Unshielded: The Human Cost of the Dalkon Shield

Margaret Kechnie teaches in the Women’s Studies Program at Thorneloe
College, Laurentian University, and is the co-editor of Changing Lives:
Women in Northern Ontario.

Unshielded is a well-researched account of the Dalkon Shield, one among
the many intrauterine devices (IUDs) that appeared on the market in the
1970s. Considered a nonmedicated device, the Dalkon Shield was not
subject to the same stringent rules as those that governed medicated
devices. The result was that thousands of women endured pain and
incurred irreversible damage to their reproductive organs. Although
pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) was the most common complaint, some
women suffered miscarriages, others lost the ability to have children,
and a few died.

The author documents the lack of accountability of both the makers and
the marketers of the Dalkon Shield. For years manufacturers knew there
were severe problems with the product, but nothing was done formally to
remove it from the market until 1985. Hawkins argues that the only
explanation for this failure is greed on the part of all those involved
with the manufacturing and marketing of the device.

Two chapters are especially compelling. “The Female Survivors”
documents women’s experiences with the IUD; their treatment at the
hands of doctors, lawyers, and the courts as they attempted to obtain
redress for their pain, suffering, and loss; and the years of work by
women who took up the challenge to obtain recognition of what they and
their families had suffered. In “Lessons Learned and Not Learned,”
Hawkins observes that “many of the lessons not learned continue to
haunt us in the aftermath of the Dalkon Shield”; for example, doctors
still accept the marketing of pharmaceutical companies, while
“consumers still allow themselves to be manipulated by seductive
imagery and rhetoric.” This is an important book.