TODAY’S soaring supermodels radiate the message that a girl can never be too tall or too thin. It wasn’t always thus. Just a few decades ago some parents worried so much about their daughters growing too lanky to walk demurely on the arm of a future date that they sought medical help. Doctors obliged by prescribing oestrogen to stunt their growth. Now many of those girls are women with fertility problems who are intensely unhappy about the treatment they received (see “Stunting growth harms fertility”).
The oestrogen treatment is seldom used today but raises questions about a different hormone.…
