Hi outrigger,
It is true that the pill was originally used to treat infertility, and
other "gynecological disorders", but there were a number of players
involved in the development of the pill, and each had there own set of
motives and intentions.
In fact, the main drug in the pill, progesterone, is still used today
to treat infertility: "Progesterone vascularizes the uterine lining,
increasing the blood supply in preparation for potential implantation
of a fertilized egg."
http://www.conceivingconcepts.com/learning/articles/progesterone.html
---------------------------------------
Here's a very thorough timeline detailing the history of birth control
and the events leading up to (and following) "the pill":
The timeline spans two webpages (Genesis-1950 and 1951-1990):
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/timeline/index.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/timeline/timeline2.html
The following excerpts are from the timeline or related pages.
One of the early investigators of using progesterone as a birth
control was Gregory Pincus:
(1951) "January/February: Margaret Sanger, now 72 years old, makes one
last ditch effort to find someone to invent her "magic pill." At a
dinner party in New York City she is introduced to Gregory Pincus and
implores him to take up her quest. To her surprise, he tells her that
it might be possible with hormones, but that he will need significant
funding to proceed."
(Source - Timeline)
Here's a bio on Pincus:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/peopleevents/p_pincus.html
"A Hunch about Progesterone
When Sanger and McCormick approached Pincus in 1953 about developing a
new form of contraception, he was confident he could deliver. Pincus
was aware of a study showing that progesterone could work as an
effective anti-ovulent, and he had a hunch it would prove to be a good
contraceptive drug. With funding from McCormick, in a matter of months
Pincus and his colleague Min-Chueh Chang proved that repeated
injections of progesterone stopped ovulation in animals."
(Source - Pincus Bio)
"Trials
Pincus's real challenge, however, would be to invent an inexpensive
pill form of the drug. In a stroke of good timing, chemists working
for two separate drug companies had recently created orally effective
forms of synthetic progesterone. Although both pharmaceutical
companies were wary of using their new compounds for contraceptive
purposes, both Syntex and Searle allowed Pincus to use the formulatins
in his preliminary human studies. With the pills in hand, Pincus began
collaborating with the well known fertility specialist, Dr. John Rock,
on human trials in Massachusetts. After initial success with small
trials, Rock and Pincus launched large-scale human trials for the Pill
in Puerto Rico in 1956, using Searle's formulation."
(Source - Pincus Bio)
(1951) "October 15: Unbeknownst to Pincus or Sanger, a chemist named
Carl Djerassi working out of an obscure lab in Mexico City creates an
orally effective form of synthetic progesterone -- a progesterone
pill. The actual chemistry of the Pill has been invented, but neither
Djerassi nor the company he works for, Syntex, has any interest in
testing it as a contraceptive."
(Source - Timeline)
The following excerpt mentions that a Dr. John Rock was using
progesterone to treat infertility:
(1952)January: "At a scientific conference, Pincus has a chance
encounter with the renowned Harvard obstetrician and gynecologist Dr.
John Rock. Pincus is astonished to learn that Rock has already been
testing the chemical contraceptive on women and demonstrating that it
works. Rock has been giving the same drug to his infertility patients
with the eventual goal of stimulating pregnancy after his patients
finish a 3 to 5 month regimen of progesterone injections."
(Source - Timeline)
Cheers! |
