“Senior Death Warrant” is the title of a ridiculous chain email created to frighten the public as the Obama administration attempts to overhaul health care for first time in decades. Unfortunately, it’s not so easy to laugh off this message, especially as it keeps appearing in forums and on other websites.

Here’s how it begins:

The actress Natasha Richardson died after falling skiing in Canada. It took eight hours to drive her to a hospital. If Canada had our healthcare she might be alive today. We now have helicopters that would have gotten her to the hospital in 30 minutes. Obama wants to have our healthcare like Canada ’s and England’s.

In England anyone over 59 cannot receive heart repairs or stents or bypass because it is not covered as being too expensive and not needed.

I got this today and am sending it on. If Obama’s plans in other areas don’t scare you, this should. [...]

Please do not let Obama sign senior death warrants.

Everybody that is on this mailing list is either a senior citizen, is getting close or knows somebody that is.

Most of you know by now that the Senate version (at least) of the “stimulus” bill includes provisions for extensive rationing of health care for senior citizens… The author of this part of the bill, former senator and tax evader, Tom Daschle was credited today by Bloomberg with the following statement. Bloomberg: Daschle says “health-care reform will not be pain free. Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them.”

There’s more, and you can read it in its entirety at FactCheck.org, along with a point-by-point breakdown of all the incorrect information contained within.

For starters, here’s what FactCheck.org found when it looked into the claim about people over age 59 not receiving coronary care in England:

We called the United Kingdom’s Department of Health and a spokesman told us: “It is not true that anyone aged over 59 years cannot receive heart repairs, stents or bypass surgery on the basis of their age.”

He also said that medical procedures in the U.K. are not routinely denied for older people. The National Health Service, the U.K.’s public health care service, has a constitution which prohibits discrimination on the basis of age and other factors. “The NHS Constitution states that the NHS provides a ‘comprehensive service, available to all irrespective of gender, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief,’ ” the spokesman said.

We also contacted a nonprofit group, England’s Age Concern and Help the Aged, which works to stop age discrimination in various facets of life, including employment and health care. Age Concern’s press office had never heard of any kind of prohibition on heart surgery for those 60 and older.

Women, who generally live five to 10 years longer than men, need to know that health care reform in the United States will not lead to a rationing of care for seniors. Here’s what FactCheck.org reports on the stimulus bill:

Some conservatives have said that a council overseeing the government’s funding of comparative effectiveness research (research into which medicines and procedures work best and are most cost-effective) will “ration” health care. But the council created by the stimulus legislation (now public law (pdf)) doesn’t have any power to do that. In fact, the legislation stipulates that “[n]one of the reports submitted under this section or recommendations made by the Council shall be construed as mandates or clinical guidelines for payment, coverage, or treatment.”

As for former Sen. Tom Daschle, he never said, “Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them.” Here’s the real deal:

Instead, those are the words of the former Republican lieutenant governor of New York, Betsy McCaughey, who wrote an opinion piece for Bloomberg News and offered her reading of comments in Daschle’s book. Back in February, we dissected McCaughey’s column, pieces of which have popped up in chain e-mails, and found it to be full of errors. McCaughey also passes off opinion as fact, and in the case of Daschle, she paraphrases him, which is clear from the lack of quote marks in the column.

What Daschle did say is a far cry from “seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them.” Instead, he wrote (without mentioning age) in his book “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis”: “The use and overuse of new technologies and treatments is grounded in American culture. … More so than people in other countries, [Americans] just aren’t inclined to fatalistically accept a hopeless diagnosis or forgo experimental interventions if there is even the slightest chance of success.”

If you see the “senior death warrant” email posted anywhere, please respond by posting this link:

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/is_it_true_that_persons_older_than.html

Plus: National Women’s Law Center is calling for a national call-in day on health reform on Tuesday, July 28 (that’s tomorrow). Call your U.S. representatives to tell them to support the House’s health care reform bill (H.R. 3200).

Osteoporosis, a loss of bone mass that can precede serious and costly breaks or fractures, is of particular concern to women – current estimates suggest that “osteoporosis is a major public health threat for 44 million Americans, 68 percent of whom are women… One out of every two women and one in four men age 50 and older will have an osteoporosis-related fracture in their lifetime.”

Often overlooked in discussions of the condition, however, are questions related to the efficacy and potential harms of the tests and treatments used to measure and prevent bone loss.  In particular, women’s health advocates have concerns about the overuse of medications in women who have risk factors for osteoporosis, but do not actually have the disease itself.

The April issue of the American Journal of Nursing (AJN) includes a piece, “The Marketing of Osteoporosis,” which comments on the promotion of drugs to symptom-free women for bone fracture prevention.

Author Maryann Napoli (of the Center for Medical Consumers) writes:

“In the name of prevention, millions of Americans have accepted the idea that it’s reasonable to treat a risk factor such as bone loss or high cholesterol as if it were a disease…More people should question the wisdom of starting long-term drug therapy. Often the magnitude of the risk factor has been overestimated, or the danger of the disease itself exaggerated, by people trying to sell you something-like a drug you must take for the rest of your life.”

She describes how what was once a risk factor (bone loss) came to be thought of as a disease (osteoporosis), and notes the role of pharmaceutical companies such as Merck in shaping this thinking, as well as in encouraging women to have bone density scans and take drugs as a “preventive” measure.

Napoli notes that as drugs such as alendronate came on the market, middle-aged rather than elderly women became the targets of osteoporosis-related advertising and drugs. She explains:

“A multipage glossy ad campaign that ran frequently in the Annals of Internal Medicine, for example, featured a thin, 40-something white woman with a crumbling ancient stone column in the background. “Don’t wait for a fracture…. No matter what her degree of osteoporotic bone loss.” I wrote to the editor-in-chief of Annals, pointing out that alendronate had no proven benefit in women in early middle age or in those without a history of fracture. I never received a reply, but the journal stopped running the ad about six months later….

Today, women in the osteoporosis drug ads are usually in their early 60s. The 2002 guidelines for osteoporosis screening from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality recommend that bone-density scanning not begin until age 65 (or 60 in some high-risk cases).”

Christine has previously written about the potentially serious side effects medications for postmenopausal osteoporosis and non-drug prevention options, and OBOS’s Judy Norsigian and Heather Stephenson addressed the issue in a commentary for Women’s eNews, “Let’s Make May the Month to Tame Osteoporosis Hype.”

Side note: The current cover of the AJN features a piece of art called Nursing Bra, part of the Artfull Bras Project, a collection of 50 bras created by the Quilters of South Carolina to raise breast cancer awareness.

A story making headlines this past week raises questions about what we know/don’t know about a class of drugs commonly used to treat osteoporosis.

The New York Times looks at a rare type of leg fracture in the upper thighbone — a fracture that typically affects people in car accidents or very frail older people — which is showing up in women who have used a class of bone-building drugs called bisphosphonates for five years or more. Tara Parker-Pope writes:

Some patients have reported that after weeks or months of unexplained aching, their thighbones simply snapped while they were walking or standing.

“Many of these women will tell you they thought the bone broke before they hit the ground,” said Dr. Dean G. Lorich, associate director of orthopedic trauma surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell and the Hospital for Special Surgery. Dr. Lorich and his colleagues published a study in The Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma last month reporting on 20 patients with the fracture. Nineteen had been using the bone drug Fosamax for an average of 6.9 years.

To be sure, the problem appears to be rare, notes Parker-Pope, and the drugs have proved useful for women with severe osteoporosis. But it’s enough of a concern that Merck, the drug company that makes Fosamax, said it will study whether the fracture is occurring more in bone-drug users.

Up to this point, “the fracture pattern did not emerge in placebo-controlled studies of bone drugs. But those studies have lasted only three to five years, although follow-up studies of the drug users have lasted longer. Now that the fracture pattern has been identified, researchers expect more doctors to publish reports,” writes Parker-Pope.

Meanwhile, studies show that there’s there’s not much to be gained by taking bisphosphonates for more than five years, and some doctors recommend that long-term users take a break from the drugs.

The story also notes another rare side effect associated with the drugs: osteonecrosis of the jaw, which destroys a patient’s jawbone. Though it mostly affects cancer patients taking an intravenous form of the drug, ordinary users have also reported the side effect.

Planned Parenthood Expands its Reach: “Flush with cash, Planned Parenthood affiliates nationwide are aggressively expanding their reach, seeking to woo more affluent patients with a network of suburban clinics and huge new health centers that project a decidedly upscale image,” reports the Wall Street Journal.

