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1973

The first edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves, the women’s health manual written by the Boston Women’s Health Collective, noted that available pregnancy tests were most accurate if done two weeks after the missed period. Though the authors insisted that instructions for “collecting and submitting your urine are simple,” modern readers might disagree. “Drink no liquids after dinner the night before,” the text instructed, “then as soon as you awake in the morning collect a urine sample in a clean, dry, soap-free jar and take it to a laboratory.” Another possibility was sending the urine sample to a laboratory in North Carolina, after first writing to request the test kit.

Mid-1970s

Though the test was not yet widely available, NIH scientists spread the word about the new radioimmunoassay. At first, the test was found most useful for clinicians in testing and following patients being treated for hCG-secreting tumors. The sensitive radioimmunoassay could tell the doctors if the chemotherapy treatments had worked.

JV: We were doing assays for people all over the place. We felt ethically that we had to because it wasn’t available anyplace else. So we used to give out a lot of antiserums to research labs and show them how to set up the assays.

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From Directions and Technical Information on UCG-TEST, 1970, courtesy of Special Collections, Northwestern University Library
From Directions and Technical Information on UCG-TEST, 1970, courtesy of Special Collections, Northwestern University Library

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Note

Note: Quotations labeled “JV” “JV” are from an interview with Judith Vaitukaitis, August 18, 2003. Quotations labeled “GB” are from a telephone conversation with Glenn Braunstein, October 3, 2003.

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