美国国家公共电台 NPR--The story of how the birth control pill was invented and tested

The story of how the birth control pill was invented and tested

Transcript¹

As the FDA considers whether to make birth control pills available over the counter, some are looking back at the controversial history of the development of "the pill."

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

The Food and Drug Administration is now considering whether to make birth control pills available over the counter. The origins of the pill go back to an infertility² clinic in the 1950s. Since then, it's been used by hundreds of millions of women around the world. Gabrielle Emanuel of member station WBUR reports on the pill's controversial beginnings.

GABRIELLE EMANUEL, BYLINE³: It all started with 80 women who wanted a baby.

MARGARET MARSH⁴: It was the baby boom. And they wanted desperately⁵ to be pregnant.

EMANUEL: Margaret Marsh is a historian of medicine at Rutgers University. She says these women had all gone to an infertility clinic in Massachusetts. It was run by a devout⁶ Catholic named John Rock. He thought the women might be struggling.

MARSH: Because their reproductive systems were, as he called them, underdeveloped.

EMANUEL: His plan was to give them hormones⁷ that would let their system rest and then reboot. Back then, there was little in the way of research ethics⁸. And often patients had no idea they were part of an experiment. But Marsh says Rock did things differently.

MARSH: He was a real unicorn⁹. He never asked women to be part of a research study unless he explained to them everything that was going on.

EMANUEL: At the same time, there was a biologist named Gregory Pincus. He was looking for a birth control pill with backing from prominent feminists¹⁰, including Margaret Sanger, the founder¹¹ of Planned Parenthood. He experimented at a state mental hospital. He was more typical of his time and didn't tell patients. Pincus and Rock differed on ethics, but they were working with the exact same hormones and teamed up. They looked at uterine tissue from Rock's patients and realized none of the women were ovulating. This was birth control. Marsh says there was just one problem.

MARSH: In Massachusetts during this time, birth control was prohibited. It was against the law.

EMANUEL: Pincus and Rock scrambled¹² to figure out where to conduct a bigger trial. They considered Japan and Hawaii, but ended up flying south to Puerto Rico, which was already a U.S. territory.

MARSH: In Puerto Rico, birth control was legal.

EMANUEL: Legal, but the trial was still controversial. Starting in 1956, Dr. Edris Rice-Wray ran Pincus' and Rock's Research in Puerto Rico. In an oral history recorded before her death, she remembered Catholic clergy¹³ spoke¹⁴ out against the trial. But that helped recruit participants.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

EDRIS RICE-WRAY: The priests would denounce the methods we were using in the pulpit. And then women would run in the next day and say, what is it the priest said we couldn't have?

EMANUEL: About 800 women enrolled¹⁵. Many were poor and from a nearby housing project.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

RICE-WRAY: We couldn't get enough pills because as soon as we got started, everybody wanted to get on it.

EMANUEL: It's not clear whether the women were told this was an experiment. What we do know is that three women died and the dose was many times what it is now, causing some severe nausea¹⁶, dizziness and headaches.

MARSH: They even say, you know, that many of the effects were psychological because we Puerto Rican women are, you know, hyperactive emotionally.

EMANUEL: Lourdes Lugo-Ortiz is a professor at the University of Puerto Rico. She says Pincus dismissed the side effects because he didn't want anything to come in the way of his drug succeeding. But Puerto Rican politicians, newspaper columnists¹⁷ and others took a stand against the trial.

LOURDES LUGO-ORTIZ: The claim was that Puerto Rico was used as the testing site, that we were guinea pigs, that our women, you know, were women who are abused by the U.S. imperialism¹⁸.

EMANUEL: Still, the trial went forward and the data gathered in Puerto Rico was a game changer for women around the world, Marsh says. The pill was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1960.

MARSH: There was considerable controversy¹⁹ here because the pill is essentially²⁰ what they would call back then a lifestyle drug.

EMANUEL: Meaning a medication that doesn't treat a medical condition. That was a first for the FDA. Yet in many states, the birth control pill remained illegal until the U.S. Supreme²¹ Court gave married couples the right to use contraceptives in 1965. Today, the pill is available without a prescription²² in over a hundred countries, but not in the U.S. The Food and Drug Administration is expected to decide whether to change that this summer.

For NPR News, I'm Gabrielle Emanuel.

