SEX IN THE 1960s: LIPPES LOOP

Evolution of the IUD

Ancient history relates the tale of Arabs putting stones into the uterus of a camel to prevent the camel from getting pregnant. The first recorded modern medical use of similar devices in people was during the 1920s, when Ernest Grafenberg of Germany placed rings of silk, and later silver, within the uterus of his female patients to prevent pregnancy. The procedure caused excessive bleeding and infections, and Grafenberg was forced to give up on the devices when he moved his practice to the United States. The Japanese and Israelis subsequently used such methods for birth control with greater success. The intrauterine device (IUD) gained wider acceptance in the early 1960s, when American medical researchers used new materials to develop new products. The new IUDs were made of plastic, nylon, or stainless steel. After insertion by a physician, they could be left for years. Pregnancy prevention with IUDs was almost as effective as the new birth-control pills. Most women who wanted to become pregnant could do so within a few months after having their device removed.

An Inexpensive Method

IUDs cost about two cents to manufacture, and physicians charged to insert them. Since there was only a one-time cost, IUDs were cheaper than the oral contraceptive pills, and users did not have to remember anything to get effective contraception. Over twenty thousand American women relied on the new devices in 1963.

Types of IUDs

One of the longest-lived of the IUDs was the device shaped like a double-S designed by Dr. Jack Lippes of the University of Buffalo. Various other shapes were marketed, but it became clear over time that the shape had no relation to the effectiveness of the device. Some devices had strings or other "tails" attached, so that women could examine themselves to be sure the IUD stayed in place.

Problems

After the first fifteen thousand women in America had IUDs placed, problems with the devices became apparent. In some users the devices caused heavy bleeding, and other users developed severe, life-threatening infections. The infections were later found to be related to lifestyles; the IUD is appropriate for some women, but not all.

LIVING CULTURE TUBES

In 1968, researchers at the National Communicable Disease Center (NCDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, warned of the spread of a new strain of the venereal disease gonorrhea that was resistant to the most common treatment, penicillin

Dr. Leslie C. Norins, director of the Venereal Disease Research Laboratory at the NCDC, traced the spread of the new strain to the war in Vietnam. The highly resistant cases were the result of women turning themselves into, Norins said, "living culture tubes." The Vietnamese women contracted gonorrhea and treated themselves with small, inadequate doses of bootleg penicillin. As a result, they became carriers of strains that were resistant to any level of penicillin. When troops returned to the United States, the new strains were introduced to the United States.

The rise of penicillin-resistant gonorrhea in the late 1960s prefigured a more serious wave of antibiotic-resistant viruses in the 1990s, led by tuberculosis.

Source:

"Resistant Gonorrhea Increases," Science News, 94 (26 October 1968): 413.

Sources:

"Birth Control Devices and Debates Engross the U.S.," Life, 54 (10 May 1963): 37-40;

"Intra-Uterine Devices: A New Era in Birth Control?," Time, 84 (31 July 1964): 48-49;

"New Birth Control Devices," Scientific American, 210 (January 1964): 54-55.