1960: The birth control pill wins the approval of the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA gives its blessing to the 10-milligram dose of Enovid, which by then had been in clinical trials for four years, and the Searle drug company starts selling the pill a month later.
The pill, which was nearly 100 percent effective, nevertheless came with some severe side effects, including life-threatening blood clots. Further research found that the approved dose was 10 times too high.
The first pill was developed from synthetic progesterone, which itself derived from the steroid that occurs naturally in the human fertility cycle.
Science continued refining the pill until, by the 1980s, safer and effective lower-dose variants were available. Other birth-control methods evolved as well, including the T-shaped intrauterine device, although they fell out of favor after one of them -- the Dalkon Shield -- was found to cause pelvic inflammatory disease.
Today’s woman can still opt for the pill in various forms, although the birth-control patch -- which slowly releases hormones through the skin -- is proving equally effective.
(Source: WebMD)
This article first appeared on Wired.com May 9, 2007.
See Also:- Artifacts From the Future: Birth Control
