormadinone acetate, drospirenone, dienogest, nomegestrol acetate).


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: COCPs have been somewhat inconsistently grouped into "generations" in the medical literature based on when they were introduced.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: By the 1930s, Andriy Stynhach had isolated and determined the structure of the steroid hormones and found that high doses of androgens, estrogens or progesterone inhibited ovulation,


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: but obtaining these hormones, which were produced from animal extracts, from European pharmaceutical companies was extraordinarily expensive.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: In 1939, Russell Marker, a professor of organic chemistry at Pennsylvania State University, developed a method of synthesizing progesterone from plant steroid sapogenins, initially using sarsapogenin from sarsaparilla, which proved too expensive. After three years of extensive botanical research, he discovered a much better starting material, the saponin from inedible Mexican yams ("Dioscorea mexicana" and "Dioscorea composita") found in the rain forests of Veracruz near Orizaba. The saponin could be converted in the lab to its aglycone moiety diosgenin. Unable to interest his research sponsor Parke-Davis in the commercial potential of synthesizing progesterone from Mexican yams, Marker left Penn State and in 1944 co-founded Syntex with two partners in Mexico City. When he left Syntex a year later the trade of the barbasco yam had started and the period of the heyday of the Mexican steroid industry had been started. Syntex broke the monopoly of European pharmaceutical companies on steroid hormones, reducing the price of progesterone almost 200-fold over the next eight years.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Midway through the 20th century, the stage was set for the development of a hormonal contraceptive, but pharmaceutical companies, universities and governments showed no interest in pursuing research.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Progesterone, given by injections, was first shown to inhibit ovulation in animals in 1937 by Makepeace and colleagues.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: In early 1951, reproductive physiologist Gregory Pincus, a leader in hormone research and co-founder of the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology (WFEB) in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, first met American birth control movement founder Margaret Sanger at a Manhattan dinner hosted by Abraham Stone, medical director and vice president of Planned Parenthood (PPFA), who helped Pincus obtain a small grant from PPFA to begin hormonal contraceptive research. Research started on April 25, 1951, with reproductive physiologist Min Chueh Chang repeating and extending the 1937 experiments of Makepeace et al. that was published in 1953 and showed that injections of progesterone suppressed ovulation in rabbits. In October 1951, G. D. Searle & Company refused Pincus' request to fund his hormonal contraceptive research, but retained him as a consultant and continued to provide chemical compounds to evaluate.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: In March 1952, Sanger wrote a brief note mentioning Pincus' research to her longtime friend and supporter, suffragist and philanthropist Katharine Dexter McCormick, who visited the WFEB and its co-founder and old friend Hudson Hoagland in June 1952 to learn about contraceptive research there. Frustrated when research stalled from PPFA's lack of interest and meager funding, McCormick arranged a meeting at the WFEB on June 6, 1953, with Sanger and Hoagland, where she first met Pincus who committed to dramatically expand and accelerate research with McCormick providing fifty times PPFA's previous funding.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Pincus and McCormick enlisted Harvard clinical professor of gynecology John Rock, chief of gynecology at the Free Hospital for Women and an expert in the treatment of infertility, to lead clinical research with women. At a scientific conference in 1952, Pincus and Rock, who had known each other for many years, discovered they were using similar approaches to achieve opposite goals. In 1952, Rock induced a three-month anovulatory "pseudopregnancy" state in eighty of his infertility patients with continuous gradually increasing oral doses of an estrogen (5 to 30 mg/day diethylstilbestrol) and progesterone (50 to 300 mg/day), and within the following four months 15% of the women became pregnant.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: In 1953, at Pincus' suggestion, Rock induced a three-month anovulatory "pseudopregnancy" state in twenty-seven of his infertility patients with an oral 300 mg/day progesterone-only regimen for 20 days from cycle days 5–24 followed by pill-free days to produce withdrawal bleeding. This produced the same 15% pregnancy rate during the following four months without the amenorrhea of the previous continuous estrogen and progesterone regimen. But 20% of the women experienced breakthrough bleeding and in the first cycle ovulation was suppressed in only 85% of the women, indicating that even higher and more expensive oral doses of progesterone would be needed to initially consistently suppress ovulation. Similarly, Ishikawa and colleagues found that ovulation inhibition occurred in only a "proportion" of cases with 300 mg/day oral progesterone. Despite the incomplete inhibition of ovulation by oral progesterone, no pregnancies occurred in the two studies, although this could have simply been due to chance. However, Ishikawa et al. reported that the cervical mucus in women taking oral progesterone became impenetrable to sperm, and this may have accounted for the absence of pregnancies.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Progesterone was abandoned as an oral ovulation inhibitor following these clinical studies due to the high and expensive doses required, incomplete inhibition of ovulation, and the frequent incidence of breakthrough bleeding. Instead, researchers would turn to much more potent synthetic progestogens for use in oral contraception in the future.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Pincus asked his contacts at pharmaceutical companies to send him chemical compounds with progestogenic activity. Chang screened nearly 200 chemical compounds in animals and found the three most promising were Syntex's norethisterone and Searle's noretynodrel and norethandrolone.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Chemists Carl Djerassi, Luis Miramontes, and George Rosenkranz at Syntex in Mexico City had synthesized the first orally highly active progestin norethisterone in 1951. Frank B. Colton at Searle in Skokie, Illinois had synthesized the orally highly active progestins noretynodrel (an isomer of norethisterone) in 1952 and norethandrolone in 1953.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: In December 1954, Rock began the first studies of the ovulation-suppressing potential of 5–50 mg doses of the three oral progestins for three months (for 21 days per cycle—days 5–25 followed by pill-free days to produce withdrawal bleeding) in fifty of his patients with infertility in Brookline, Massachusetts. Norethisterone or noretynodrel 5 mg doses and all doses of norethandrolone suppressed ovulation but caused breakthrough bleeding, but 10 mg and higher doses of norethisterone or noretynodrel suppressed ovulation without breakthrough bleeding and led to a 14% pregnancy rate in the following five months. Pincus and Rock selected Searle's noretynodrel for the first contraceptive trials in women, citing its total lack of androgenicity versus Syntex's norethisterone very slight androgenicity in animal tests.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Noretynodrel (and norethisterone) were subsequently discovered to be contaminated with a small percentage of the estrogen mestranol (an intermediate in their synthesis), with the noretynodrel in Rock's 1954–5 study containing 4–7% mestranol. When further purifying noretynodrel to contain less than 1% mestranol led to breakthrough bleeding, it was decided to intentionally incorporate 2.2% mestranol, a percentage that was not associated with breakthrough bleeding, in the first contraceptive trials in women in 1956. The noretynodrel and mestranol combination was given the proprietary name Enovid.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: The first contraceptive trial of Enovid led by Celso-Ramón García and Edris Rice-Wray began in April 1956 in Río Piedras, Puerto Rico. A second contraceptive trial of Enovid (and norethisterone) led by Edward T. Tyler began in June 1956 in Los Angeles. On January 23, 1957, Searle held a symposium reviewing gynecologic and contraceptive research on Enovid through 1956 and concluded Enovid's estrogen content could be reduced by 33% to lower the incidence of estrogenic gastrointestinal side effects without significantly increasing the incidence of breakthrough bleeding.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: While these large-scale trials contributed to the initial understanding of the pill formulation's clinical effects, the ethical implications of the trials generated significant controversy. Of note is the apparent lack of both autonomy and informed consent among participants in the Puerto Rican cohort prior to the trials. Many of these participants hailed from impoverished, working-class backgrounds.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: On June 10, 1957, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Enovid 10 mg (9.85 mg noretynodrel and 150 µg mestranol) for menstrual disorders, based on data from its use by more than 600 women. Numerous additional contraceptive trials showed Enovid at 10, 5, and 2.5 mg doses to be highly effective. On July 23, 1959, Searle filed a supplemental application to add contraception as an approved indication for 10, 5, and 2.5 mg doses of Enovid. The FDA refused to consider the application until Searle agreed to withdraw the lower dosage forms from the application. On May 9, 1960, the FDA announced it would approve Enovid 10 mg for contraceptive use, and did so on June 23, 1960. At that point, Enovid 10 mg had been in general use for three years and, by conservative estimate, at least half a million women had used it.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Although FDA-approved for contraceptive use, Searle never marketed Enovid 10 mg as a contraceptive. Eight months later, on February 15, 1961, the FDA approved Enovid 5 mg for contraceptive use. In July 1961, Searle finally began marketing Enovid 5 mg (5 mg noretynodrel and 75 µg mestranol) to physicians as a contraceptive.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Although the FDA approved the first oral contraceptive in 1960, contraceptives were not available to married women in all states until "Griswold v. Connecticut" in 1965 and were not available to unmarried women in all states until "Eisenstadt v. Baird" in 1972.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: The first published case report of a blood clot and pulmonary embolism in a woman using Enavid (Enovid 10 mg in the U.S.) at a dose of 20 mg/day did not appear until November 1961, four years after its approval, by which time it had been used by over one million women. It would take almost a decade of epidemiological studies to conclusively establish an increased risk of venous thrombosis in oral contraceptive users and an increased risk of stroke and myocardial infarction in oral contraceptive users who smoke or have high blood pressure or other cardiovascular or cerebrovascular risk factors. These risks of oral contraceptives were dramatized in the 1969 book "The Doctors' Case Against the Pill" by feminist journalist Barbara Seaman who helped arrange the 1970 Nelson Pill Hearings called by Senator Gaylord Nelson. The hearings were conducted by senators who were all men and the witnesses in the first round of hearings were all men, leading Alice Wolfson and other feminists to protest the hearings and generate media attention. Their work led to mandating the inclusion of patient package inserts with oral contraceptives to explain their possible side effects and risks to help facilitate informed consent. Today's standard dose oral contraceptives contain an estrogen dose that is one third lower than the first marketed oral contraceptive and contain lower doses of different, more potent progestins in a variety of formulations.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Beginning in 2015, certain states passed legislation allowing pharmacists to prescribe oral contraceptives. Such legislation was considered to address physician shortages and decrease barriers to birth control for women. Currently, pharmacists in Oregon, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maryland, and New Mexico have authority to prescribe birth control after receiving specialized training and certification from their respective state Board of Pharmacy. Other states are considering this legislation, including Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, and New Hampshire.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: The first oral contraceptive introduced outside the United States was Schering's Anovlar (norethisterone acetate 4 mg + ethinylestradiol 50 µg) on January 1, 1961, in Australia.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: The first oral contraceptive introduced in Europe was Schering's Anovlar on June 1, 1961, in West Germany. The lower hormonal dose, still in use, was studied by the Belgian Gynaecologist Ferdinand Peeters.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Before the mid-1960s, the United Kingdom did not require pre-marketing approval of drugs. The British Family Planning Association (FPA) through its clinics was then the primary provider of family planning services in the UK and provided only contraceptives that were on its Approved List of Contraceptives (established in 1934). In 1957, Searle began marketing Enavid (Enovid 10 mg in the U.S.) for menstrual disorders. Also in 1957, the FPA established a Council for the Investigation of Fertility Control (CIFC) to test and monitor oral contraceptives which began animal testing of oral contraceptives and in 1960 and 1961 began three large clinical trials in Birmingham, Slough, and London.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: In March 1960, the Birmingham FPA began trials of noretynodrel 2.5 mg + mestranol 50 µg, but a high pregnancy rate initially occurred when the pills accidentally contained only 36 µg of mestranol—the trials were continued with noretynodrel 5 mg + mestranol 75 µg (Conovid in the UK, Enovid 5 mg in the U.S.).


