Belita Cowan was a women's health activist during the 1960s and 1970s. She attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She worked part-time at the University Hospital while finishing her master's degree in English. Cowan started her research as a result of how horrified she was by the false advertising of the morning after pill. [1] [2] She was invited to present her research findings at the Senate hearing on DES in 1974. This made her the first women's health activist to ever testify as an expert witness.
In 1969, when Cowan was working at the University Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan, she began researching the effects of diethylstilbestrol (DES), which was also known as the "morning after" pill. [3] The goal of her research was to look into the side effects that were caused by this drug. Many scientific articles that wrote about DES claimed that it was completely safe and effective. Even studies done by the University Hospital showed that none of the thousands of women surveyed reported side effects. However, Cowan had heard from her friends that the pill caused severe nausea for a short period of time and some cases of pregnancy that lead to children with cancer. Knowing this, Cowan brought together a group of women former patients at the University of Michigan's student health center and organized Advocates for Medical Information. [4] [5] This group aimed to educate women in the side effects of the DES pill and to oppose the use of it at the University Hospital and other health centers in the country. In 1971, the organization received a grant from the student government to undertake a survey of women who had taken DES. Out of the sixty-nine women who responded, only a quarter of them were contacted by doctors after taking the medication. [6] This proved that the advertisements for the drug DES was fraudulent. After concluding her research about the horrific side effects of diethylstilbestrol (DES), Cowan believed that women around the country should know about the fraudulent drug. She contacted Ralph Nader and other feminists to prepare for a press conference in Washington D.C. in December 1972. Immediately after her press conference, the dangers of DES made it into national news.
In 1974, Belita Cowan, Barbara Seaman, Phyllis Chesler, Mary Howell, and Alice Wolfson established the National Women's Health Network. [7] This was a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. that aimed to give women a louder voice in the healthcare system. [8] Later in 1974, she was invited to present her research findings at the House and Senate hearings on DES. [9] This made her the first women's health activist to ever testify as an expert witness. In 1978, she became the National Women's Health Network's first Executive Director. In her time in this position, she brought the NWHN into many important health issues including taking legal action against the manufacturers of the Dalkon Shield for their product injuring many women, challenging the Hyde Amendment, and sponsoring the first national conference on Black Women's Health. In 1983, Cowan retired as Executive Director of NWHN. In 1989, she founded and became president of the Lymphoma Foundation of America, which is devoted to helping lymphoma patients and families as well as funding research to find a cure.
In 1972, Cowan created "Her-self", [10] which was a feminist newspaper dedicated to women's health. In 1975, she wrote an excerpt in a women's newsjournal called "Off Our Backs" [11] Here, she addressed the fact that men were controlling women's health and pass laws that effect all women without any input from them. In the past, the FDA has held countless hearings on IUDs, hormone pills, drugs taken during pregnancy, vaginal deodorants, and other over-the-counter pills. These hearings are run by men, attended by men, and men make laws from these hearings. Cowan asks, “Where are the women?”. She wants women who use these products, women doctors, and women's health advocates to come together and make their voices heard. Cowan points out that action can be taken in small steps too. Women can step up in their own communities and bring action to the dangers of some drugs and devices given to women. [12]
Emergency contraception (EC) is a birth control measure, used after sexual intercourse to prevent pregnancy.
The combined oral contraceptive pill (COCP), often referred to as the birth control pill or colloquially as "the pill", is a type of birth control that is designed to be taken orally by women. It includes a combination of an estrogen and a progestogen. When taken correctly, it alters the menstrual cycle to eliminate ovulation and prevent pregnancy.
Diethylstilbestrol (DES), also known as stilbestrol or stilboestrol, is a nonsteroidal estrogen medication, which is presently rarely used. In the past, it was widely used for a variety of indications, including pregnancy support for women with a history of recurrent miscarriage, hormone therapy for menopausal symptoms and estrogen deficiency in women, treatment of prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women, and other uses. By 2007, it was only used in the treatment of prostate cancer and breast cancer. In 2011, Hoover and colleagues reported on adverse health outcomes linked to DES including infertility, miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, preeclampsia, preterm birth, stillbirth, infant death, menopause prior to age 45, breast cancer, cervical cancer, and vaginal cancer. While most commonly taken by mouth, DES was available for use by other routes as well, for instance, vaginal, topical, and by injection.
Katherine Murray Millett was an American feminist writer, educator, artist, and activist. She attended Oxford University and was the first American woman to be awarded a degree with first-class honors after studying at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She has been described as "a seminal influence on second-wave feminism", and is best known for her book Sexual Politics (1970), which was based on her doctoral dissertation at Columbia University. Journalist Liza Featherstone attributes the attainment of previously unimaginable "legal abortion, greater professional equality between the sexes, and a sexual freedom" in part to Millett's efforts.
Charlotte Bunch is an American feminist author and organizer in women's rights and human rights movements. Bunch is currently the founding director and senior scholar at the Center for Women's Global Leadership at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She is also a distinguished professor in the Department of Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers.
