History
Before the advent of modern contraceptives, reproductive age women spent most of their time either pregnant or nursing. In modern western society women typically have about 450 periods during their lives, as compared to about 160 formerly.
Although it was evident that the pill could be used to suppress menstruation for arbitrary lengths of time, the original regimen was designed to produce withdrawal bleeding every four weeks to mimic the menstrual cycle.
Seasonale was first developed by Barr Pharmaceuticals, in collaboration with Eastern Virginia Medical School, under an agreement. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Seasonale in the United States on September 5, 2003. Barr Pharmaceuticals, its manufacturer, claimed at the time of Seasonale's approval that it would cost one dollar per pill. Seasonale is one of Barr Pharmaceuticals' 22 oral contraceptive products. Health Canada approved Seasonale in July 2007, and Paladin Labs began distributing it in Canada on January 4, 2008.
The FDA approved Lybrel for human consumption on May 22, 2007. Lybrel is currently available at pharmacies by prescription only.
Read more about this topic: Extended Cycle Combined Hormonal Contraceptive
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“One classic American landscape haunts all of American literature. It is a picture of Eden, perceived at the instant of history when corruption has just begun to set in. The serpent has shown his scaly head in the undergrowth. The apple gleams on the tree. The old drama of the Fall is ready to start all over again.”
—Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“The steps toward the emancipation of women are first intellectual, then industrial, lastly legal and political. Great strides in the first two of these stages already have been made of millions of women who do not yet perceive that it is surely carrying them towards the last.”
—Ellen Battelle Dietrick, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)