By BRIAN CLOWES
(Editor’s Note: Brian Clowes has been director of research and training at Human Life International since 1995. For an electronic copy of chapter 2 of The Facts of Life, “Abortifacients,” e-mail him at bclowes@hli.org.)
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Depo-Provera is an injectable contraceptive drug that sometimes has an abortifacient effect. It also possesses a long and checkered history rife with fraud and abuse.
In 1967, Upjohn Pharmaceuticals began an extensive 11-year trial of Depo at Atlanta’s Grady Clinic in its attempts to get the drug approved for use in the United States. The injection was tested on a disproportionate number of poor, black, and rural women without informed consent and without giving the women information on the drug’s serious side effects.
The study was carried out in an incredibly sloppy manner. Upjohn ignored the annual reports required by the Food and Drug Administration, lost 93 percent of patient records so that no follow-up studies could be done, and neglected to report deaths and very serious side effects caused by Depo. This meant that the data from the study was entirely meaningless and unusable.
Not surprisingly, the FDA withheld approval of Depo-Provera both at the beginning and at the end of the study, not only because of the way the study was conducted, but because of a proven elevation in the risk of breast cancer among its users. In 1983, the FDA refused approval of Depo-Provera a third time.
Eventually, in 1992, the FDA approved the Depo-Provera injection for use in the United States over the objections of pro-life groups and even several pro-abortion women’s organizations, including the National Women’s Health Network and the National Black Women’s Health Project. Those following the proceedings were convinced that the FDA caved in under intense lobbying by Upjohn and pressure brought by population control groups. In June of the following year, Canada’s Department of Health and Welfare prohibited the use of Depo-Provera, saying that the drug did not meet Canadian safety standards as a method of birth control.
International pharmaceutical giant Pharmacia & Upjohn originally owned the patent for Depo-Provera, but the world’s largest research-based pharmaceutical corporation, Pfizer, now owns the drug. Pfizer also manufactures Depo-subQ Provera 104, a subcutaneous injection of DMPA using a smaller needle. This dose is promoted as Sayana Press, which is being heavily promoted primarily in African nations by Pfizer, the Gates Foundation, and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation.
Depo-Provera is now available in more than 90 countries and is particularly popular among population controllers in Africa and the Caribbean and among those “caring” for native peoples in Thailand and New Zealand.
As with all other abortifacients that may pose a danger to Western women, Depo-Provera was first extensively tested on Third World women. The World Health Organization (WHO) used Depo on more than 11,000 women in Kenya, Mexico, and Thailand before it was submitted to the FDA for approval.
How Depo-Provera Works. Depo-Provera is one of a class of steroids that employ powerful hormones to control the female reproductive system. Others in this class include birth control pills, the morning-after pill (MAP), and emergency contraception (EC), the implantables (Norplant, Jadelle, and Implanon), and some of the intra-uterine devices (IUDs).
Depo-Provera’s active ingredient is depot-medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA), a synthetic form of the natural hormone progesterone, originally developed for the treatment of uterine cancer in the 1950s. Women receive 150 milligrams of DMPA via deep intramuscular injection every three months.
Depo-Provera has three modes of action, similar to other methods of birth control that employ artificial progesterones as active ingredients;
It prevents ovulation (the release of an egg from the ovary).
It inhibits the entry of sperm through the cervix by altering the cervical mucus.
It alters the lining of the uterus such that, should a fertilized egg reach the uterus, it would have difficulty implanting.
According to Upjohn’s patient information pamphlet on Depo-Provera, the compound “inhibits the secretion of gonadotropins which, in turn, prevents follicular maturation and ovulation and results in endometrial thinning.”
In other words, Upjohn acknowledges that Depo-Provera sometimes acts as an abortifacient.
The authoritative Contraceptive Technology confirms that Depo-Provera causes early abortions. It alters the endometrium (the lining of the uterus) so that its degree of receptivity to the blastocyst (very early developing human being) is significantly decreased. According to Contraceptive Technology, “Other contraceptive actions include the development of a shallow and atrophic [thinning] endometrium. . . .”