Unfortunately the full story is available to subscribers only, but the WSJ health blog has a summary that includes these remarks:

Despite some critiques to the contrary, Planned Parenthood insists it’s not compromising is long-held focus on serving the poor with birth control, sexual-health care and abortions. Officials there say they take a loss of nearly $1 on each packet of birth-control pills distributed to poor women under a federal program that funds reproductive care. But they make a profit of nearly $22 on each month of pills sold to an adult who can afford to pay full price. That money helps subsidize other operations, including care for the poor as well as pursuing Planned Parenthood’s political agenda.

“It is high time we follow the population,” said Sarah Stoesz, who heads Planned Parenthood operations in three Midwest states. She recently opened three express centers in wealthy Minnesota suburbs, “in shopping centers and malls, places where women are already doing their grocery shopping, picking up their Starbucks, living their daily lives,” she said.

Pregnant in Gloucester: Concerning the 18 high school students pregnant in Gloucester, Mass, that have received national news coverage for supposedly choosing to get pregnant and raise their children together, Kelly McBride, who covers media ethics for Poynter Institute, has an excellent piece on pack journalism in search of a “pact..” Meanwhile, the high school principal who first said their was evidence of a pact defends his comments and his memory.

Plus: Courtney Macavinta of Respect RX discusses her own sex “pact” at age 15 and the cycle of disrespect that leads girls who don’t value themselves to make choices “in which the fine print (that life is about to get even harder) is written in invisible ink.”

Teen Pregnancies at 30-Year Low: Writing in the Chicago Tribune, Lisa Anderson reports on the latest pregnancy statistics released by the Guttmacher Institute.

Pregnancies — whether they end in birth, miscarriage or abortion — among women age 15 to 19 dropped to 72.2 per 1,000 women in 2004, down from a peak of 117 per 1,000 women in 1990 [...]

While some 700,000 women age 15 to 19 become pregnant every year, the rate has declined 36 percent since it peaked in 1990. The rate of abortions among teens also plummeted, to 19.8 per 1,000 women in 2004 from a high of 43.5 per 1,000 in 1988.

But researchers are keeping a close eye on the numbers, as there are some signs that the drop may be reversing:

Despite decades of improvement and for reasons yet unknown, there is statistical evidence that the drop in pregnancy rates, the age of first sexual activity and contraceptive use among teens stalled after 2001.

The exception may be in the teen birthrate. After a 14-year decline, the birthrate, meaning the number of live births, among women age 15 to 19 rose 3 percent in 2006 to 41.9 per 1,000 women from 40.5 per 1,000 women in 2005, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Until more data are compiled, it is unclear whether the 2006 uptick in births was an isolated blip or the harbinger of a more significant and negative change on the teen reproductive landscape, according to David Landry, a senior research associate at the Guttmacher Institute.

Mandating Insurance Coverage for Psychiatric Ailments: Illinois will become the 17th state to mandate insurance coverage for treatment of anorexia and bulimia, assuming the governor signs a bill recently approved by the state Legislature.

Bonnie Miller Rubin and Ashley Wiehle of the Chicago Tribune write:

The measure is part of a larger national debate about addressing inequities in insurance coverage between psychiatric and physical ailments.

More than 12 million Americans, mostly young women, have eating disorders in their lifetime, according to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders. The organization ranked risk of death as higher with anorexia than with any other mental illness. Among patients with anorexia, almost half of all deaths are suicides, according to ANAD. Yet many insurers balk at covering the tab, which can run as high as $2,500 a day.

“I’ve met so many parents who have had to refinance their homes,” said Rep. Fred Crespo (D-Hoffman Estates), one of the bill’s sponsors.

But others cite the financial cost of such a law. Richard Cauchi, health program director for the National Conference of State Legislatures, said Illinois has taken “an unusual action” for 2008, when the trend is to move away from mandates on business and governments.

“There’s more pressure now to repeal and restrict mandates than to enact new ones,” he said..

“Neglected Infections of Poverty”: “Despite plummeting mortality rates for most infectious diseases over the last century, a group of largely overlooked bacterial, viral and parasitic infections is still plaguing the nation’s poor, according to a report released this week,” writes Wendy Hansen in the L.A. Times.

“Many of the diseases are typically associated with tropical developing countries but are surprisingly common in poor regions of the United States, according to the analysis, published in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.”