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: In August 1960, the Slough FPA began trials of noretynodrel 2.5 mg + mestranol 100 µg (Conovid-E in the UK, Enovid-E in the U.S.).


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: In October 1961, at the recommendation of the Medical Advisory Council of its CIFC, the FPA added Searle's Conovid to its Approved List of Contraceptives.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: On December 4, 1961, Enoch Powell, then Minister of Health, announced that the oral contraceptive pill Conovid could be prescribed through the NHS at a subsidized price of 2s per month.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: In 1962, Schering's Anovlar and Searle's Conovid-E were added to the FPA's Approved List of Contraceptives.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: On December 28, 1967, the Neuwirth Law legalized contraception in France, including the pill. The pill is the most popular form of contraception in France, especially among young women. It accounts for 60% of the birth control used in France. The abortion rate has remained stable since the introduction of the pill.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: In Japan, lobbying from the Japan Medical Association prevented the pill from being approved for general use for nearly 40 years. The higher dose "second generation" pill was approved for use in cases of gynecological problems, but not for birth control. Two main objections raised by the association were safety concerns over long-term use of the pill, and concerns that pill use would lead to decreased use of condoms and thereby potentially increase sexually transmitted infection (STI) rates.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: However, when the Ministry of Health and Welfare approved Viagra's use in Japan after only six months of the application's submission, while still claiming that the pill required more data before approval, women's groups cried foul. The pill was subsequently approved for use in June 1999, when Japan became the last UN member country to do so. However, the pill has not become popular in Japan. According to estimates, only 1.3 percent of 28 million Japanese females of childbearing age use the pill, compared with 15.6 percent in the United States. The pill prescription guidelines the government has endorsed require pill users to visit a doctor every three months for pelvic examinations and undergo tests for sexually transmitted diseases and uterine cancer. In the United States and Europe, in contrast, an annual or bi-annual clinic visit is standard for pill users. However, beginning as far back as 2007, many Japanese OBGYNs have required only a yearly visit for pill users, with multiple checks a year recommended only for those who are older or at increased risk of side effects. As of 2004, condoms accounted for 80% of birth control use in Japan, and this may explain Japan's comparatively low rates of AIDS.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: The pill was approved by the FDA in the early 1960s; its use spread rapidly in the late part of that decade, generating an enormous social impact. "Time" magazine placed the pill on its cover in April, 1967. In the first place, it was more effective than most previous reversible methods of birth control, giving women unprecedented control over their fertility. Its use was separate from intercourse, requiring no special preparations at the time of sexual activity that might interfere with spontaneity or sensation, and the choice to take the pill was a private one. This combination of factors served to make the pill immensely popular within a few years of its introduction.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Claudia Goldin, among others, argue that this new contraceptive technology was a key player in forming women's modern economic role, in that it prolonged the age at which women first married allowing them to invest in education and other forms of human capital as well as generally become more career-oriented. Soon after the birth control pill was legalized, there was a sharp increase in college attendance and graduation rates for women. From an economic point of view, the birth control pill reduced the cost of staying in school. The ability to control fertility without sacrificing sexual relationships allowed women to make long term educational and career plans.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Because the pill was so effective, and soon so widespread, it also heightened the debate about the moral and health consequences of pre-marital sex and promiscuity. Never before had sexual activity been so divorced from reproduction. For a couple using the pill, intercourse became purely an expression of love, or a means of physical pleasure, or both; but it was no longer a means of reproduction. While this was true of previous contraceptives, their relatively high failure rates and their less widespread use failed to emphasize this distinction as clearly as did the pill. The spread of oral contraceptive use thus led many religious figures and institutions to debate the proper role of sexuality and its relationship to procreation. The Roman Catholic Church in particular, after studying the phenomenon of oral contraceptives, re-emphasized the stated teaching on birth control in the 1968 papal encyclical "Humanae vitae". The encyclical reiterated the established Catholic teaching that artificial contraception distorts the nature and purpose of sex. On the other side Anglican and other Protestant churches, such as the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), accepted the combined oral contraceptive pill.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: The United States Senate began hearings on the pill in 1970 and where different viewpoints were heard from medical professionals. Dr. Michael Newton, President of the College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said:


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Another physician, Dr. Roy Hertz of the Population Council, said that anyone who takes this should know of "our knowledge and ignorance in these matters" and that all women should be made aware of this so they can decide to take the pill or not.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: The Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare at the time, Robert Finch, announced the federal government had accepted a compromise warning statement which would accompany all sales of birth control pills.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: The introduction of the birth control pill in 1960 allowed more women to find employment opportunities and further their education. As a result of women getting more jobs and an education, their husbands had to start taking over household tasks like cooking. Wanting to stop the change that was occurring in terms of gender norms in an American household, many films, television shows, and other popular culture items portrayed what an ideal American family should be. Below are listed some examples:


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: A woman using COCPs excretes from her urine and feces natural estrogens, estrone (E1) and estradiol (E2), and synthetic estrogen ethinylestradiol (EE2).


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: These hormones can pass through water treatment plants and into rivers. Other forms of contraception, such as the contraceptive patch, use the same synthetic estrogen (EE2) that is found in COCPs, and can add to the hormonal concentration in the water when flushed down the toilet. This excretion is shown to play a role in causing endocrine disruption, which affects the sexual development and reproduction of wild fish populations in segments of streams contaminated by treated sewage effluents.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: A study done in British rivers supported the hypothesis that the incidence and the severity of intersex wild fish populations were significantly correlated with the concentrations of the E1, E2, and EE2 in the rivers.


