In 1950 longtime birth-control advocate Margaret Sanger enlisted Gregory Pincus, a reproductive bilogist at the Worcester Foundation in Massachusetts, and his associates to work on what might be called a vaccine against pregnancy. After three years of research, the team focussed their attention on the effects of a synnthetic form of the hormone esttogen, which seemed to control the rabbit popluation in the lab. In 1957 the G. D. Searle Company began marketing the synthetic hormore, called norethynodrel, but only as a treatment for menstrual cramps. There was no mention of its effectiveness at preventing pregnancy, a very controversial issue in the 1950s. Other compaines had flatly refused to market medications for the purpose of birth control. For three years norethvnodrel was quitely taken for either its stated purpose or its less publicized effect of controlling peregnancy before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration...