Officials at USA Today are giving "close attention" to reports of an unusually high number of miscarriages suffered by women working in its Arlington, Va., newsrooms, the newspaper's editor said Friday.
The Washington Post said 14 of the 100 women working in the newsrooms have had miscarriages since September 1987."It's a personal situation involving people's lives," Peter S. Pritchard, editor of USA Today, said. "We're giving it close attention."
The newspaper said an informal survey revealed the number of miscarriages, and the matter was discussed with at a staff meeting.
It quoted Allen J. Wilcox, an epidemiologist who has studied miscarriages for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, as saying the number of cases at USA Today "falls squarely in the category of something that ought to be looked at." The report did not indicate that Wilcox had any personal knowledge of the USA Today cases.
Wilcox was quoted as saying 12 percent to 15 percent of all pregnancies end in miscarriages.