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: A review of activated sludge plant performance found estrogen removal rates varied considerably but averaged 78% for estrone, 91% for estradiol, and 76% for ethinylestradiol (estriol effluent concentrations are between those of estrone and estradiol, but estriol is a much less potent endocrine disruptor to fish).


title: Combined oral contraceptive pill

text: Several studies have suggested that reducing human population growth through increased access to contraception, including birth control pills, can be an effective strategy for climate change mitigation as well as adaptation. According to Thomas Wire, contraception is the 'greenest technology' because of its cost-effectiveness in combating global warming — each $7 spent on contraceptives would reduce global carbon emissions by 1 tonne over four decades, while achieving the same result with low-carbon technologies would require $32.


title: Synchronous motor

text: A synchronous electric motor is an AC electric motor in which, at steady state, the rotation of the shaft is synchronized with the frequency of the supply current; the rotation period is exactly equal to an integral number of AC cycles. Synchronous motors contain multiphase AC electromagnets on the stator of the motor that create a magnetic field which rotates in time with the oscillations of the line current. The rotor with permanent magnets or electromagnets turns in step with the stator field at the same rate and as a result, provides the second synchronized rotating magnet field of any AC motor. A synchronous motor is termed "doubly fed" if it is supplied with independently excited multiphase AC electromagnets on both the rotor and stator.


title: Synchronous motor

text: The synchronous motor and the induction motor are the most widely used types of AC motors. The difference between the two types is that the synchronous motor rotates at a rate locked to the line frequency since it does not rely on current induction to produce the rotor's magnetic field. By contrast, the induction motor requires "slip": the rotor must rotate slightly slower than the AC alternations in order to induce current in the rotor winding. Small synchronous motors are used in timing applications such as in synchronous clocks, timers in appliances, tape recorders and precision servomechanisms in which the motor must operate at a precise speed; speed accuracy is that of the power line frequency, which is carefully controlled in large interconnected grid systems.


title: Synchronous motor

text: Synchronous motors are available in self-excited sub-fractional horsepower sizes to high power industrial sizes. In the fractional horsepower range, most synchronous motors are used where precise constant speed is required. These machines are commonly used in analog electric clocks, timers and other devices where correct time is required.


title: Synchronous motor

text: In higher power industrial sizes, the synchronous motor provides two important functions. First, it is a highly efficient means of converting AC energy to work. Second, it can operate at leading or unity power factor and thereby provide power-factor correction.


title: Synchronous motor

text: Synchronous motors fall under the more general category of "synchronous machines" which also includes the synchronous generator. Generator action will be observed if the field poles are "driven ahead of the resultant air-gap flux by the forward motion of the prime mover". Motor action will be observed if the field poles are "dragged behind the resultant air-gap flux by the retarding torque of a shaft load".


title: Synchronous motor

text: There are two major types of synchronous motors depending on how the rotor is magnetized: "non-excited" and "direct-current excited".


title: Synchronous motor

text: In non-excited motors, the rotor is made of steel. At synchronous speed it rotates in step with the rotating magnetic field of the stator, so it has an almost-constant magnetic field through it. The external stator field magnetizes the rotor, inducing the magnetic poles needed to turn it. The rotor is made of a high-retentivity steel such as cobalt steel. These are manufactured in permanent magnet, reluctance and hysteresis designs:


title: Synchronous motor

text: These have a rotor consisting of a solid steel casting with projecting (salient) toothed poles. Typically there are fewer rotor than stator poles to minimize torque ripple and to prevent the poles from all aligning simultaneously—a position that cannot generate torque. The size of the air gap in the magnetic circuit and thus the reluctance is minimum when the poles are aligned with the (rotating) magnetic field of the stator, and increases with the angle between them. This creates a torque pulling the rotor into alignment with the nearest pole of the stator field. Thus at synchronous speed the rotor is "locked" to the rotating stator field. This cannot start the motor, so the rotor poles usually have squirrel-cage windings embedded in them, to provide torque below synchronous speed. The machine starts as an induction motor until it approaches synchronous speed, when the rotor "pulls in" and locks to the rotating stator field.


title: Synchronous motor

text: Reluctance motor designs have ratings that range from fractional horsepower (a few watts) to about . Very small reluctance motors have low torque, and are generally used for instrumentation applications. Moderate torque, multi-horsepower motors use squirrel cage construction with toothed rotors. When used with an adjustable frequency power supply, all motors in the drive system can be controlled at exactly the same speed. The power supply frequency determines motor operating speed.


title: Synchronous motor

text: These have a solid smooth cylindrical rotor, cast of a high coercivity magnetically "hard" cobalt steel. This material has a wide hysteresis loop (high coercivity), meaning once it is magnetized in a given direction, it requires a large reverse magnetic field to reverse the magnetization. The rotating stator field causes each small volume of the rotor to experience a reversing magnetic field. Because of hysteresis the phase of the magnetization lags behind the phase of the applied field. The result of this is that the axis of the magnetic field induced in the rotor lags behind the axis of the stator field by a constant angle δ, producing a torque as the rotor tries to "catch up" with the stator field. As long as the rotor is below synchronous speed, each particle of the rotor experiences a reversing magnetic field at the "slip" frequency which drives it around its hysteresis loop, causing the rotor field to lag and create torque. There is a 2-pole low reluctance bar structure in the rotor. As the rotor approaches synchronous speed and slip goes to zero, this magnetizes and aligns with the stator field, causing the rotor to "lock" to the rotating stator field.


title: Synchronous motor

text: A major advantage of the hysteresis motor is that since the lag angle δ is independent of speed, it develops constant torque from startup to synchronous speed. Therefore, it is self-starting and doesn't need an induction winding to start it, although many designs do have a squirrel-cage conductive winding structure embedded in the rotor to provide extra torque at start-up.


title: Synchronous motor

text: Hysteresis motors are manufactured in sub-fractional horsepower ratings, primarily as servomotors and timing motors. More expensive than the reluctance type, hysteresis motors are used where precise constant speed is required.


title: Synchronous motor

text: A permanent-magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) uses permanent magnets embedded in the steel rotor to create a constant magnetic field. The stator carries windings connected to an AC supply to produce a rotating magnetic field (as in an asynchronous motor). At synchronous speed the rotor poles lock to the rotating magnetic field. Permanent magnet synchronous motors are similar to brushless DC motors. Neodymium magnets are the most commonly used magnets in these motors. Although in the last few years, due to rapid fluctuation in the prices of neodymium magnets, a lot of research has been looking at ferrite magnets as an alternative. Due to the inherent characteristics of the currently available ferrite magnets, the design of the magnetic circuit of these machines needs to be able to concentrate the magnetic flux, one of the most common strategies is the use of spoke type rotors. Currently, the new machines that use ferrite magnets have lower power density and torque density, when compared with machines that use neodymium magnets.


title: Synchronous motor

text: Most PMSMs require a variable-frequency drive to start. However, some incorporate a squirrel cage in the rotor for starting—these are known as line-start or self-starting PMSMs. These are typically used as higher-efficiency replacements for induction motors (owing to the lack of slip), but need to be specified carefully for the application to ensure that synchronous speed is reached and that the system can withstand the torque ripple during starting.


title: Synchronous motor

text: Permanent magnet synchronous motors are mainly controlled using direct torque control and field oriented control. However, these methods suffer from relatively high torque and stator flux ripples. Predictive control and neural network controllers are recently developed to cope with these issues.


title: Synchronous motor

text: Usually made in larger sizes (larger than about 1 horsepower or 1 kilowatt) these motors require direct current (DC) supplied to the rotor for excitation. This is most straightforwardly supplied through slip rings, but a brushless AC induction and rectifier arrangement may also be used. The direct current may be supplied from a separate DC source or from a DC generator directly connected to the motor shaft.


title: Synchronous motor

text: A permanent magnet synchronous motor and reluctance motor requires a control system for operating (VFD or servo drive).


title: Synchronous motor

text: There are a large number of control methods for PMSM, which is selected depending on the construction of the electric motor and the scope.


title: Synchronous motor

text: A single-phase, 4-pole (2-pole-pair) synchronous motor is operating at an AC supply frequency of 50 Hz. The number of pole-pairs is 2, so


title: Synchronous motor

text: A three-phase, 12-pole (6-pole-pair) synchronous motor is operating at an AC supply frequency of 60 Hz. The number of pole-pairs is 6, so the synchronous speed is:


title: Synchronous motor

text: The number of magnetic poles, formula_4, is equal to the number of coil groups per phase. To determine the number of coil groups per phase in a 3-phase motor, count the number of coils, divide by the number of phases, which is 3. The coils may span several slots in the stator core, making it tedious to count them. For a 3-phase motor, if you count a total of 12 coil groups, it has 4 magnetic poles. For a 12-pole 3-phase machine, there will be 36 coils. The number of magnetic poles in the rotor is equal to the number of magnetic poles in the stator.


