the Female Body GOVERNING

2
Beyond Pill Scares?
Online Discussion on Genetic Thrombophilia
and Gendered Contradictions
of Personalized Medicine
PAULA SAUKKO
Loughborough University
In October 1995 all U.K. doctors received a letter from the
Committee on the Safety of Medicines regarding a study that had
identified a correlation between the use of third-generation oral contraceptives
and the occurrence of deep vein thrombosis (DVT), which
was widely reported in the media. Afterward the medical community,
blaming the committee and sensationalist media, reported a rise in the
number of abortions and births (Drife, 1996). This 1995 “Pill scare”
was not the first of its kind. The association between drugs containing
estrogen and DVT had been reported in 1961 (Jordan, 1961), nearly
coinciding with the mass release of the Pill in 1960 and resulting
in major controversy, which provoked, among others, acidic feminist
remarks, which Briggs discusses in this volume.
In 1994 the University of Leiden identified a gene alteration that
increased, even if not dramatically, an individual’s susceptibility to DVT
(Bertina et al., 1994). Some doctors were soon suggesting that women
going on oral contraceptives be tested for this “factor V Leiden” (FVL)
alteration. The discovery of FVL promised to resolve the mystery of
the Pill and blood clots, which had made women of reproductive age
nervous by identifying the minority of women who were likely to have
a DVT while on the Pill. It seemed one of the first success stories in
preventive genomics, which had sought to identify “at-risk” individuals
and to help them to prevent common diseases from cardiovascular
disease and diabetes to cancer (e.g., Collins, Green, Guttmacher, &
Guyer, 2003; Department of Health, 2003; Weinshillboum, 2003).
Thrombophilia was later also discovered to be associated with miscarriage
and stillbirth. It was suggested that testing could help identify
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