Carl Djerassi, who provided the chemistry behind the sexual revolution by patenting the synthetic hormone used in the Pill, the oral contraceptive sold under various names in the U.S. since 1960, has died. He was 91.
He died Friday at his home in San Francisco, The New York Times reported, citing his son, Dale. The cause was complications of liver and bone cancer.
An Austrian-born research chemist, Djerassi crossed academic disciplines to study how the birth-control pill he helped create influenced women’s health, gender equality and global population.
“By separating the coital act from contraception, the Pill started one of the most monumental movements in recent times, the gradual divorce of sex from reproduction,” he wrote in 2001’s “This Man’s Pill: Reflections on the 50th Birthday of the Pill,” the last of three autobiographies.
As a professor at Stanford, he explored the human side of science and the moral conflicts that scientists face in novels, nonfiction books, plays and short stories.
He took issue with the oft-repeated title “Father of the Pill,” saying it excluded others.
In 1951, as associate director of chemical research at Syntex in Mexico City, Djerassi led work on a synthetic version of progesterone, a hormone secreted by the female reproductive system.
Using diosgenin, a chemical abundant in Mexican yams, the Syntex team created a contraceptive steroid that could be taken orally.
The birth-control pill first approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — Enovid, in 1960 — was developed not by Djerassi but by a competitor, Frank Colton at G.D. Searle. In short order, though, Djerassi’s version was also approved and became an industry standard.
