Dalkon Shield
The Dalkon Shield was an intrauterine device that was used very often in the 1970s, but later had to be taken off the market due to serious infections .
The shape of the Dalkon Shield was reminiscent of a flat bug with a large eye and five feet on either side. A lot of force was required to remove the pessary due to its shape. Therefore, the retrieval thread consisted of a braided fiber strand instead of a monofilament thread as with all other spirals. This retrieval thread was responsible for frequent and often dramatic infections, as bacteria could lodge in the braided thread and migrate into the uterus.
history
In 1970 the AH Robins Company bought the Dalkon Shield from the Dalkon Corporation. The Dalkon Corporation had only four shareholders, the inventors of the pessary, doctors Hugh J. Davis, Irwin Lerner, and Thad J. Earl, and their attorney Robert Cohn. In 1971 Dalkon launched the Dalkon Shield in the United States and Puerto Rico , accompanied by a large marketing campaign, although there were few and insufficient studies at the time. At the height of its spread, the Dalkon Shield was used by approximately 2.8 million women. By 1974 the Dalkon Shield claimed 17 lives.
With more than 300,000 lawsuits from users against the AH Robins Company, the Dalkon Shield was the largest case of damages claims after asbestos . As a result of the events, the confidence of American women and doctors in IUDs was permanently damaged for decades.
literature
- Richard B. Sobol: Bending The Law: The Story Of The Dalkon Shield Bankruptcy. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1991
- Ronald J. Bacigal: The Limits Of Litigation: The Dalkon Shield Controversy. Carolina Academic Pres, Durham 1990
- Morton Mintz: At Any Cost: Corporate Greed, Women, And The Dalkon Shield. Pantheon, New York 1985
- Susan Perry, Jim Dawson: Nightmare: Women And The Dalkon Shield. Macmillan, New York 1985
- Gerald M. Stern: The Buffalo Creek Disaster. Random House, New York 1976
- Karen M. Hicks: Surviving The Dalkon Shield IUD: Women v. The Pharmaceutical Industry. Teachers College Press, New York 1994
- Mary E. Hawkins: Unshielded: The Human Cost Of The Dalkon Shield. University of Toronto Press, Toronto 1997
- Nicole J. Grant: The Selling Of Contraception: The Dalkon Shield Case, Sexuality, And Women's Autonomy. Ohio State University Press, Columbus 1992, ISBN 0-8142-0615-8
- Sheldon D. Engelmayer: Lord's Justice: One Judge's War Against the Infamous Dalkon Shield. Doubleday Publishing, New York 1985
- Actinomycosis of the Endometrium - Photo of Dalkon Shield in hysterectomy specimen Frontiers in Bioscience
- A Cash Settlement, But No Apology. New York Times, February 20, 1999
- Roberta Bloss, Joseph Corneli, Chris Moon, Lucas Tomsich: The Dalkon Shield. History of Science, University of Minnesota, December 8, 1997
- Michele Kort: Fatal Contraption: The horrifying truth about the Dalkon Shield. Essence, July 1989
- Russell Mokhiber: The Dalkon Shield: A Deadly Product from AH Robins. Multinational Monitor, April 1987, Volume 8, Number 4
- Katherine Kaby Anselmi: Women's response to reproductive trauma secondary to contraceptive iatrogenesis: A phenomenological approach to the Dalkon Shield case. University of Pennsylvania, 1994
- Robin's Plan Is Approved. New York Times, June 17, 1989
- Dalkon Shield Litigation Papers Donated to HLS. , Harvard LAW Bulletin
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Contraception Museum Vienna: Dalkon Shield (with photo)
- ↑ Barbara Ehrenreich, Mark Dowie, Stephen Minkin: The Charge: Gynocide Mother Jones, November / December 1979 Issue
Web links
- Morton Mintz: A Crime Against Women: AH Robins and the Dalkon Shield Multimedia Monitor, Volume 7, Number 1, January 15, 1986 (Includes full text of presiding judge Miles Lord's statement to Clairbone Robins, et al., At bottom)
- The Dalkon Shield story: a company rewarded for its faulty product - AH Robins Company Inc. lawsuit Healthfacts, May 1996
- A Panel Tries to Judge a Judge Time Magazine, July 23, 1984
- One Lawyer's 25 Year Journey: The Dalkon Shield Saga Ohio Trial Vol 9, Issue 4, 1999 (Chronicles legal team of Brown & Szaller's involvement in the Dalkon Shield Litigation)