Barbara Seaman was an American author, activist, and journalist, and a principal founder of the women's health feminism movement.
The National Women's Health Network (NWHN) is a non-profit women's health advocacy organization located in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1975 by Barbara Seaman, Alice Wolfson, Belita Cowan, Mary Howell, and Phyllis Chesler. The stated mission of the organization is to give women a greater voice within the healthcare system. The NWHN researches and lobbies federal agencies on such issues as AIDS, reproductive rights, breast cancer, older women's health, and new contraceptive technologies. The Women's Health Voice, the NWHN's health information program, provides independent research on a variety of women's health topics.
Susan Jean Palmer is a Canadian sociologist of religion and author whose primary research interest is new religious movements. Formerly a professor of religious studies at Dawson College in Westmount, Quebec, she is currently an Affiliate Professor at Concordia University, and is also the Principal Investigator on the four-year SSHRC-funded research project, "Children in Sectarian Religions" at McGill University in Montreal, where she teaches courses on new religious movements.
In 1970, Barbara Seaman brought the dangers of combined oral contraceptive pill use to the attention of Senator Gaylord Nelson with her book The Doctors Case Against the Pill. Nelson, who at the time was also busy organizing the first Earth Day, called Senate hearings in January 1970 to investigate the problems Seaman's book addressed—that many women experienced severe side effects such as decreased sex drive, weight gain, heart problems, blood clots, and depression, but did not know that oral contraceptives were the cause.
Jeanette Eaton was an American writer of children's books, primarily biography and history. Four times she was one of the runners-up for the annual Newbery Medal. She was a suffragist and feminist.
Jennifer Abod is an American feminist activist, musician, journalist, and filmmaker.
Margaret Randall is an American-born writer, photographer, activist and academic. Born in New York City, she lived for many years in Spain, Mexico, Cuba, and Nicaragua, and spent time in North Vietnam during the last months of the U.S. war in that country. She has written extensively on her experiences abroad and back in the United States, and has taught at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, and other colleges.
Sandra Lynn Morgen was an American feminist anthropologist. At the end of her career, she was a professor of anthropology at the University of Oregon, and previously served as vice provost for graduate studies and associate dean of the Graduate School, and director of the University of Oregon Center for the Study of Women in Society.
Gertrude L. Van Wagenen was an American biologist. She was also a collector of anatomical illustrations and models.
A nonsteroidal estrogen is an estrogen with a nonsteroidal chemical structure. The most well-known example is the stilbestrol estrogen diethylstilbestrol (DES). Although nonsteroidal estrogens formerly had an important place in medicine, they have gradually fallen out of favor following the discovery of toxicities associated with high-dose DES starting in the early 1970s, and are now almost never used. On the other hand, virtually all selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs) are nonsteroidal, with triphenylethylenes like tamoxifen and clomifene having been derived from DES, and these drugs remain widely used in medicine for the treatment of breast cancer among other indications. In addition to pharmaceutical drugs, many xenoestrogens, including phytoestrogens, mycoestrogens, and synthetic endocrine disruptors like bisphenol A, are nonsteroidal substances with estrogenic activity.
Ethamoxytriphetol is a synthetic nonsteroidal antiestrogen that was studied clinically in the late 1950s and early 1960s but was never marketed. MER-25 was first reported in 1958, and was the first antiestrogen to be discovered. It has been described as "essentially devoid of estrogenic activity" and as having "very low estrogenic activity in all species tested". However, some estrogenic effects in the uterus have been observed, so it is not a pure antiestrogen but is, instead, technically a selective estrogen receptor modulator (SERM). For all intents and purposes, it is a nearly pure antiestrogen, however.
Sybil Shainwald is an American attorney specializing in women's health law and an activist for women's health reform. She has represented thousands of women and their children in individual and class action suits against manufacturers of harmful drugs, devices, and procedures. Shainwald is former chair of the National Women's Health Network, co-founder of Health Action International and Trial Lawyers for Public Justice.
The women's health movementin the United States refers to the aspect of the American feminist movement that works to improve all aspects of women's healthcare. It began during the second wave of feminism as a sub-movement of the women's liberation movement. WHM activism involves increasing women's knowledge and control of their own bodies on a variety of subjects, such as fertility control and home remedies, as well as challenging traditional doctor-patient relationships, the medicalization of childbirth, misogyny in the health care system, and ensuring drug safety.
Dr. Elizabeth Connell was an American doctor and proponent of women's reproductive health.
Aid Access is a nonprofit organization that provides access to medical abortion by mail in the United States and worldwide. It describes its work as a harm reduction strategy designed to provide safe access to mifepristone and misoprostol for women and trans men in the United States who may not otherwise have access to abortion or miscarriage management services. People are able to self-manage their own abortion with remote access to a physician and help-desk for any questions. The website is available in English, Spanish and Dutch. Aid Access was founded by Rebecca Gomperts, a Dutch physician, in March 2018.
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