The study’s author, Dr. Peter Hotez, chairman of George Washington University’s department of microbiology, immunology and tropical disease, says there are 24 diseases affecting at least 300,000 Americans, and possibly millions. Poverty-stricken regions, including Appalachia, inner cities, the Mississippi Delta and the border with Mexico, are the areas most severely affected.

Will Women Give Hormone Maker a Second Chance?: “Can Wyeth win back the 40 million Premarin and Prempro users it’s lost since 2002 — along with $1 billion a year in profits — with a new menopause drug? Or will the once-bitten women who have filed more than 5,000 lawsuits claiming the hormones gave them cancer feel fooled twice?” asks Martha Rosenberg at AlterNet.org, in this look at Wyeth’s hope of marketing Pristiq as the first nonhormonal treatment for menopause symptoms.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Affects Women More: “The Army and Air Force discharged a disproportionate number of women in 2007 under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that prohibits openly gay people from serving in the military, according to Pentagon statistics gathered by an advocacy group,” reports The New York Times.

While women make up 14 percent of Army personnel, 46 percent of those discharged under the policy last year were women. And while 20 percent of Air Force personnel are women, 49 percent of its discharges under the policy last year were women. By comparison for 2006, about 35 percent of the Army’s discharges and 36 percent of the Air Force’s were women, according to the statistics.

The information was gathered under a Freedom of Information Act request by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a policy advocacy organization.

Gardasil Not Approved for Older Women: “U.S. regulators have told Merck & Co they cannot yet approve Merck’s application to expand marketing of its cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil to an older group of women, the drugmaker said on Wednesday,” reports Reuters.

“Merck had applied for the use of Gardasil in women ages 27 through 45. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in a letter regarding the application that it has completed its review and there are ‘issues’ that preclude approval within the expected review time frame, Merck said.”

Exercise as a Tonic for Aging: The New York Times reports on an updated series of physical activity recommendations for older adults from the American Heart Association and the American College of Sports Medicine, which are expected to match new federal activity guidelines due in October from the United States Health and Human Services Department.

“Contrary to what many active adults seem to believe, physical fitness does not end with aerobics,” writes Jane Brody. “Strength training has long been advocated by the National Institute on Aging, and the heart association has finally recognized the added value of muscle strength to reduce stress on joints, bones and soft tissues; enhance stability and reduce the risk of falls; and increase the ability to meet the demands of daily life, like rising from a chair, climbing stairs and opening jars.”

Bush Ally Orr Leaves Just as Domestic Gag Rule Is Reconsidered: RH Reality Check has good coverage of the surprise resignation of Dr. Susan Orr, the assistant deputy secretary for population affairs. Orr previously worked for the Family Research Council — one of several conservative groups now pressuring President Bush to cut Title X family planning funding for clinics who also provide abortion services.

“Her most notable accomplishment in the year she has served is to defend the abstinence-until-marriage approach in the face of incontrovertible evidence it has failed,” writes Cristina Page. “Now that the Unplanned Family Research Council is within days of hitting another nail into Title X’s coffin, Dr. Orr suddenly and quietly resigns from her post so, one suspects, to not appear to have orchestrated the undermining of her own program from within.”

Read related posts by Amie Newman and Emily Douglas, and here’s more on the domestic gag rule by Marilyn Keefe of the National Partnership for Women & Families.

Plus: The Hill reports on how a group of centrist House Republicans are squaring off with GOP conservatives over modifying Title X regulations.

Domestic Partners Can Wed Without Dissolution: “Same-sex couples who are registered as domestic partners do not have to dissolve that union before getting married, attorneys that advise the state Legislature said Thursday, just as county clerks and other local officials met to determine how they will enact last week’s historic state Supreme Court ruling,” reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

Of course, there’s still the possibility of voters this November approving a constitutional amendment to limit marriage to opposite-sex couples. State Sen. Carole Migden, D-San Francisco warned that in light of future uncertainty, couples should not dissolve their domestic partnerships until that question is settled.

“It would be foolhardy to dissolve because it would create a period of vulnerability” for couples, Migden said.

For answers to more questions on the legality and logistics of same-sex marriage in California, check out this special news section.

FDA Warns Mothers About Nipple Cream: The Food and Drug Administration issued a warning to nursing mothers on Friday not to use or purchase Mommy’s Bliss Nipple Cream, marketed by MOM Enterprises Inc. of San Rafael, Calif., The product label says there’s no need to remove the cream before nursing, but it contains ingredients that may cause respiratory distress, vomiting and diarrhea in infants. Whoa.