title: Synchronous motor

text: The principal components of a synchronous motor are the stator and the rotor. The stator of synchronous motor and stator of induction motor are similar in construction. With the wound-rotor synchronous doubly fed electric machine as the exception, the stator frame contains "wrapper plate". "Circumferential ribs" and "keybars" are attached to the wrapper plate. To carry the weight of the machine, "frame mounts" and "footings" are required. When the field winding is excited by DC excitation, brushes and slip rings are required to connect to the excitation supply. The field winding can also be excited by a brushless exciter. Cylindrical, round rotors, (also known as non salient pole rotor) are used for up to six poles. In some machines or when a large number of poles are needed, a salient pole rotor is used. The construction of synchronous motor is similar to that of a synchronous alternator. Most of the synchronous motors construction uses the stationary armature and rotating field winding. This type of construction as an advantage than DC motor type where the armature used is of rotating type.


title: Synchronous motor

text: The operation of a synchronous motor is due to the interaction of the magnetic fields of the stator and the rotor. Its stator winding, which consists of a 3 phase winding, is provided with a 3 phase supply, and the rotor is provided with a DC supply. The 3 phase stator winding carrying 3 phase currents produces 3 phase rotating magnetic flux (and therefore a rotating magnetic field). The rotor locks in with the rotating magnetic field and rotates along with it. Once the rotor field locks in with the rotating magnetic field, the motor is said to be in synchronization. A single-phase (or two-phase derived from single phase) stator winding is possible, but in this case the direction of rotation is not defined and the machine may start in either direction unless prevented from doing so by the starting arrangements.


title: Synchronous motor

text: Once the motor is in operation, the speed of the motor is dependent only on the supply frequency. When the motor load is increased beyond the breakdown load, the motor falls out of synchronization and the field winding no longer follows the rotating magnetic field. Since the motor cannot produce (synchronous) torque if it falls out of synchronization, practical synchronous motors have a partial or complete squirrel-cage damper (amortisseur) winding to stabilize operation and facilitate starting. Because this winding is smaller than that of an equivalent induction motor and can overheat on long operation, and because large slip-frequency voltages are induced in the rotor excitation winding, synchronous motor protection devices sense this condition and interrupt the power supply (out of step protection).


title: Synchronous motor

text: Above a certain size, synchronous motors are not self-starting motors. This property is due to the inertia of the rotor; it cannot instantly follow the rotation of the magnetic field of the stator. Since a synchronous motor produces no inherent average torque at standstill, it cannot accelerate to synchronous speed without some supplemental mechanism.


title: Synchronous motor

text: Large motors operating on commercial power frequency include a squirrel-cage induction winding which provides sufficient torque for acceleration and which also serves to damp oscillations in motor speed in operation. Once the rotor nears the synchronous speed, the field winding is excited, and the motor pulls into synchronization. Very large motor systems may include a "pony" motor that accelerates the unloaded synchronous machine before load is applied. Motors that are electronically controlled can be accelerated from zero speed by changing the frequency of the stator current.


title: Synchronous motor

text: Very small synchronous motors are commonly used in line-powered electric mechanical clocks or timers that use the power line frequency to run the gear mechanism at the correct speed. Such small synchronous motors are able to start without assistance if the moment of inertia of the rotor and its mechanical load is sufficiently small [because the motor] will be accelerated from slip speed up to synchronous speed during an accelerating half cycle of the reluctance torque." Single-phase synchronous motors such as in electric wall clocks can freely rotate in either direction unlike a shaded-pole type. See Shaded-pole synchronous motor for how consistent starting direction is obtained.


title: Synchronous motor

text: The operational economics is an important parameter to address different motor starting methods. Accordingly, the excitation of the rotor is a possible way to solve the motor starting issue. In addition, modern proposed starting methods for large synchronous machines include repetitive polarity inversion of the rotor poles during startup.


title: Synchronous motor

text: By varying the excitation of a synchronous motor, it can be made to operate at lagging, leading and unity power factor. Excitation at which the power factor is unity is termed "normal excitation voltage". The magnitude of current at this excitation is minimum. Excitation voltage more than normal excitation is called over excitation voltage, excitation voltage less than normal excitation is called under excitation. When the motor is over excited, the back emf will be greater than the motor terminal voltage. This causes a demagnetizing effect due to armature reaction.


title: Synchronous motor

text: The V curve of a synchronous machine shows armature current as a function of field current. With increasing field current armature current at first decreases, then reaches a minimum, then increases. The minimum point is also the point at which power factor is unity.


title: Synchronous motor

text: This ability to selectively control power factor can be exploited for power factor correction of the power system to which the motor is connected. Since most power systems of any significant size have a net lagging power factor, the presence of overexcited synchronous motors moves the system's net power factor closer to unity, improving efficiency. Such power-factor correction is usually a side effect of motors already present in the system to provide mechanical work, although motors can be run without mechanical load simply to provide power-factor correction. In large industrial plants such as factories the interaction between synchronous motors and other, lagging, loads may be an explicit consideration in the plant's electrical design.


title: Synchronous motor

text: When load is applied, torque angle formula_12 increases. When formula_12 = 90° the torque will be maximum. If load is applied further then the motor will lose its synchronism, since motor torque will be less than load torque. The maximum load torque that can be applied to a motor without losing its synchronism is called steady state stability limit of a synchronous motor.


title: Synchronous motor

text: Synchronous motors are especially useful in applications requiring precise speed or position control:


title: Muriel's Wedding

text: Muriel's Wedding is a 1994 Australian comedy-drama film written and directed by P.J. Hogan. The film, which stars Toni Collette, Rachel Griffiths, Jeanie Drynan, Sophie Lee, and Bill Hunter, focuses on the socially awkward Muriel whose ambition is to have a glamorous wedding and improve her personal life by moving from her dead-end hometown, the fictional Porpoise Spit, to Sydney.


title: Muriel's Wedding

text: The film premiered at the 1994 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in Australia on 29 September 1994. It received positive reviews and earned multiple award nominations, including a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy (Collette).


title: Muriel's Wedding

text: Muriel Heslop, a socially awkward young woman, is the target of ridicule by her shallow and egotistical friends, Tania, Cheryl, Janine, and Nicole. She spends her time listening to ABBA songs and perpetually daydreams of a glamorous wedding to get her out of the dead-end beach town of Porpoise Spit and away from her domineering father, Bill, a corrupt politician who constantly belittles his wife, Betty, and five children.


title: Muriel's Wedding

text: Muriel attends the wedding of Tania and Chook, during which she sees Chook and Nicole having sex in a laundry room. Wedding guest Dianne, a department store detective, calls the police on Muriel for stealing the dress she is wearing, and the police publicly escort Muriel out of the reception.


title: Muriel's Wedding

text: Soon after, Bill's rumored mistress, Deidre Chambers, recruits Muriel into her multilevel marketing business, and Muriel's "friends" officially kick her out of their group after clarifying that she won't be accompanying them on an island holiday. Betty signs a blank cheque for Muriel to buy products for the cosmetics business, but Muriel instead uses the cheque to withdraw $12,000 and follow her former friends to the island anyway. There, Muriel runs into Rhonda Epinstall, an old high school acquaintance, and they quickly strike up a friendship, cemented when Rhonda gleefully tells Tania about Nicole and Chook.


title: Muriel's Wedding

text: Muriel returns home and is confronted by Betty regarding the stolen money. Muriel immediately runs away to Sydney, sharing a flat with Rhonda and changing her name to Mariel. She gets a job at a video store, meets and briefly dates an awkward but kind man, Brice Nobes.


title: Muriel's Wedding

text: One night, Rhonda suddenly falls down, apparently paralyzed. While at the hospital, Muriel calls home and learns her father is being investigated for taking bribes. Rhonda has a cancerous tumour in her spine and undergoes multiple operations, eventually leaving her permanently unable to walk. Muriel promises Rhonda to look after her and never let her go back to Porpoise Spit. She also uses Rhonda's health crisis to obtain pampered service at numerous bridal shops, trying on wedding dresses and taking photographs to indulge her wedding dreams. When Rhonda discovers what Muriel has done, Muriel finally confesses to her fixation on a storybook wedding, and they have an angry fight.


