The Hazards of Hormones: Risk, Regulation and Women’s Health in the History of Hormones in Belgium

Hormones today are everywhere: in pharmacies and hospitals, on bedside tables and in handbags. Millions of women ingest synthetic sex hormones to control their fertility, for menstrual and menopausal problems, to assist conception, as abortifacients, and for other reasons. In our collective memory, the rise of hormones mostly counts as a positive development, giving rise to women’s emancipation and sexual liberation. Yet there also exists a popular counter-narrative, in which the widespread consumption of hormones is seen as an unethical experiment that damages women’s health for the benefit of industry and the male medical establishment.

Both these narratives lack nuance. Yet whereas scholars have corrected the idea that the pill spawned a sexual revolution, they have neglected the more sinister side of this history. The rise of hormones was unprecedented both in terms of its rapidity and range, but we know very little about the wider handling of their possible side-effects. This project studies how the risks of hormones in Belgium were managed by five actors: the regulator, the pharmaceutical industry, the medical community, the women’s movement and the patients’ rights  movement. Going beyond the history of oral contraceptives, from the diethylstilbestrol (DES) scandal to the morning-after pill, this project will produce the first monograph recounting the interwoven histories of hormones and their hazards, from their commercialisation in the 1940s up to the present day.