The doctors and businessman involved with the production and sale of this device all knew that the severe risks associated with their product, but decided that the profit gained from the 2.8 million women who at one point in time were using the IUD had a greater weight in their decisions. Years later it was discovered that only one small study was held for the IUD, and that it was held to the ends of preventing pregnancy, not the possible complications of pelvis infection that could have followed. Also, further investigation revealed that the researchers involved in this experiment "cheated" their way to positive results by telling the women who volunteered to use spermicide along with the IUD.
The complications that later rose from the use of the IUDs came from the original design of the Shield. The wicking properties of the IUD and its place in the female anatomy. The wet cavity of the vagina leaves room for bacteria, whereas the uterus must be kept sterile the entire time. The properties of the Shield provided a sort of gateway for bacteria to enter the uterus. In this usually sterile environment, this condition, called sepsis, leads to pelvic inflammatory disease and could become fatal.
While the company greatly promoted and supported the product, the results experienced by most women could not be ignored, nor could the litigation that soon followed. The story of this IUD is tragic, as it forever cast a dark shadow on the contraceptive technology that followed, and it revealed what some people were greedy enough to do at any costs.
1. "Dalkon Shield." Wikipedia.
2 comments:
any thoughts on how newer IUDs have overcome this problem?
Didn't it ever occur to those women who were told to take spermicides along with the tests that something may have been funky?
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