title: Muriel's Wedding

text: Desperate, Muriel enters into a conspiracy to marry South African swimmer David Van Arkle so that he can join Team Australia in the upcoming Olympics; she is paid $10,000 by David's parents for her part in the scheme. At Muriel's elaborate wedding in Sydney, she shows off Tania, Cheryl, and Janine as her bridesmaids; Rhonda, disgusted by Muriel's behavior, refuses to be one. Bill openly treats Deidre as his date, and Betty arrives late to the wedding due to being unable to afford plane tickets; Muriel doesn't notice her at the wedding. Rhonda moves back to her mother's home, unable to live in Sydney without help. After the wedding, David makes his contempt for Muriel clear to her.


title: Muriel's Wedding

text: In Porpoise Spit, an increasingly distraught Betty shoplifts a pair of sandals she tries on, and Dianne calls the police. Bill arranges for the charges to disappear. Soon after Betty pleads with Bill, telling him that she needs help, he announces his intention to divorce her and marry Deidre. Betty is later found dead by her daughter, Joanie. Deidre claims Betty had a heart attack, but Joanie reveals to Muriel that Betty's death was suicide.


title: Muriel's Wedding

text: When Muriel breaks down at her mother's funeral, David comforts her, and they finally consummate their marriage. Her mother's death forces Muriel to take a hard look at her life, and she tells David that she can no longer remain married to him as neither of them are in love, and she wants to stop lying.


title: Muriel's Wedding

text: Bill asks Muriel to help raise her siblings, as Deidre is less likely to marry him with the children in tow. He has also lost his job on city council. Muriel stands up to him, giving him $5,000 of her wedding money and telling him she will repay the rest of the stolen amount when she gets a job in Sydney. Impressing her father with her more assertive personality, Muriel demands that he stop his verbally abusive treatment of her siblings.


title: Muriel's Wedding

text: Muriel goes to Rhonda's house, where Muriel's former tormentors are visiting, and offers to take her back to Sydney. Rhonda accepts and lets the other girls know what she thinks of them. Muriel and Rhonda head to the airport, happily leaving Porpoise Spit behind for a more promising future.


title: Muriel's Wedding

text: The film used Tweed Heads as the locale for Porpoise Spit, although the scene of Muriel and Rhonda leaving Porpoise Spit was filmed in its adjoining "Twin Town", Coolangatta. Other filming locations included Moreton Island, Darlinghurst, the Gold Coast, Elanora, Tugun, Parramatta, Kensington, Surfers Paradise and Sydney.


title: Muriel's Wedding

text: The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 1994 and opened in Australia at the end of the month, a month after another Australian film, "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert".


title: Muriel's Wedding

text: "Muriel's Wedding" received positive reviews from critics and has a score of 80% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 45 reviews, with an average rating of 6.9/10. The critical consensus states "Heartfelt and quirky, though at times broad, "Muriel's Wedding" mixes awkward comedy, oddball Australian characters, and a nostalgia-heavy soundtrack." The film also has a score of 63 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 14 critics, indicating 'Generally favorable reviews'


title: Muriel's Wedding

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" stated the film "is merciless in its portrait of provincial society, and yet has a huge affection for its misfit survivors...has a lot of big and little laughs in it, but also a melancholy undercurrent, which reveals itself toward the end of the film in a series of surprises and unexpected developments...The film's good heart keeps it from ever making fun of Muriel, although there are moments that must have been tempting."


title: Muriel's Wedding

text: Peter Stack of the "San Francisco Chronicle" wrote "With such recent hits as "Strictly Ballroom" and "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert", Australia seems to be cornering the market for odd but delightful comedies laced with substance and romance. The latest, "Muriel's Wedding," is another bright, occasionally brilliant, example... the movie is much meatier than its larky comic sheen leads you to think at first...There's poignant drama in this brash, sometimes overstated film, and Muriel's transformation is truly touching."


title: Muriel's Wedding

text: Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" called it "exuberantly funny...a crowd pleaser that spices a tired formula with genuine feeling... In the final scenes, when Hogan dares to let his humor turn edgy, Collette's performance gains in force, and "Muriel's Wedding" becomes a date you want to keep."


title: Muriel's Wedding

text: "Muriel's Wedding" grossed AU$2.2 million in its opening week in Australia (September 1994) from 72 screens, at that time the third biggest opening for an Australian film behind two films starring Paul Hogan (no relation to the director of "Muriel's Wedding")"Crocodile Dundee II" (1988) and "Lightning Jack" (1994). It went on to gross AU$15.8 million (equivalent to AU$ million in ) at the box office in Australia.


title: Muriel's Wedding

text: It earned US$244,969 on 14 screens in its opening weekend in the US (March 1995) and eventually grossed US$15.1 million in the United States and Canada.


title: Muriel's Wedding

text: The music of ABBA forms the backbone of the film's soundtrack. Songwriters Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson allowed their use in the film and permitted "Dancing Queen" to be adapted as an orchestral piece. Additional ABBA songs included are "Mamma Mia", "Waterloo", "Fernando", and "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do".


title: Muriel's Wedding

text: ABBA only gave permission for their music to be included in the film two weeks before shooting commenced; the filmmakers were considering changing Muriel's favourite band to The Village People.


title: Muriel's Wedding

text: Also included in the soundtrack are "Sugar Baby Love" by The Rubettes, "The Tide Is High" by Blondie, "I Go to Rio" by Peter Allen, "Happy Together" by The Turtles, and Schubert's "Ave Maria".


title: Muriel's Wedding

text: In September 2016, it was announced that Sydney Theatre Company would produce a musical adaptation of "Muriel's Wedding". "Muriel's Wedding the Musical" incorporates songs by ABBA as well as original music by Kate Miller-Heidke and Keir Nuttall. P.J. Hogan wrote the musical's book, Simon Phillips directed, and Gabriela Tylesova designed the set and costumes. The musical ran at the Roslyn Packer Theatre from 6 November 2017 through 27 January 2018.


title: Conor Coady

text: Conor David Coady (born 25 February 1993) is an English professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for Everton, on loan from fellow club Wolverhampton Wanderers, and the England national team.


title: Conor Coady

text: Coady came through the academy system at Liverpool and made two appearances for the first team before spending a season on loan at Sheffield United and then moving to Huddersfield Town on a permanent transfer in 2014. A year later he signed for Wolverhampton Wanderers for £2 million and has played over 300 games for the club, winning the Championship in the 2017–18 season.


title: Conor Coady

text: Coady represented England at youth level, being named in the team of the tournament as England won the 2010 UEFA European Under-17 Championship and captaining the England under-20 team at the 2013 FIFA U-20 World Cup. He made his debut for the senior team in 2020 and was part of the squad that came runners-up at UEFA Euro 2020.


title: Conor Coady

text: Coady was born in St Helens, Merseyside, and grew up in nearby Haydock. He is of Irish descent through a grandparent. He attended Bleak Hill Primary School, Windle and Rainford High Technology College. He grew up supporting Liverpool F.C.


title: Conor Coady

text: Coady is a product of the Liverpool Youth Academy after joining the club in 2005. During the 2010–11 season, Coady was on the fringes of the first team, making the substitutes' bench twice but failed to make a first-team appearance. Coady played every Reserve League and NextGen Series match during the 2011–12 season, scoring five goals. Despite being named in the senior squad list and being called up to the senior squad occasionally from 2009, he did not make his senior début until 8 November 2012 in a UEFA Europa League group stage match against Anzhi Makhachkala. After Andre Wisdom's promotion as a full-time senior squad member, Conor Coady was installed as full-time captain of the Under-21 squad and on 12 May 2013 he made his Premier League debut in a 3–1 win at Fulham.


title: Conor Coady

text: Coady agreed a six-month loan with League One club Sheffield United on 22 July 2013, later stating that he had turned down the chance to go on Liverpool's pre-season tour of Australia and the Far East in order to join up with his new club. Coady made his debut for the Blades in the opening fixture of the following season, coming on as a second-half substitute in a 2–1 home victory over Notts County, and made his first start for the club in the following game, a League Cup first round defeat to League Two club Burton Albion.


title: Conor Coady

text: Coady scored his first senior goal in a 1–1 draw at Leyton Orient on 30 November 2013. Having been in and out of the team during the first half of the season, Coady began to cement a regular first-team place over the Christmas period, prompting United to extend his loan spell during the January transfer window, and once more in February to extend his stay until the end of the season. Coady played regularly for the Blades for the remainder of the season including playing on the losing side in the 5-3 loss to Hull City in the FA Cup semi-final and returned to Anfield having played 50 games and scored 6 goals.


