As Shaw notes, “The agencies involved say their motives are humanitarian. Because the death rate is relatively high in third-world countries, almost any birth-control device is safer than pregnancy” (p. 31).
In this context, though, the concept of “safe” depends on who is being asked. Indeed, Joachim (2007) points out that in some countries that received the Dalkon Shield, “Women were reported to have suffered from anemia and infections, pelvic inflammatory diseases, unintended sterilization, and tubal pregnancies, and even to have died” (p. 138). It is reasonable to posit that the Dalkon Shield may have prevented some deaths during childbearing, but it is also clear that there was a corresponding trade-off in the safety of the women who were duped into using these devices, all to profit an American corporation that knew about these risks. In this regard, Joachim adds that, “Dumping made apparent the double standards of international family planners, who regarded Southern women as objects or [targets] rather than as individuals with rights and needs” (p. 139).
More damning still, not only did the executives at A. H. Robbins know their product was unsafe, they colluded with USAID to ensure their financial losses were minimized to the maximum extent possible. As Joachim (2007) emphasizes, “These contraceptives had not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for distribution in the United States or had been withdrawn after they had been found to be unsafe. However, they continued to be sold in the developing world” (p. 139). Moreover, despite being proven unsafe, the unsanitary manner in which these contraceptive devices were distributed by AID was also highly questionable. In this regard, Joachin (2007) adds that:
While Dalkon Shield IUDs had been sold in the United States in individual, sterilized packages with a disposable inserter for each device, USAID distributed them in developing countries in bulk packages, unsterilized, with only ten inserters per hundred shields, and only one set of instructions for each pack of 1,000 shields. (p. 139)
While it is clear that A. H. Robbins and similarly situated enterprises and their stockholders benefited financially…
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