Nation IN BRIEF : NEW JERSEY : Company Recalls Birth Control Pills

Twenty-two lots of birth control pills were recalled because placebos in the packages may be out of place and cause confusion. Barry Cohen, a spokesman for the Parke-Davis Division of Morris Plains, N.J.-based Warner-Lambert Co., said that if a woman were to take the inert brown tablets before the contraceptive pills, instead of after, “an unwanted pregnancy might occur.” Cohen said in New York that fewer than 100 dispensers of Loestrin and Norlestrin were improperly packaged. “We’re hoping that women familiar with the tablets would know immediately,” he said. The contraceptives are taken daily except for seven days of the menstrual cycle. The inactive pills are placed in the dispensers to help women stay in the habit of taking one tablet each day. In the recalled packages, the placebos may be in the top row of the dispensers rather than on the bottom row, Cohen said.