The potentially harmful ingredients in the cream are chlorphenesin and phenoxyethanol. From the FDA release:

“Chlorphenesin relaxes skeletal muscle and can depress the central nervous system and cause respiratory depression (slow or shallow breathing) in infants. Phenoxyethanol is a preservative that is primarily used in cosmetics and medications. It also can depress the central nervous system and may cause vomiting and diarrhea, which can lead to dehydration in infants.”

“FDA is particularly concerned that nursing infants are being unwittingly exposed by their mothers to this product with dangerous side effects,” said Janet Woodcock, director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “Additionally, these two ingredients may interact with one another to further compound and increase the risk of respiratory depression in nursing infants.”

The FDA said it has not received any reports of injury to infants. The company has stopped selling the cream.

Chemicals in Nail Salons Affect Workers: A new survey from the Northern California Cancer Center and Asian Health Services of Oakland has found that Vietnamese nail salon workers suffer from acute health effects associated with the chemicals they use in that work, according to this release. Toxic and potentially hazardous ingredients, including solvents, plasticizers, resins and acids, are commonly found in nail care products.

“A majority of the workers reported health concerns from exposures to workplace chemicals,” reports Dung Nguyen of Asian Health Services who directed the face-to-face interviews with 201 Vietnamese nail salon workers at 74 salons. “Many of them reported having some health problem after they began working in the industry, particularly skin and eye irritation, breathing difficulties and headaches.” said Nguyen.

“Our findings highlight a critical need for further investigation into the breast cancer risk of nail salon workers, underscored by the workers’ routine use of carcinogenic and endocrine-disrupting chemicals, their prevalent health concerns about such chemicals, and their high level of acute health problems,” adds Thu Quach, MPH, of the Northern California Cancer Center.

The study was published online and is scheduled to appear in the October issue of Journal of Community Health.

New Safety Program to Monitor Medicare Drug Use: “Federal health officials will begin monitoring prescription drug usage by millions of Medicare participants in an effort to identify potential safety problems,” reports the Associated Press. Kevin Freking writes:

The Food and Drug Administration has been under increasing pressure to develop a comprehensive drug surveillance system since the painkiller Vioxx was pulled from the market in 2004 after it was linked to increased risk of stroke and heart attack.

New regulations announced Thursday by the Health and Human Services Department will enable the FDA, states and academic researchers to screen the Medicare claims data. Under the regulation, the Medicare data can be made available in 30 days.

My favorite quote from the story: “The era of wait and see is going to become the era of tell me right now,” the FDA commissioner, Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, said.

At first glance it sounds great. But then you read that only general details about the cost of enacting this new “Sentinel Initiative” were provided and, as Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said, it’s still in the planing states. Our verdict: We’ll wait and see.

Legal Rights of the Uninsured: The Chicago Tribune blog Triage, written by Judith Graham, covers issues related to the health-care industry. Here’s an interesting post on the legal rights of the uninsured — which in Illinois refers to 1.75 million people, almost 60 percent of whom are employed. For starters:

There is no such thing as a “right to care” for people who don’t have health insurance, with one major exception.

If you’re experiencing a medical emergency, you can go to any hospitals and get treatment. Hospitals are enjoined from turning you away under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), a federal act passed by Congress in 1986.

Plus: For up-to-date statistics and analysis of health care coverage and the uninsured, visit this section of the Kaiser Family Foundation. And check out the new Kaiser Fast Facts.

My Veggie Hero: Meet Johanna McCloy, who is taking on one ballpark at a time, trying to get vegetarian hot dogs added to the menu so all baseball fans can experience the joy of filling a bun with sauerkraut and mustard (ketchup? yeah, right). Check out her site, SoyHappy.org. And go Cubs!

The New York Times today published a pull-out special section, “A Guided Tour of Your Body,” with articles and advice on healthy aging for every body part.

The graphics are a bit surreal to look at in print, but it makes more sense online, where each body part is an interactive link to a related story (don’t say you weren’t warned that the shoulders and knees lead to nowhere). Online additions include links to exercises, test-your-knowledge quizzes and health risk calculators.

Update: The knee now connects, as you might expect, to a story on knee surgery.

Court Denies Bid to Sterilize Mentally Disabled Woman: “Disability rights advocates and medical ethicists praised a precedent-setting ruling Friday by the Illinois Appellate Court denying a bid to sterilize a mentally disabled woman against her will,” reports the Chicago Tribune.

