“…Responding to his critics, Kessel claims that riskbenefit assessments, the cornerstone of clinical trials, favoured the use of QS in populations where maternal mortality rates are high and contraceptive prevalence is low. 1 The Lancet article informed and alerted health advocates and activists, igniting a controversy (Pollack and Carignan, 1993;Berer, 1994;Carignan, Rogow and Pollack, 1994). However, four years passed before any action was taken to stop the increasing use of the drug as a sterilant.…”