Field trial of the contraceptive pill in Puerto Rico
Ensayo de campo de la píldora anticonceptiva en Puerto Rico
- Date
- 1956 · confidence high
- Place
- Río Piedras, San Juan, Puerto Rico
- Credited to
- Gregory Pincus, John Rock and Edris Rice-Wray
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
In 1956 the oral contraceptive Enovid was tested on a large scale for the first time on women in Río Piedras and Humacao, with an efficacy close to one hundred per cent. The data were used to apply for approval of the first oral contraceptive in 1960, at the cost of an ethical debate on informed consent.
Participants were not fully informed that it was an experiment, and there were deaths without autopsy, which has prompted historical criticism. Puerto Rico was chosen for its family-planning clinics and fewer legal restrictions.
What it led to
- FDA approval of the pill (1960)
- debate on the ethics of clinical trials in vulnerable populations
- expansion of family planning and hormonal methods