struct.pack and perl's 'B' code for bitstrings

[Justin Johnson]

Is there anything equivalent to perl's pack code B, which allows you to
specify bits to pack?  For example, in perl, pack('B8', '00000010') will
return 8 bits exactly as the bit string appears.  I don't see any similar
codes in struct.pack.  In general struct.pack is not as robust as perl's
pack function.  Is there a better version of struct somewhere, or how are
people overcoming some of these problems?

Thanks much.
-Justin