[국제]Poor birth control pills… 170 Chilean women unwanted pregnancy

Controversy has arisen over 170 women having unwanted pregnancy with the distribution of bad contraceptives in Chile.

On the 6th, according to CNN reports, Cynthia Gonzalez, the mother of four children living in the suburbs of Santiago, Chile, had a fifth child despite taking birth control pills. She was in a situation where she was unable to give birth due to financial circumstances, but she had to give birth that she did not want.

The oral contraceptive in question, which Gonzalez took, is the product of’Anulet CD’, an oral contraceptive manufactured by Silesia, a subsidiary of Grunental, a German pharmaceutical company. The Anulet CD consists of a set of 21 birth control pills for women to take every day and 7 placebos to maintain the habit of taking one per day. However, in the bad product, the actual drug and placebo were randomly mixed. It is known that some products produced last year did not produce contraceptive effects due to a mixture of actual drugs and placebo.

According to CNN, there are 170 Chilean women who take this product and have unwanted pregnancy. Chilean health authorities recalled 139,160 packs of products after receiving reports from public health center employees that the drug was suspected of being defective. Health authorities temporarily suspended Silesia’s manufacturing license, but it had already distributed over 277,000 packs of bad contraceptives.

In Chile, abortions are only allowed if pregnant as a result of sexual assault or if the mother’s life is at risk as a result of the pregnancy. Therefore, most women who have unwanted pregnancy due to birth control pills are forced to have children.

Even though obvious defects were found in their products, pharmaceutical companies are handing over responsibility to victims. A spokesman for Grunental admits that “there was a problem with the packaging process and production line, and some pills were stored incorrectly,” but argued that “but there is no problem with the efficacy of the pill.” The original contraceptive pill is not 100% effective, so it is possible to become pregnant. However, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), the probability of getting pregnant is less than 1% when the pill is taken correctly.

A spokesman for a pharmaceutical company said, “I am not trying to blame women. If you take contraceptives inconsistently or don’t take them correctly, your chances of getting pregnant will increase statistically.”

Chile’s women’s rights group, Milles, plans to file a class action lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies after collecting more victims. Milles said, “We have collected more than 170 victims, but there are certainly more victims among women who live in the countryside or stay away from the Internet or TV.”

Milles demanded that “the government should pay reparations to victims and help people who want to end their pregnancy to have a safe and legal abortion.”

YTN PLUS Reporter Jeong Yoon-joo
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