'A cage of ovulating females': The development and testing of the oral birth control pill

Tiny Matters

The 1940s were a pivotal time for the world. In the United States, as men went to fight in World War II, women became essential additions to the US workforce. And when the war ended, many of those women wanted to continue working. But having more children than they wanted or could care for was a huge barrier to making that a reality. When the oral birth control pill became available in 1960, it was a massive deal because it gave women control over when and if they wanted to have children. Today the pill is widely accepted, comes in a number of formulations, and is considered so safe that now you can buy it over the counter. But setting the groundwork for what we have available today took time, and experimentation. The history of the pill was also shaped by racism in an era where discrimination was not just state-sanctioned, but backed by many scientific institutions. In this episode of Tiny Matters, we cover the science and development of the oral birth control pill and, importantly, the lack of ethics in its testing, particularly in the trials that began in Puerto Rico in 1955.
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Chapters

1. The need for effective contraceptives (00:00:00)

2. Margaret Sanger was also a eugenicist (00:02:22)

3. How the pill was funded and early research (00:04:17)

4. Puerto Rico as a testing ground (00:08:22)

5. Tiny show and tell: Why grapefruit and some drugs don't mix and a fungus battery (00:20:55)