the Female Body GOVERNING

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Since preventing ovulation prevents pregnancy, one could employ the
same principles in birth control. . . . Thus, for example, if an individual
took 1 mg. diethylstilbestrol [DES, a synthetic estrogen] by mouth daily
from the fi rst day of her period for the next six weeks, she would not
ovulate. (Albright quoted in Reed, 1983, p. 316)
Indeed, when Gregory Pincus presented the earliest results from the
line of research that became the fi rst contraceptive “pill” at a conference
in 1955, the session’s chair, Sir Solly Zuckerman, felt that he had shown
nothing that was not already well-known: that progestin inhibits ovulation
(Marks, 1998; Vaughan, 1970, pp. 34–35). The scientifi c obstacles
to producing a birth control pill had been solved by 1940, and the point
seemed obvious by 1945, yet it was another decade before there were
clinical trials. Other forces than the purely scientifi c were at work both
in inhibiting and promoting birth control research.
Risks, the Pill, and Overpopulation
The principle reason why this line of research was halted in 1940 was that
it seemed too great a risk for too little gain. The “pill” would represent a
major break with previous conventional wisdom about pharmaceuticals;
it was the fi rst such systemically active compound given to a population
that was healthy, that did not even have a disease that might counterbalance
the dangers of a steroidal drug of unknown effects. Researchers
had no way to know whether or not the Pill was safe. If many people
were aware in 1940 that making a contraceptive pill was possible yet
still did not, it was because it seemed impossible to predict the side
effects. Indeed, this was Zuckerman’s warning to Pincus at the 1955
Tokyo conference where his initial results were presented; he said:
We need better evidence about the occurrence of side effects in human
beings. It is not enough though . . . that we take presumed negative
evidence about the lack of side-effects from animal experiments to
imply that no undesirable side-effects would occur in human beings.
There is an urgent need for prolonged observation before we draw
any fi rm conclusions. (Vaughan, 1970, p. 39)
In fact, three pharmaceutical companies—Searle, Parke-Davis, and
Pfizer—possessed patents and animal studies in 1955 that would have
enabled them to begin clinical trials with the hope of turning a considerable
profit, but there was no competition. Those at Parke-Davis and
Pfizer believed that clinical trials would be dangerous and unethical;