The Birth Control Pill | Paradise and the Pill | 3
American Innovations
Audible
4.6 • 4.1K Ratings
🗓️ 27 June 2019
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Since its launch, the birth control project had faced one obstacle after another. And over the year and a half that they’d been working, they had managed to solve all of their problems, except one: recruiting test subject for human trials.
Birth control was still illegal in the US, so they couldn’t advertise the study, and if they couldn’t advertise, they couldn’t recruit subjects. At the time, the problem seemed insurmountable. But then, while on vacation, Dr. Gregory Pincus found the solution to his recruitment problem: Puerto Rico.
Birth control was legal on the island, and more importantly, the women were desperate for an answer to their population problem. There was no doubt in Pincus’s mind: these clinical trials would cement the project’s place in history. And he was right. The trials for the birth control pill would come to be known as one of the most controversial studies in the history of American medicine.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to American innovations |
| 0:03.6 | ad-free on Amazon Music, download the app today. |
| 0:07.0 | This episode of American Innovations contains some sexual content |
| 0:11.6 | and is not suitable for everyone. Please be advised. |
| 0:25.0 | It's February 17, 1954. |
| 0:29.0 | And in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the sun is slowly starting to set. |
| 0:33.0 | Dr. Gregory Pincas is sitting poolside, trying to relax. |
| 0:38.0 | He came to town for a medical conference, but he stayed a few extra days to recharge his batteries, |
| 0:44.0 | doctors orders. Pincas' last physical revealed he was literally exhausted. |
| 0:50.0 | It's no wonder why. |
| 0:52.0 | It had been a year and a half since his project began human trials. |
| 0:56.0 | And in that time, they'd faced one obstacle after another. |
| 1:00.0 | First, they nearly ran out of funding. Then funding came through, but they couldn't recruit test subjects. |
| 1:06.0 | Then they recruited test subjects, but the pill didn't work. |
| 1:10.0 | So they'd gone back to the drawing board. They reworked the formula until finally they were sure it would work. |
| 1:17.0 | Now they were ready to resume human testing, but still, Pincas was worried. |
| 1:22.0 | During the Boston trials, they'd never managed to enroll more than one-tenth of the numbers they needed for the study. |
| 1:28.0 | They still had a recruitment problem, and Pincas didn't know how to solve it. |
| 1:33.0 | But there was nothing he could do about it now, not 2,000 miles away in beautiful Puerto Rico. |
| 1:39.0 | Pincas' host, Dr. David Tyler, stands behind a retain bar, fudzing with the blender. |
| 1:47.0 | Tyler is a physician and instructor at the University of Puerto Rico. |
| 1:52.0 | But today, he's playing bartender. |
... |
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