Assessing the Risk and Safety of the Pill

Since 1954, when the oral contraceptive was first tested in clinical trials, nearly 200 million women have swallowed the pill. By 1966, within six years of the initial marketing of the drug in the United States, the number of pills sold worldwide exceeded any other single pharmaceutical product of an ethical nature and in some cases outsold many proprietary items such as aspirin. ² By end of the twentieth century, the oral contraceptive had become a feature of everyday life with over 70 million women reaching for it on a daily basis around the globe. ³