When Depo-Provera works in this way, it is an abortifacient.
Many women’s menstrual cycles continue when using Depo-Provera: 43 percent after 12 months and 32 percent after 24 months. This data shows that the compound does not completely suppress ovulation in a large percentage of women who use Depo-Provera, so many early abortions occur.
Adverse Reactions to Depo-Provera. Current patient information pamphlets on Depo-Provera list more than 60 adverse reactions suffered by women who use the compound.
Women on Depo-Provera report an average weight gain of 5.4 pounds in the first year and 16.5 pounds over six years. Many users also experience osteoporosis (loss of bone mass) and a higher incidence of broken bones. The onset of osteoporosis is cumulative (gets worse the longer a woman is on Depo), remains long after the injections have ceased, and in many cases is irreversible. Because of this danger, the FDA ordered Pfizer to put a black box warning (its strongest warning) on its patient information pamphlets.
In women who have used Depo-Provera for the first time within the last four years, and who are under 35 years of age, the risk of breast cancer increases 129 percent. Use of Depo-Provera may be associated with ectopic pregnancy, thrombophlebitis (inflammation of blood vessels associated with blood clots), pulmonary embolism (obstruction of the pulmonary artery by a blood clot, air bubble, or other material), cerebrovascular disorders, and partial or complete loss of vision in mothers, and polysyndactyly (webbing and extra digits of the hands and feet), hypospadias (genital tract abnormalities), and chromosomal anomalies among infants born to them.
More than five percent of users suffer headaches, nervousness, abdominal pain or discomfort, dizziness or asthenia (weakness or fatigue). One to five percent reported one or more of the following ailments: Decreased libido (sexual desire) or anorgasmia, depression, nausea, insomnia, leukorrhea (abnormal vaginal discharges), pelvic and breast pain, rashes, hot flashes, edema (swelling), vaginitis, and acne.
Other serious side effects include chest pains, pulmonary embolisms, allergic reactions, anemia, tachycardia (racing heart rate), abnormal blood chemistry, rectal bleeding, breast lumps or nipple bleeding, paralysis, facial palsy, uterine hyperplasia (abnormal growth of the uterus), varicose veins, and deep vein thrombosis.
A woman who is suffering from the side effects of Depo-Provera is literally trapped in her own body. There is no way to rid herself of the pernicious chemical except by waiting for several months.
Around The World
Inevitable Abuses. From the point of view of a population controller, Depo-Provera is very desirable because it can be controlled by medical professionals. It also causes three or more months of sterility and requires less operator skill to implement than sterilization, implantation of Norplant, or insertion of an IUD.
When my wife Kathy and I were in Uganda a year ago, we frequently saw white “Reproductive Health Unit” pickup trucks zooming through the countryside. These RHUs usually consist of two or three young men with little or no medical training who are given a few hours of instruction, a box of Depo shots and other types of birth control, and orders to go out into the country and get as many women as they can on birth control under a quota and reward system.
We spoke with several groups of women who were victimized by these teams, some of whom said that they were injected with Depo after being told that it was an anti-malaria shot.
Predictably, there are many other examples of abuse involving Depo-Provera around the world. In January 2013, the Israeli health ministry discontinued a program targeting Ethiopian Jews in the country without informed consent. The white owners of commercial farms in Zimbabwe forced their black female workers to accept Depo shots, and as a result, the drug was banned in 1981. In 2002, after widespread abuses, the Indian government ceased distribution of both Norplant and Depo-Provera.
There is also no doubt that Depo is used disproportionately against the fertility of poor black women in the United States.
Conclusion. Common ground between hard-care pro-abortion and pro-life groups is almost nonexistent. However, almost all of us agree that Depo-Provera poses an unacceptable health risk to women, especially those who are poor. We also agree that Depo is being used to target both poor minority women in the United States and in developing nations.
Recently, such efforts were ramped up significantly by Melinda Gates’ 2012 Family Planning Summit, with the cooperation of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the United Nations and, of course, Pfizer, which stands to make billions of dollars of profit annually from the sale and distribution of the various types of Depo-Provera.
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