The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women

Ms. Seaman, co-founder of the National Women’s Health Network, talked about her book, The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women: Exploding the Estrogen Myth, published by Hyperion Books. She explained that in 2002, the Women’s Health Initiative of the National Institutes of Health halted an extensive, randomized study of a synthetic estrogen. The Institute concluded that the risks to the post-menopausal women using the hormone outweighed the benefits. She described the controversy surrounding the use of prescription hormones for birth control, menopause, and post-menopause, and outlined the development of prescription hormones in the 1930s, their marketing to doctors and to patients, and her contention that evidence of the increased risk of breast cancer and cancer of the uterus was suppressed. After her presentation Ms. Seaman answered audience members' questions. close