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 infertility   

n.不肥沃，不毛；不育

参考例句：

• It is the Geneva, Switzerland-based Biotech Company's second recombinant infertility drug. 它是瑞士生物技术公司在日内瓦的公司生产的第二种重组治疗不孕症的药。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 生物技术制药疫苗
• Endometritis is a cause of infertility. 子宫内膜炎是不育的原子。 来自辞典例句

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 marsh   

n.沼泽，湿地

参考例句：

• There are a lot of frogs in the marsh.沼泽里有许多青蛙。
• I made my way slowly out of the marsh.我缓慢地走出这片沼泽地。

5 desperately   

adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地

参考例句：

• He was desperately seeking a way to see her again.他正拼命想办法再见她一面。
• He longed desperately to be back at home.他非常渴望回家。

6 devout   

adj.虔诚的，虔敬的，衷心的 (n.devoutness)

参考例句：

• His devout Catholicism appeals to ordinary people.他对天主教的虔诚信仰感染了普通民众。
• The devout man prayed daily.那位虔诚的男士每天都祈祷。

7 hormones   

n. 荷尔蒙，激素 名词hormone的复数形式

参考例句：

• This hormone interacts closely with other hormones in the body. 这种荷尔蒙与体內其他荷尔蒙紧密地相互作用。
• The adrenals produce a large per cent of a man's sex hormones. 肾上腺分泌人体的大部分性激素。

8 ethics   

n.伦理学；伦理观，道德标准

参考例句：

• The ethics of his profession don't permit him to do that.他的职业道德不允许他那样做。
• Personal ethics and professional ethics sometimes conflict.个人道德和职业道德有时会相互抵触。

9 unicorn   

n.(传说中的)独角兽

参考例句：

• The unicorn is an imaginary beast.独角兽是幻想出来的动物。
• I believe unicorn was once living in the world.我相信独角兽曾经生活在这个世界。

10 feminists   

n.男女平等主义者，女权扩张论者( feminist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Only 16 percent of young women in a 1990 survey considered themselves feminists. 在1990年的一项调查中，只有16%的年轻女性认为自己是女权主义者。 来自辞典例句
• The organization had many enemies, most notably among feminists. 这个组织有许多敌人，特别是在男女平等主义者中。 来自辞典例句

11 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

12 scrambled   

v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞

参考例句：

• Each scrambled for the football at the football ground. 足球场上你争我夺。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• He scrambled awkwardly to his feet. 他笨拙地爬起身来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 clergy   

n.[总称]牧师，神职人员

参考例句：

• I could heartily wish that more of our country clergy would follow this example.我衷心希望，我国有更多的牧师效法这个榜样。
• All the local clergy attended the ceremony.当地所有的牧师出席了仪式。

14 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

15 enrolled   

adj.入学登记了的v.[亦作enrol]( enroll的过去式和过去分词 )；登记，招收，使入伍（或入会、入学等），参加，成为成员；记入名册；卷起，包起

参考例句：

• They have been studying hard from the moment they enrolled. 从入学时起，他们就一直努力学习。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He enrolled with an employment agency for a teaching position. 他在职业介绍所登了记以谋求一个教师的职位。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 nausea   

n.作呕，恶心；极端的憎恶(或厌恶)

参考例句：

• Early pregnancy is often accompanied by nausea.怀孕期常有恶心的现象。
• He experienced nausea after eating octopus.吃了章鱼后他感到恶心。

17 columnists   

n.专栏作家( columnist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• This story will be more fodder for the gossip columnists. 这个传闻会是闲谈专栏作家的又一素材。
• The columnists coined the phrase \"to broderick\", meaning to rough up. 专栏作家们杜撰出一个新词“布罗德里克”意思是“动武”、“打架”。 来自辞典例句

18 imperialism   

n.帝国主义，帝国主义政策

参考例句：

• They held the imperialism in contempt.他们鄙视帝国主义。
• Imperialism has not been able to subjugate China.帝国主义不能征服中国。

19 controversy   

n.争论，辩论，争吵

参考例句：

• That is a fact beyond controversy.那是一个无可争论的事实。
• We ran the risk of becoming the butt of every controversy.我们要冒使自己在所有的纷争中都成为众矢之的的风险。

20 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

21 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

22 prescription   

n.处方，开药；指示，规定

参考例句：

• The physician made a prescription against sea- sickness for him.医生给他开了个治晕船的药方。
• The drug is available on prescription only.这种药只能凭处方购买。