The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed On Women: Exploding the Estrogen Myth [Hardcover]

Barbara Seaman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 9, 2003

"If a menopausal woman has pain or makes trouble, pound her hard on the jaw." (Egyptian medical text, 2000 B.C.)

For almost a century women have been taking some form of estrogen to combat the effects of menopause and aging,and more recently to prevent a host of diseases, from osteoporosis to Alzheimer's to heart disease. For most of that hundred years, doctors have been prescribing estrogen in either its organic or synthetic forms, and women have gone to their pharmacists and dutifully filled their prescriptions. In some cases, menopause sufferers who were experiencing the most extreme symptoms were in search of relief from hot flashes, night sweats, dryness, and more, but increasingly in recent years, women began receiving estrogen sometimes with progesterone as "hormone therapy," not because they were in immediate danger of anything but rather as a preventative. But was this regimen warranted? Did doctors know enough about estrogen and its effects to be widely prescribing it for such a range of ailments? Or were women being used as guinea pigs in a great experiment, an experiment the author terms "The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women?"

Since the 1960s, women's health icon Barbara Seaman has been one of the lone voices in journalism to question whether doctors have sufficient justification to be writing so many estrogen prescriptions, or whether it is the pharmaceutical industry that is driving the research, marketing, and use of hormone replacement therapy. In 2002, several important women's health studies revealed that estrogen may cause more problems in patients than it is correcting or preventing, and that in fact it has a dismal record in terms of prevention.

This groundbreaking book illuminates today's "menopause industry," tracing the history of estrogen use from its early purveyors, including a well-meaning British doctor who lost control of the marketing of DES and therefore inadvertently led to the DES baby crisis, to Nazi experimentation with women and estrogen, to the present, and looks at how an experiment of this proportion could have been conducted without oversight,intervention, or real knowledge as to what its effects would be.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Science journalist Seaman, cofounder of the National Women's Health Network, takes no prisoners in this scathing indictment of hormone replacement therapy in general and estrogen in particular. Her account of pandemic abuse of the trust women place in their doctors cuts a wide swath of guilt that begins at medical practitioners but scores drug manufacturers as well as the Food and Drug Administration. The experiment with hormone replacement--called an experiment because the drugs were manufactured, marketed, and prescribed either without or in defiance of scientific proof of their safety--began in 1938 in England when a biochemist published his formula for synthetic estrogen, diethylstilbestrol (DES). The ensuing story reads like an X-Files conspiracy script as, for the next 65 years, doctors and authorities ignored mounting evidence of the sometimes-fatal consequences of taking these hormones. Seaman has long been an outspoken opponent of what she calls medicalization, which places such normal occurrences as pregnancy and menopause under medical control, and has advocated full drug disclosure so that women may be made aware of drug side effects and health hazards. She has been accused of being an alarmist, but recent evidence of the dangers of such drugs as DES rather validates her alarm. A wake-up call to women about unquestioningly accepting doctors' orders. Donna Chavez
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

A women's health advocate for more than forty years, Barbara Seaman is a national judge of the Project Censored Awards, an advanced science writing Fellow at Columbia University's School of Journalism, and the cofounder of the National Women's Health Network, a women's advocacy group in Washington, D.C., that refuses money from the drug industry as part of its charter. A frequent contributor to the New York Times and the Washington Post, she has been either a columnist or contributing editor at the following publications: Ms., Omni, Ladies' Home Journal, Bride's, Family Circle, and Hadassah magazine. She is the author of The Doctors' Case Against the Pill, For Women Only: Your Guide to Health Empowerment, Free and Female, Women and the Crisis in Sex Hormones, and Lovely Me: The Life of Jacqueline Susann. She lives in New York City.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion; 1 edition (July 9, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786868538
• ISBN-13: 978-0786868537
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #843,915 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #81 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Personal Health > Women's Health > Menopause

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fascinating Book, August 1, 2003

By 

Jean E. Kreiling (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed On Women: Exploding the Estrogen Myth (Hardcover)

The Greatest Experiment is a fascinating book. It offers a valuable history of estrogen use from World War II to the present. Barbara Seaman, a well known science writer, has been following the estrogen story for years and was able to interview many of the major figures in the field. The story of how menopause came to be viewed as disease, how a dangerous drug was prescribed to women as a tonic for brittle bones, heart disease and Alzheimer's disease on the basis of circumstantial evidence is, indeed, compelling. The struggle to expose the side-effects of estrogen-derived birth control pills is also told. This led to Congressional hearings and forced drug companies to provide information on the side effects and dangers of birth control pills. The Greatest Experiment contains much more including the tragic story of the DES daughters (whose mothers received diethylstilbestrol, an estrogen derivative, to prevent miscarriages and gave birth to daughters who experienced life-long reproductive problems.) Also told is the troubling use of DES by farmers who still use it to fatten livestock. Finally, the book has an excellent Appendix on the options now available to women who seek treatment for symptoms of menopause.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What every woman needs to know, July 20, 2003

By 

Yogini "gurubhai" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed On Women: Exploding the Estrogen Myth (Hardcover)

The information in this book is crucial to women of all ages. Ms Seaman presents her thorough research in a clear, direct and engaging manner. I found myself outraged by the comments of some 'respected' doctors, researchers and drug companies. I was also amused by some of Ms. Seaman's comments. The spirit of feminism is alive and well, thanks to Barbara's work.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Regain confidence in your intuition, December 28, 2004

By 

Naweko San-Joyz "Noixia-ist" (San Diego, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed On Women: Exploding the Estrogen Myth (Hardcover)

Barbara Seaman's work is a women's must read because it encourages women to take complete ownership of their health and bodies.

Seaman details story after story of why women should question their doctors and pharmaceutical companies. From taking drugs that destroyed their babies to taking cancer provoking concoctions, women have served as uninformed guinea pigs for years.

Accordingly, Seaman gives women a reason to say "No" to new drugs and new therapies that promise to make our lives easier in the ever popular crusade to ease "woman problems".

The female physique is inundated with mystique. That which is not understood faces constant scrutiny and treacherous attacks. Seaman sends a message loud and clear to all women- Take control of your own health because there are thousands of people out willing and waiting to experiment with your well-being while hailing promises of new found youth and renewed vigor.

I suggest your cross read The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women with Uzzi Reiss' Natural Hormone Balance for Women. Reiss claims that estrogens have a "bad" rap because studies such as those covered by Seaman only address synthetic hormones or those derived from horses. I did not find Reiss' arguments compelling, it just offered another view of the women's hormone scene.