The woman’s guardian had sought a tubal ligation, but a three-judge panel ruled unanimously that the guardian did not prove sterilization was in the woman’s best interest. There are “less intrusive and less psychologically harmful [birth-control] alternatives,” read the opinion.

“It’s extraordinarily significant” because it guarantees the disabled a court hearing, said Katie Watson, a Northwestern University professor who wrote a friend-of-the-court brief in the case on behalf of about two dozen medical ethicists.

“In the past, this was a decision that could be made between a guardian and a doctor,” she said. “The decision must be moved into the light.”

Choosy Mothers Choose … Well, Not This C-Section Story: Time magazine’s “Choosy Mothers Choose Caesareans” is problematic on multiple levels — but mainly for overplaying the role of women requesting elective c-sections as the reason being the skyrocketing caesarean rate, and downplaying the risks involved. Lucinda Marshall rocks with a great response.

Plus: For more information, read “Maternal Request for Cesarean Delivery: Myth or Reality?” — a summary of the latest research and articles compiled by Our Bodies Ourselves.

Fundamentalism Comes Under Public Health Scrutiny: From Women’s eNews: “Amid the growing influence of fundamentalism around the world, Asian researchers say women in almost any affected religion — Christian, Muslim or Hindu — pay the price in eroded health and safety.” Read the story by Swapna Majumdar, a journalist based in New Delhi.

Take Two on Time Off: “This year marks the 15th anniversary of the landmark Family and Medical Leave Act, which made it possible for many workers to take unpaid job-protected time off to care for their newborn children or sick relatives,” writes Nancy Trejos at the Washington Post. “But instead of celebrating, workers’ rights advocates and the Bush administration are battling over what would be the most sweeping revisions ever to the law.”

Trejos notes that a “fierce debate” has been sparked by some proposed changes, which have yielded more than 4,000 public comments:

Under proposals being considered by the Labor Department, workers would have to tell their bosses in advance when they take nonemergency leave, instead of being able to wait until two days after they left. They would have to undergo “fitness-for-duty” evaluations if they took intermittent leave for medical reasons and wanted to return to physically demanding jobs. To prove that they had a “serious health condition,” they would have to visit a health-care provider at least twice within a month of falling ill. What’s more, employers would have the right to contact health-care providers who authorized leave.

Botox and Disrespect of Aging: “The 2,775,176 Botox treatments in 2007, at a cost of more than $1 billion dollars neatly expresses the desperation some people feel about physical signs of aging,” writes Ronni Bennett, before going on to discuss recent studies on the potential dangers of Botox and the FDA’s make-your-own-personal-judgment advice to consumers.

Coming of Age on Antidepressants: Writing in The New York Times, Richard A. Friedman, MD, reflects on the remarks of a 31-year-old patient who has been treated for depression since she was a teen: “I’ve grown up on medication,” she said. “I don’t have a sense of who I really am without it.”

The patient credited the medication with saving her life, “but now she was raising an equally fundamental question: how the drugs might have affected her psychological development and core identity.” Friedman continues:

Her experience is far from unique. Since their emergence in the late 1980s, serotonin reuptake inhibitors like Prozac and Zoloft have become some of the most widely prescribed drugs in the world, for depressed teenagers as well as adults. Because depression is often a chronic, recurring illness, there are certain to be many young people, like Julie, who are coming of age on these newer antidepressants.

We know a lot about the course of untreated depression, probably more than we do about very long-term antidepressant use in this population.

Plus: Friedman and Norman Rosenthal, MD, were both guests on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” on Thursday, discussing the physical and psychological effects of taking antidepressants long-term.

Ireland Releases Study on Menopause: Ireland’s Minister for Health, Mary Harney, published “Menopause and Me,” hailed as the largest ever study in Ireland on awareness, attitudes and experiences of menopause, according to The Irish Times. Ireland’s Women’s Health Council carried out the study, which is available online here.

Performance Artist Killed on Peace Trip: An Italian performance artist, Pippa Bacca, 33, was raped and killed by a driver who offered her a ride just three weeks into a hitchhiking trip from Italy to the Balkans to the Middle East. Bacca and her friend, Silvia Moro, 37, both wore wedding dresses as part of their “Brides on Tour” project, created to send a message of peace and “marriage between different peoples and nations.” Elisabetta Povoledo writes in The New York Times:

The performance piece, a trip through nearly a dozen countries in the Balkans and the Middle East, many of them ravaged by war recently, was meant to underscore that “by overcoming differences and lowering the level of conflict,” individuals and cultures could come together, Ms. Moro said in a telephone interview. “Meeting people was the key.”

