THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 22, 1995 TAG: 9501240441
SECTION: HAMPTON ROADS WOMAN PAGE: 05 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
IT WASN'T THE most effective method.
It wasn't the most inexpensive method.
It wasn't even the easiest method or the most popular method.
But it was a choice.
And with the announcement earlier this month that the Today Sponge - one of the few over-the-counter birth control methods for women - would no longer be manufactured, women lost that choice.
``Any time you lose any method of birth control for reasons that are not sound medical ones, we lose something,'' said Virginia Beach ob-gyn Douglas D. DiBona.
The sponge was not removed from the market because of safety or efficacy concerns, but because its manufacturers, Whitehall-Robins Healthcare of New Jersey, said it could not afford to meet manufacturing requirements from the Food and Drug Administration and continue to offer Today at the same price.
``We've been working diligently to improve our manufacturing process based on the FDA's more rigorous interpretation of its rules,'' said Ann Brice, public affairs manager for Whitehall. ``But because our existing process cannot be fully automated, additional corrective measures would be extremely time-consuming and costly.''
The sponge, which could be worn for 24 hours regardless of the number of times a woman has intercourse, was often used by women as an interim birth control device when they started or stopped birth control pills, or by young women who didn't want to visit a physician. Overall, about 400,000 women used the sponge, representing about 2 percent of the overall contraceptive market.
One reason it wasn't more popular was its high failure rate. While Whitehall-Robins literature reports a worldwide controlled clinical study showing the sponge to be 89 percent to 91 percent effective in preventing pregnancy, not all contraceptive experts agreed.
The book ``Contraceptive Technology,'' the bible of birth control, reported that the sponge's failure rate among ``perfect'' users ranged from 9 percent to 20 percent.
One physician, whose wife became pregnant while on the sponge, said that, in his opinion, ``the sponge is only good for washing dishes.''
And it could often become lost in a woman's body, necessitating a doctor's visit to pull it out.
Still, noted Susan Tew, deputy director of communications for the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research organization in New York, more than half of all pregnancies are unplanned.
``One could argue if there were more methods available, than the proportion of unplanned pregnancies could be reduced.''
- MEMO: The Associated Press contributed to this story.
ILLUSTRATION: Photo
BETH BERGMAN/Staff
Any time a birth-control method, such as the Today Sponge, is
removed for reasons other than medical ones ``we lose something,''
says Virginia Beach ob-gyn Douglas D. DiBona.
KEYWORDS: CONTRACEPTIVE DEVICES by CNB