The politics of contraception

At age twenty-eight, Carl Djerassi led the team at Syntex in Mexico that synthesized the first oral contraceptive. An internationally honored chemist, he has worked for decades as a scientist carrying out basic research and as an industrialist concerned with finding practical applications for laboratory discoveries. He is therefore uniquely qualified to discuss birth control, present and future, from the triple perspective of science, industry, and public policy. In this book, Professor Djerassi covers a range of current contraceptive methods and their use both in the United States and abroad, including the developing nations. He shows how research and development have been affected by the public's fears of side effects, notably cancer, and he assesses the role of the press and legislators, often critical and ill informed, in shaping pubic policy and attitudes- including unrealistic expectations for new technological breakthroughs. He also discusses in detail future male and female contraceptives that might be developed if realistic changes are made in public policy. In a special chapter on China, where more women than anywhere else take the Pill and where a new male Pill is being tested on humans, he explains how that nation has adopted a promising "contraceptive supermarket" approach to birth control. The book ends with his personal account of the chemical history of the Pill, which has never been told in layman's terms before. -- from Book Jacket.