Reproductive Health
The Council conducts biomedical research to develop contraceptives and social science research to better understand the factors influencing access to and decision-making around contraceptives. Its fundamental research on reproductive and immunological processes serves not only as the basis for the development of new contraceptive methods to meet the needs of both women and men, but also for new hormone therapies and AIDS-prevention products.
In the 1960s, the Council played a key role in documenting the large numbers of people in poor countries who lacked access to contraceptives and in conducting research to design and evaluate public family planning programs. At the same time, the Council's biomedical researchers worked to develop new contraceptive methods, such as the intrauterine device.
Some contraceptives available in some countries today were developed by the Population Council: the Copper T IUD, Norplant, Jadelle (Norplant II), and Mirena. More than 50 million Copper T IUDs have been distributed in over 70 countries. Norplant was replaced by Jadelle.
The British medical journal Lancet said of the Population Council, "Most non-governmental organisations claim to promote change for the better; the Population Council actually has hard evidence of having changed the lives and expectations of hundreds of millions of people."
Read more about this topic: Population Council
Famous quotes containing the words reproductive and/or health:
“The blind conviction that we have to do something about other people’s reproductive behaviour, and that we may have to do it whether they like it or not, derives from the assumption that the world belongs to us, who have so expertly depleted its resources, rather than to them, who have not.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)
“I think that carrying a baby inside of you is like running as fast as you can. It feels like finally letting go and filling yourself up to the widest limits.”
—Anonymous Mother. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 2 (1978)