In 1950, the scientist Carl Djerassi managed to synthesize in Mexico a progesterone derivative with two revolutionary characteristics: it was a very potent anovulatory and it was resistant to digestion, which allowed it to be administered orally -a very functional route of administration for users.
However, when Djerassi started working with this hormone, birth control was not his goal. Proof of this is that in his autobiography he confessed: «Not even in our wildest dream (...) did we imagine it»; as well as, quoting Bernard Shaw, he also wrote: «Science is always wrong: it never solves one problem without creating ten new ones».
In this regard, towards the end of his life, in his last scientific article, published in the journal Science in 1990, left us with the challenge of teaching women to recognize their ovulation in an easy and accessible way (he spoke of the possibility of «bars» that would inform them of their hormonal status). Truly aware that, after the Sexual Revolution, the world had changed, Carl Djerassi insisted on putting aside his invention in favor of fertility recognition, which today is known as «Natural Fertility Recognition».
With this sentiment, Carl Djerassi did not admit to being recognized as the inventor of the pill; he called himself «the mother of the pill»; and Gregory Pincus, «the father of the pill». In the 1950s, two other scientists, Gregory Pincus and John Rock, took advantage of Djerassi's invention and, with the economic support of activist Margaret Sanger and philanthropist Katherine McCormick, developed clinical trials -in a short time, with very high doses and without much information- among Puerto Rican women.
Thus, in 1960, in the USA, the pharmaceutical company G.D. Searle & Company marketed Enovid®, the first legally available contraceptive pill in the world. This opened up a highly functional hormonal contraceptive route for women.
Controversies about the side effects of the Pill
In the 1970s, the commercialization of the pill progressed at the same time as the controversy over its side effects in some users. That is why, since then, formulations with new combinations and lower hormone doses began to be developed, while at the same time the temporariness of the treatment was advised.
Today, the trail of side effects of the pill persists: decreased libido, headaches and migraines, nausea and vomiting, irregular bleeding, weight gain, fluid retention, mood swings...
A review of Williams et al. in 2021 refers to some of these effects and, above all, other more adverse ones, such as, for example, the increased risk of:
- HIV transmission;
- cardiovascular diseases;
- diabetic progression;
- depression and other emotional disorders -much more accentuated among adolescents-;
- cervical cancer, endometrial cancer; breast cancer - the latter also reported in a more recent study by the University of Oxford in Plos Medicine (2023); and all of them more accentuated in women with a family history of these cancers.
Regarding some of these adverse effects, the study identified biased information to female users in the medical prescription.
Despite these effects, the contraceptive pill turns 65 years old
As we can intuit, even without considering the anthropological disorder that the pill has provoked - in the woman, in the man and in the couple - hormonal contraception, seen solely from the perspective of female biology, induces an artificial physiological state that, in certain cases, can derive into a pathological state.
In spite of everything, the contraceptive pill is still going strong: on this anniversary it has reached 65 years of age. et al. published in 2021, 254 million women between 19 and 45 years of age worldwide -almost 14% of the total- use it. We see that the pill is advancing on its way, indifferent to what it leaves behind; and its consumption continues to be presented as part of a right... with a face, but without a cross.
Pharmacist. Expert in Sexual Affective Education.
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