В штате Массачусетс создан первый эффективный противозачаточный препарат

NORTHBOROUGH – Northborough’s Dr. Gregory Pincus (1903-1967) and Shrewsbury’s Dr. Min Chueh Chang (1918-1991) created the first effective birth control pill. Pincus, who was originally from New Jersey, moved to Northborough from Worcester in 1954. He had been working in the Clark University biology department as a professor. Pincus lived at 30 Main Street, a house built in 1800 that currently belongs to C’est La Vie Bistro. The house was originally the vacation home of Dr. Stephen Ball III, who worked in Boston. It has four full chimneys, a slate roof, and a columned porch. In 1944, Pincus helped found the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology, now part of the University of Massachusetts Medical School network, in Shrewsbury with fellow biologist Hudson Hoagland. The research of Pincus and Chang, who came to the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology in 1945, led to the discovery of the pill in the 1950s. The discovery was made during a time when it was illegal in Massachusetts, and throughout most of the United States, to spread information about birth control. The creation of the pill changed women’s lives across the world, especially at a time when people were concerned about the increase in population globally. In 1960, an oral contraceptive, Enovid, was accepted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Pincus never got a patent for the pill and did not make any money on it. The research and work at the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology was largely funded by two women: Margaret Sanger, the founder of the American Birth Control League, and Katherine Dexter McCormack, the second woman to graduate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an activist for women’s rights. After Sanger met Pincus in 1951, she was instrumental in laying the foundation for his relationships with other researchers. Dorothy Hunt, of Northborough, a senior research associate at the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology who worked alongside Dr. Chang, wrote the book “Evolution of the Pill,” which chronicles the development of birth control with a focus on the work that was done in Shrewsbury. Hunt, who moved to Northborough in 1958, worked at the foundation for 23 years and co-authored articles with Dr. Chang and others for scientific journals.