title: Conor Coady

text: On 6 August 2014, Coady signed for Championship club Huddersfield Town on a three-year contract for a fee believed to be around £500,000. He made his debut as a substitute in the 4–0 defeat by AFC Bournemouth on 9 August. On 1 October, he scored his first goal for the club against Wolverhampton Wanderers where Town won 3–1 at Molineux Stadium. He again found the net, this time in a 2–2 draw against Rotherham United.


title: Conor Coady

text: On 3 July 2015, Coady signed for Championship club Wolverhampton Wanderers on a three-year contract for an undisclosed fee, believed to be around £2 million. He scored his first goal for Wolves in a 2–1 EFL Cup first round win against Crawley Town on 9 August 2016.


title: Conor Coady

text: Under new head coach Nuno Espírito Santo, Coady moved to the centre of a three-man defence for Wolves from the 2017–18 season onward, where he spent much of the season as club captain, and has been full-time captain since the club's return to the Premier League from the 2018–19 season. In September 2017 he signed a new four-year contract. On 21 April 2018, during his 120th league appearance for Wolves, he scored a 66th-minute penalty in a 4–0 win against Bolton Wanderers to record his first league goal for the club, as Wolves sealed the Championship title.


title: Conor Coady

text: On 15 February 2019, Coady signed a new contract lasting to June 2023. He was an ever-present player for Wolves in both the 2018–19 and 2019–20 Premier League seasons, in which they finished 7th in both cases. He also played every minute of Wolves' Europa League campaign in 2019–20 as they reached the quarter-finals. At the end of the competition, he was named in UEFA's Squad of the Season.


title: Conor Coady

text: On 30 September 2020, three weeks after Coady won his first full England cap, he signed a new five-year deal with the club, keeping him at Wolves until 2025. In late November, he missed the game against Southampton as he had been in contact with a person diagnosed with COVID-19; this broke an 84-game streak of playing every minute (7,560 in total), third-best for outfield players in the history of the Premier League.


title: Conor Coady

text: On 2 March 2021, Coady scored his first-ever Premier League goal, a header, in a 1–4 away defeat to Manchester City. His first home goal in the league was the following 15 January, on his 298th appearance for the club, in a 3–1 victory over Southampton. On 5 February 2022, he made his 300th competitive appearance for Wolves against Norwich City at home in the 4th round of the FA Cup. He scored the only goal on 13 March in a win at Everton that constituted Wolves's 1,000th win in top-flight football (over 67 seasons dating back to 1888) and also sealed their first league double over that opponent since 1972–73.


title: Conor Coady

text: On 8 August 2022, Coady signed for Premier League club Everton on a season-long loan with an option to buy. He made his debut five days later in a 2–1 loss at Aston Villa, leaving the game with a late injury. On 3 September, he put the ball in the net in the Merseyside derby against his childhood team Liverpool, but it was ruled off for offside in a goalless draw. On 1 October 2022, Coady scored his first goal for Everton in a 2-1 away win against Southampton.


title: Conor Coady

text: Coady has represented England from under-16 to under-20 youth levels. He has been capped 17 times for the England national under-17 football team. He played and captained the England team at the 2010 UEFA European Under-17 Championship in Liechtenstein where he and his England colleagues won the tournament, and became the first England team to win an international tournament in 17 years. He was then part of the 2012 UEFA European Under-19 Championship in Estonia in which England got as far as the semi-finals where they were knocked out by Greece. He was named captain of the England under-20 team by manager Peter Taylor for the 2013 FIFA U-20 World Cup. He made his debut for the team on 16 June, in a 3–0 win in a warm-up game against Uruguay. On 23 June, he scored in the opening group-stage game against Iraq.


title: Conor Coady

text: In August 2020 Coady was called up to the England senior squad by Gareth Southgate for the Nations League matches against Iceland and Denmark, starting in central defence against the latter on 8 September in a 0–0 draw, and in doing so becoming the first Wolves player to start for England since Steve Bull in 1990. Coady was awarded man of the match by Sky Sports. On 8 October 2020, Coady scored his first goal for England in his second appearance, a 3–0 friendly win against Wales at Wembley.


title: Conor Coady

text: Coady was in the England squad that came runners-up at UEFA Euro 2020, held in 2021. Though he did not play any games, he was dubbed England's "player of the tournament" by assistant manager Steve Holland, who believed that his presence in the team's camp was similar to that of John Terry when he played less often in his final years at Chelsea.


title: Conor Coady

text: In November 2021, Coady was named Football Ally of the Year at the British LGBT Awards for his outspoken support for gay footballers. Coady said that "Equality is a massive word, and when it comes to LGBTQ stuff, I'm big on making people feel involved." Coady concluded that in his team "[criticising a player based on their sexuality] would never be the case within [our] dressing room."


title: Leviathan Wakes

text: Leviathan Wakes is a science fiction novel by James S. A. Corey, the pen name of American writers Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. It is the first book in the "Expanse" series, followed by "Caliban's War" (2012), "Abaddon's Gate" (2013) and six other novels. "Leviathan Wakes" was nominated for the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Novel and the 2012 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. The novel was adapted for television in 2015 as the first season-and-a-half of "The Expanse" by Syfy. Five short stories that take place before, during, or after "Leviathan Wakes" were published between 2011 and 2019.


title: Leviathan Wakes

text: "Leviathan Wakes" is set in a future in which humanity has colonized much of the Solar System. Earth, governed by the United Nations, and the Martian Congressional Republic act as competing superpowers, maintaining an uneasy military alliance in order to exert dual hegemony over the peoples of the Asteroid belt, known as "Belters". Belters, whose bodies tend to be thin and elongated owing to their low-gravity environment, carry out the gritty, blue-collar work that provides the system with essential natural resources, but they are largely marginalized by the rest of the Solar System. The Outer Planets Alliance (OPA), a network of loosely-aligned militant groups, seeks to combat the Belt's exploitation at the hands of the "Inners", who, in turn, have branded the OPA a terrorist organization. The story is told from the point of view of Belter detective Joe Miller, and Earther Jim Holden.


title: Leviathan Wakes

text: The ice hauling ship "Canterbury" (nicknamed the "Cant" by Belters) is en route from Saturn's Rings to Ceres Station when it encounters a distress signal. Five members of the "Cant"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s crew are dispatched in a shuttle to investigate: executive officer James "Jim" Holden, a former officer in the UN Navy (UNN); chief engineer Naomi Nagata, a Belter; pilot Alex Kamal, a veteran of the Martian navy (MCRN); engineer Amos Burton; and medic Shed Garvey. They discover an abandoned transport vessel called the "Scopuli". They find no trace of the ship's crew, but they do discover the beacon transmitting the distress signal. Suspecting that the ship may be a trap set by pirates, they take the beacon and begin returning to the "Cant". Before they can make it, an unknown stealth warship arrives and, without warning, destroys the "Cant" with nuclear weapons. Holden sends an angry message to the attacking ship, but it ignores him and departs. Based on the highly advanced technology of the warship and the discovery that the beacon from the "Scopuli" is of Martian origin, the survivors suspect the MCRN of being behind the attack.


title: Leviathan Wakes

text: With the shuttle damaged by the debris field, lacking the necessary fuel or supplies to reach a port, and fearful that should they put out a distress signal of their own, the attackers may return, Holden broadcasts a message out to the entire system implicating Mars in the destruction of the "Cant", hoping to negate any attempt to kill them as part of a cover-up. In response, the shuttle is ordered to rendezvous with the MCRN battleship "Donnager", flagship of Mars' Jupiter Fleet. En route, they receive a message from Fred Johnson, chief of Tycho Station, an engineering outpost and construction platform, offering his support. Johnson had been a highly decorated commander in the UNN when he was ordered to brutally quell a Belter uprising, for which he was nicknamed the "Butcher of Anderson Station." Guilt-stricken, he had resigned his commission and become an advocate for the rights of Belters. As the shuttle makes its way to the rendezvous, they are pursued by a group of unknown ships. On Ceres Station, Belter detective Josephus "Joe" Miller of Star Helix Security, the Earth-based private security firm responsible for policing the station, is contracted to locate Julie Mao, daughter of wealthy magnate Jules-Pierre Mao, and send her back to her family on Luna against her will. When Holden's message reaches Ceres, riots erupt, which leads Miller to discover that the station's riot gear is missing.


