Barbara Seaman 72 a force for womenaposs health

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She had lung cancer she was . The health movement of the s urged women to educate themselves about their bodies and demand more control over their medical care. Ms. Seaman helped shepherd the movement by raising important often overlooked questions about adequate testing for drugs. She was credited with helping to create the concept of patients rights particularly informed consent and proper warning labels on drugs. Over time she proved correct about the dangers of high doses of the female hormone estrogen in the earliest oral contraceptives. She also denounced hormone replacement therapy which for decades was promoted as a magic bullet to keep menopausal women young and sexy. Her books included The Doctors Case Against the Pill which triggered congressional hearings into the safety of oral contraceptives and The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women an expos of hormone replacement therapy. In Ms. Seaman cofounded the National Women s Health Network an advocacy and watchdog group in Washington that worke! d to give women the right to information about medical treatments and alternatives and to eliminate quotas limiting women s admission to medical schools. She was among the first to question using hormone treatments to address symptoms of menopause decades before the Women s Health Initiative released its long term study in showing such regimens significantly increase the risk of stroke breast cancer and other diseases. Ms. Seaman was a self described muckraker. Among her early targets was Robert Wilson a gynecologist whose best selling book Feminine Forever described hormone therapy as a cure for what he called women s deficiency disease. Wilson whose book was funded secretly by an estrogen manufacturer said women taking estrogen at could still look attractive in sleeveless dresses or tennis shorts. Ms. Seaman responded How do you know that it isn t from the tennis After graduating from Oberlin College in she started writing and editing for women s magazines. She was a colu! mnist for the Ladies Home Journal in the late s when she began receiving letters from readers concerned about blood clots heart attack depression and other serious medical conditions after taking oral contraceptives. I started finding out very early on that the patients taking the pill didn t agree with the doctors that it was perfectly safe and simple and wonderful Ms. Seaman said. The early pills had times the amount of hormones they have now. They were a massive overdose Ms. Seaman said. She interviewed doctors and officials at health organizations for her first book The Doctors Case Against the Pill considered by many a landmark text that led U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson D Wis. to hold hearings in about the safety of oral contraceptives. But Ms. Seaman and other activists said they were appalled by the lack of female witnesses and by testimony from one doctor that estrogen is to cancer what fertilizer is to wheat. Feminists disrupted the hearings in protest. Public outcry from the hearings stimulated research to find safer drugs and to get dru! g label warnings. By the s manufacturers in the United States drastically lowered estrogen doses in oral contraceptives they had been lowered years earlier in Britain. Ms. Seaman wrote Women and the Crisis in Sex Hormones with her second husband psychiatrist Gideon Seaman. Her marriages to Peter Marks Gideon Seaman and Milton Forman ended in divorce. Survivors include three children from her second marriage two sisters and four grandchildren. Copyright c The Seattle Times Company More Obituaries headlines. 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