You’ve probably heard of Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman in the United States to earn a medical degree, but did […]
Exploding Myths About Medicine’s Wage Gap: Lessons From the Past and Present
It’s not news that women are paid less than men for comparable work, subject to variation across race, field of […]
“I Would Just Want To Fly”: Lydia Pinkham, Women’s Medicine, and Social Networks
“I had been completely run-down. I would try to do my housework and could not. I would want to just […]
A Short History of Homeopathy: From Hahnemann to Whole Foods
A few weeks ago, I found myself in an increasingly common situation: I decided to go grocery shopping at Whole […]
Love, Sex, and Pink Viagra
Ever heard of Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD)? It’s a new “disease” distressing tens of thousands of (presumably straight) women. […]
Call the Medical Missionary: Religion and Health Care in Twentieth-Century Britain
If you have ever seen the popular BBC/PBS television program Call the Midwife1 then you know that the central setting, […]
Female Circumcision, Clitoridectomy, and American Culture
In the United States, female circumcision (the removal of the clitoral hood) and clitoridectomy (the removal of the external nub […]
Not Done Yet: Midwifing a Return to Social Birth
As a doula, I have the privilege of attending other women’s labors and deliveries. Recently I attended a delivery assisted […]
The Body as Archive
Trying to become a public historian and freelance writer in grad school is requiring me to walk a difficult tightrope. […]
PrEP, The Pill, and the Fear of Promiscuity.
By Ian Lekus
The first I learned of PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, came from the signs and postcards around Fenway Health, Boston’s LGBT community health center. Those advertisements appeared as Fenway served as one of two U.S. research sites for PrEP, in advance of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approving Truvada in July 2012 as the first drug deemed safe and effective for reducing the risk of HIV transmission.[1] As I started learning more, I quickly discovered how its advocates frequently compare PrEP to oral contraceptives. One PrEP researcher I consulted with early on in my investigations explicitly drew the parallel to her decision to use the Pill a few years earlier. Some of the similarities jump out immediately: for example, like oral contraceptives, PrEP — a pill taken daily to prevent HIV infection — separates prevention from the act of sexual intercourse itself.