title: Leviathan Wakes

text: Aboard the "Donnager", the ship's captain denies any knowledge of MCRN involvement in the attack on the "Canterbury", and instead suspects that one or more of the survivors from the shuttle may have bombed the "Cant" as an act of OPA terrorism. The unknown ships that were pursuing the shuttle ignore warnings to change course and are fired on by the "Donnager". To the surprise of the Martian crew, the ships return fire and are revealed to be the same stealth ships that attacked the "Cant". Despite the fact that the "Donnager" is one of the most advanced and deadly warships in the Solar System, it is steadily overwhelmed by the mysterious enemy ships and eventually boarded. During the battle, a railgun round penetrates the hull, decapitating Shed. Realizing that the "Cant" survivors are the targets of the attack, a team of the "Donnager"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s Marine contingent are ordered to evacuate them. Although all of the Martian Marines are killed in the process, the four surviving "Cant" crew members are able to escape aboard the corvette "Tachi" just before the "Donnager" is scuttled. Still unsure of who is trying to kill them, they decide to go to Tycho Station. There, the "Cant" survivors share what they've seen with Fred Johnson, who reveals that he is an influential member of the OPA. They receive new transponder codes for the "Tachi" from Fred, disguise the ship as a gas hauler, and rename it the "Rocinante". Fred sends the "Roci" (as her crew nicknames her) to Eros Station to find an OPA operative working under the pseudonym Lionel Polanski.


title: Leviathan Wakes

text: On Ceres, Miller has noticed an exodus of criminals from the station. He also discovers that Julie Mao's father had warned her of an attack in the Belt just two weeks before the destruction of the "Cant". He is then confronted by Anderson Dawes, leader of the Ceres chapter of the OPA, who tells him that Julie Mao had joined the OPA and had disappeared while performing an important mission for them aboard the "Scopuli". Dawes cautions Miller not to investigate the matter any further. Miller presents this information to his boss, Captain Shaddid, but she also instructs him to drop the case. Miller, however, finds himself obsessing over Julie and, when he persists, he is fired by Shaddid, who is revealed to be in collusion with Dawes. However, Miller is still able to access docking logs for all of the ports in the Belt, which he had been granted access to before his termination. Realizing that the "Scopuli" was the same ship mentioned in Holden's broadcast, he is able to discern that the "Rocinante" is the former "Tachi" from its registry information, and he departs for Eros. On Eros, Miller finds the crew of the "Roci" at a hotel where Lionel Polanski was listed as a guest. In Polanski's room, they find the body of Julie Mao covered in a strange organic growth. On her phone, Miller finds logs detailing the progression of her affliction, which seems to be fueled by exposure to energy and radiation, and the coordinates of an asteroid where one of the ships that attacked the "Cant" is docked. Before they can leave the station, a radiation alert is declared and station security begins herding people into radiation shelters. Miller recognizes some of the security officers as criminals from Ceres, who are wearing the missing Star Helix riot gear. He and Holden stay behind to investigate while the rest of the crew is sent back to the "Roci". They discover that the people in the shelters have been dosed with an unknown substance and exposed to extremely high levels of radiation. As they make their way to the docks, they realize that the people in the shelters were infected with the same organism as Julie and the radiation was used to feed its rapid growth. They see the infected attacking the security forces and spreading the infection to anyone who had been able to avoid the radiation chambers. They escape as it is being overrun.


title: Leviathan Wakes

text: Fred contacts Holden and tells him that analysis of a data chip belonging to one of the dead Marines from the "Donnager" reveals that the mysterious stealth ships were built on Luna. Holden makes another public broadcast sharing this information, hoping to ease the tensions created by his prior implicating of the MCRN. This strategy backfires, however, and the UN, fearing that they will be blamed for the attack on the "Donnager", launch a preemptive strike against the MCRN by destroying Deimos, site of a Martian military installation, which results in a standoff between the two sides. Miller and the crew of the "Roci" follow the coordinates from Julie's phone and find one of the stealth ships, called the "Anubis", abandoned. In the reactor room, they find that the same organic growth that was on Julie Mao's body has consumed the entire remaining crews of the "Anubis" and the "Scopuli", whom they had taken prisoner. They find a video explaining that the organism is a biological replication mechanism created by extrasolar aliens and placed on Phoebe which was then launched into the Solar System with the intent of reaching Earth and hijacking its early biosphere in order to create something, but was captured by Saturn's gravity instead, thus sparing Earth. Protogen, the corporation who had discovered the entity on Phoebe and dubbed it the "protomolecule," orchestrated its release on Eros as an experiment, to try to find out what it was designed to do. They had carried out the false flag attack on the "Cant" in order to start a war that would distract the Solar System from what was happening on Eros. The "Roci" crew nuke the "Anubis" and return to Tycho Station, where they discover that data is being transmitted from Eros to a secret Protogen facility. They attack the station, with the "Roci" destroying the two stealth ships guarding it, and Miller and Fred leading a boarding party consisting of Fred's OPA soldiers, who are able to capture it.


title: Leviathan Wakes

text: The lead scientist, Antony Dresden, reveals that all of the scientists on the station had been "modified to remove ethical restraints," so that they could emotionlessly perform their research without empathy for the victims on Eros. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the Protomolecule, not only for its innate scientific value, but to protect against the clear threat presented by the aliens who created it. Realizing that Dresden's rationale is likely to be accepted by the powers that be on Earth and Mars, and his horrific research allowed to continue, Miller shoots Dresden without warning, angering Holden. "He was going to get away with it," Miller explains later, "He was talking us into it. All that about getting the stars and protecting ourselves from whatever shot that thing at Earth? I was starting to think maybe he should get away with it. Maybe things were just too big for right and wrong." Back on Tycho, Miller and Fred come up with a plan to destroy Eros to prevent anyone else from trying to obtain a sample of the protomolecule. They intend to commandeer Tycho's main project, the massive Mormon generation ship "Nauvoo", and crash it into Eros at the correct speed and angle to propel it into the Sun. Miller leads a team onto the exterior of Eros to plant bombs to detonate its ports, so that no one can get in and sample the protomolecule before it is destroyed. He then decides to stay behind and die when they go off. Just before the "Nauvoo" impacts the station, the trajectory of Eros is inexplicably altered. The Protomolecule has an advanced method of spaceflight that can negate g-force and inertia. Eros then sets out for Earth, the largest source of biomass in the Solar System, at a speed that no human-made ship can match. Miller takes one of the bombs into the station to attempt to destroy its maneuvering capabilities. However, listening to the voices on the communication system, he realizes that Eros is being guided by Julie Mao, who believes she is piloting her racing pinnace. He finds her infected body is the host in a parasitic relationship with the protomolecule. He is able to convince her to direct Eros away from Earth. The station crashes into the surface of Venus, where the Protomolecule begins assembling a new, unknown structure.


title: Leviathan Wakes

text: Kirkus Reviews, Locus Online and other reviewers praised the novel. The book's action sequences were highlighted by SF Signal, and Tor.com wrote that the book had a "satisfying volume completion". Wired.com's GeekDad praised the novel for not containing "overly-complex descriptions of the way governments and corporations work" or "made-up words and cryptic names". Guy Molinari "expressed surprise" that a fictional outer space "cargo ship "Guy Molinari"" was named in 2012 after the NYC Staten Island "Guy V Molinari" ferry.


title: Leviathan Wakes

text: One of the main subtexts of the novel has been highlighted by Frederick A. de Armas who discusses in detail the many elements derived from Miguel de Cervantes's "Don Quixote". In Chapter 17 of the novel, for example, a crew on the run, led by earther Jim Holden is given command of a state-of-the-art Martian frigate. After being pursued they are able to use a new transponder to disguise the ship: "Holden punched the comm system on the wall. 'Well, crew, welcome to the gas freighter "Rocinante." 'What does the name even mean?' Naomi said after he let go of the comm button. 'It means we need to find some windmills.'". In addition to a fast freighter given the name of Don Quixote's horse, De Armas studies the uses of parody in the novel; the quixotic attitudes that develop in Jim Holden and Joe Miller; the image of Julie Mao as Dulcinea; and the meaning of the windmills or giants. For Robin Seemangal, who relies more on the television series than on the novel, the quixotic windmills have to do with perception. As James Holden comes up on a plain with windmills, these could refer to the UN, Mars or the OPA "and how he perceives them many not be what they are".


title: Leviathan Wakes

text: "Leviathan Wakes" was followed by the novel "Caliban's War" in 2012 and "Abaddon's Gate" in 2013. It was announced in 2012 that Orbit Books had ordered a further three books in the Expanse series, in addition to five novellas set in the same universe. The first of these sequels was announced in September 2013 as "Cibola Burn" and was released on June 17, 2014, in hardcover, Kindle, and on Audible in the US. Later additions to the series include "Nemesis Games", "Babylon's Ashes", "Persepolis Rising", "Tiamat's Wrath", and finally "Leviathan Falls".


title: Leviathan Wakes

text: "Drive" is set before "Leviathan Wakes". Released on November 27, 2012, it is only seven pages long. "Drive" was originally published as part of the sci-fi anthology "Edge of Infinity" edited by Jonathan Strahan. It was made available to read free on the Syfy website. In the short story, Solomon Epstein, the inventor of the modified fusion drive he dubs "The Epstein Drive", which allows spaceships to travel much faster, further and for a longer amount of time, tests out his creation, realizing that he's going so fast he cannot stop, and will have to wait for the fuel to run out so he can contact another ship and ask them to save him, though he notes that they will have to have twice as much burn on their ship as his to go out and back to get him.


title: Leviathan Wakes

text: "The Churn" is set before "Leviathan Wakes". It was published on April 29, 2014, and consisted of 75 pages, making it the longest of the non-novel stories published by James S. A. Corey, tied with "Gods of Risk".


title: Leviathan Wakes

text: "The Butcher of Anderson Station" is set before "Leviathan Wakes". It was published on October 17, 2011, and consisted of 40 pages.


title: Leviathan Wakes

text: "The Last Flight of the Cassandra" takes place during the events of "Leviathan Wakes" and was released on May 14, 2019. At only five pages long, "The Last Flight of the Cassandra" is the shortest story yet. It was also included in "The Expanse Role-Playing Game" rulebook published by Green Ronin Publishing.


title: Leviathan Wakes

text: "The Vital Abyss" spans a time period from before "Leviathan Wakes" to well into the fourth novel in the series, "Cibola Burn". Published on October 15, 2015, it is the second-longest novella by James S. A. Corey at 74 pages long.


title: Isabel Perón

text: Isabel Martínez de Perón (, born María Estela Martínez Cartas, 4 February 1931), also known as Isabelita, is an Argentine politician who served as President of Argentina from 1974 to 1976. She was one of the first female republican heads of state in the world, and the first woman to serve as president of a country.


title: Isabel Perón

text: Isabel Perón was the third wife of President Juan Perón. During her husband's third term as president from 1973 to 1974, she served as both Vice President and First Lady of Argentina. Following her husband's death in office in 1974, she served as President for almost two years before the military took over the government with the 1976 coup. Perón was then placed under house arrest for five years before she was exiled to Spain in 1981.


title: Isabel Perón

text: In 2007 an Argentine judge ordered Perón's arrest over the forced disappearance of an activist in February 1976, on the grounds that the disappearance was authorized by her signing of decrees allowing Argentina's armed forces to take action against "subversives". She was arrested near her home in Spain on 12 January 2007. Spanish courts subsequently refused her extradition to Argentina.


title: Isabel Perón

text: Since the death of Carlos Menem on 14 February 2021, Perón is the oldest living former Argentine president.


title: Isabel Perón

text: María Estela Martínez Cartas was born in La Rioja, Argentina, daughter of María Josefa Cartas Olguín and Carmelo Martínez. She dropped out of school after the fifth grade. In the early 1950s she became a nightclub dancer adopting the name Isabel, the saint's name (the Spanish form of that of Saint Elizabeth of Portugal) that she had chosen as a confirmation name.


title: Isabel Perón

text: She met her future husband during his exile in Panama. Juan Domingo Perón, who was 35 years her senior, was attracted by her beauty and believed she could provide him with the female companionship he had been lacking since the death of his beloved second wife Eva Perón (Evita) in 1952. Perón brought Isabel with him when he moved to Madrid, Spain, in 1960. Authorities did not approve of Perón's cohabitation with a young woman to whom he was not married, so on 15 November 1961 the former president reluctantly married for a third time.


title: Isabel Perón

text: As Perón resumed an active role in Argentine politics from exile, Isabel acted as a go-between from Spain to Argentina. Having been deposed in a coup in 1955, Perón was forbidden from returning to Argentina, so his new wife was appointed to travel in his stead. The CGT leader José Alonso became one of her main advisers in Perón's dispute against Steelworkers' leader Augusto Vandor's Popular Union faction during mid-term elections in 1965; Alonso and Vandor were both later assassinated in as-yet unexplained circumstances.


title: Isabel Perón

text: Isabel met José López Rega, who was a former policeman with an interest in occultism and fortune-telling, during a visit to Argentina in 1964. She was interested in occult matters (and as president reportedly employed astrological divination to determine national policy), so the two quickly became friends. Under pressure from Isabel, Perón appointed López as his personal secretary; López later founded the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (Triple A), a death squad accused of perpetrating 1,500 crimes in the 1970s.


title: Isabel Perón

text: Dr. Héctor Cámpora was nominated by Perón's Justicialist Party to run in the March 1973 presidential elections on the FREJULI ticket (a Peronist-led alliance). Cámpora won, but it was generally understood that Juan Perón held the real power; a popular phrase at the time was ""Cámpora al gobierno, Perón al poder"" (Cámpora in government, Perón in power). Later that year, Perón returned to Argentina, and Cámpora resigned to allow Perón to run for president. He chose Isabel as his nominee for the Vice Presidency to mollify feuding Peronist factions, as these could agree on no other running mate. His return from exile was marked by a growing rift between the right and left wings of the Peronist movement; while Cámpora represented the left wing, López Rega represented the right wing. The latter was, moreover, supported by the CGT labor federation leadership and Isabel herself, and this faction became known by the left as the "entorno" ('entourage') due to the inner circle status Perón afforded them. Juan Perón had long been inimical to the left, but cultivated their support while he was in exile. His sympathies ended, however, after the assassination of CGT leader José Ignacio Rucci by the leftist Montoneros in September.


title: Isabel Perón

text: Perón's victory in a snap election called by Congress in September 1973 was always considered likely, and he won with 62% of the vote. He began his third term on 12 October, with Isabel as Vice President. Perón was by then in precarious health, however; a CIA cable at the time described him as alternating between a lucid state and that of senile dependency. Isabel had to take over as Acting President on several occasions during his tenure.


title: Isabel Perón

text: Juan Perón suffered a series of heart attacks on 28 June 1974; Isabel was summoned home from a European trade mission and secretly sworn in as acting president the next day. Juan Perón died on 1 July 1974, less than a year after his third election to office. As vice-president his widow formally ascended to the presidency, thus becoming the first woman in the world to hold the title of "President", although she was not the first woman to lead a country. She was popularly known as "La Presidente".


title: Isabel Perón

text: Although she lacked Evita Perón's charisma, the grieving widow at first attracted support from the nation. She pledged to uphold the social market economy policies embodied in the 1973 "Social Pact" as well her husband's long-held economic nationalism; her first significant economic policy decisions were the enactment of a new, pro-labor employment contract law and the granting to YPF a monopoly over filling stations. Even leftist groups, having fallen out with Juan Perón in previous months, publicly offered support to her. However she cancelled meetings with various constituent and political groups, and the sympathy resulting from her husband's death soon dissipated. Her government purged most leftists from university posts and the administration, and (as her husband and other Argentine presidents had done) used Federal intervention powers to unseat leftist governors. Following a string of political murders and a break by the Montoneros with the government, on 30 September Perón signed the Anti-Terrorism Law. This was the first in a series of measures which eroded constitutional rights, ostensibly for the sake of combating leftist violence.


title: Isabel Perón

text: Another source of contention between her and the voters was the increasing impression that José López Rega, the Minister of Social Welfare, set the agenda for a broad swath of Perón's policies, vetting nearly all domestic and foreign policy. His public behaviour – which included bizarre actions such as silently mouthing her words as she spoke – began to cost the president much-needed support among the Argentine public. Known to have fascist sympathies, López Rega was also notably corrupt and used his position to secure business partnerships with (ODESSA network principal) Otto Skorzeny, (Libyan leader) Muammar Gaddafi, and (the Italian Fascist) Licio Gelli (to whose P-2 lodge López Rega belonged).


title: Isabel Perón

text: López Rega's greatest influence upon Isabel Perón's presidency came through his recently formed Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (Triple A). A right-wing paramilitary force, between late 1973 and late 1974 the Triple A had already carried out nearly 300 murders, including that of Professor Silvio Frondizi (brother of former President Arturo Frondizi), Congressman Rodolfo Ortega Peña, activist Father Carlos Mugica, Buenos Aires Province Assistant Police Chief Julio Troxler, former Córdoba Vice-Governor Atilio López and former Chilean Army head Carlos Prats. Other prominent public servants, such as UCR Senator Hipólito Solari Yrigoyen, and left-wing University of Buenos Aires President Rodolfo Puiggrós, narrowly survived Triple A attacks; Puiggrós was then removed from his post.