Accepting rides with strangers was crucial to the art performance’s success, Ms. Moro said. The artists’ statement at their Web site, bridesontour.fotoup.net, says, “Hitchhiking is choosing to have faith in other human beings, and man, like a small god, rewards those who have faith in him.”

Ms. Moro explained: “It’s a poor way of traveling, and we wanted to underscore that you can’t foster love between people if you’re holed up in business class. You can’t go to, say, Mauritius, and eat pasta. You won’t understand people until you break bread with them, because it’s in the small diversities that you find similarities.”

Dumb Quote of the Week: “Eighteen is certainly an age where we’re putting men and women in uniform on a battlefield … I think they can decide if they want larger breasts.” — Dr. Alan Gold, a Great Neck, N.Y., plastic surgeon, as quoted in this Newsday story on breast implants.

The story notes that “according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, the number of women 18 and younger who have had breast enlargements has risen nearly 500 percent over the last decade, a sharper climb than the 300 percent increase in breast augmentations among all age groups,” but it doesn’t cover the health risks except to note the recent death of Stephanie Kuleba, 18, of South Florida, who died of what may have been a rare genetic reaction to general anesthesia given during breast-augmentation surgery.

It does, however, include this important point:

Traci Levy, an assistant professor who teaches courses in feminism and gender studies at Adelphi University, said the growing perception that it’s a common procedure, along with ads for plastic surgery, may contribute to its popularity.

“To say that you need to have a very expensive surgical procedure with real health risks in order to be considered beautiful, I think, is a problematic image,” she said.

Plus: Kacey, who got breast implants when she was 19 and tells her story at ImplantsOut.com, blogged recently at Beauty and the Breast about the illnesses she experienced (and is still experiencing) that she believes are linked to her implants.

Kacey was a recent guest on Fox’s “The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet,” and she wrote that another guest — an 18-year-old who wants breast implants — commented off-stage, “They’re just breast implants. It’s just like getting your hair cut!”

“I just got my hair cut – no scalpels, drains, anesthesia, surgeons or nurses necessary,” writes Kacey. “I will never wonder if my hair cut will cause joint pain. Can anyone say the same about breast implants?”

Aging Among the Haves and Have-Nots: “Seniors are living longer, healthier and more financially secure than past generations, according to a federal report released by several government agencies last month. But large disparities separate the quality of life for seniors of different genders, ethnicities, education levels and incomes,” reports the Ventura County Star, which headlines the story with this statistic: 71,500,000 Americans will be 65 and older in 2030, compared with 37 million people in 2006.

Plus: Read more on The Older Americans 2008 study, released by the National Institute on Aging.

Behind a Legal Shield: Here’s an extremely frustrating legal story concerning the Ortho Evra birth control patch, as reported by The New York Times:

For years, Johnson & Johnson obscured evidence that its popular Ortho Evra birth control patch delivered much more estrogen than standard birth control pills, potentially increasing the risk of blood clots and strokes, according to internal company documents.

But because the Food and Drug Administration approved the patch, the company is arguing in court that it cannot be sued by women who claim that they were injured by the product — even though its old label inaccurately described the amount of estrogen it released.

This legal argument is called pre-emption. After decades of being dismissed by courts, the tactic now appears to be on the verge of success, lawyers for plaintiffs and drug companies say.

Naturally, the Bush administration backs this doctrine. Read the whole story. And here’s a powerful op-ed on FDA oversight.

Abortion Has Left the Classroom: RH Reality Check has an excellent package of stories on the shortage of abortion doctors, all written by members of Medical Students for Choice.

“As recently as six or seven years ago, abortion was included in my medical school’s curriculum, but no longer,” writes Louisa Pyle, adding:

Medical school is, in many ways, a language school. Someone told me once that a medical student learns over 20,000 new words in their first two years of school, and in addition to the new vocabulary, I soon became capable of saying things over dinner that one should never say. “Rectum” no longer induces giggles and “vagina” is boring, not sexy or empowering. And yet, the word “abortion” is still said with a pause, a nod, a little quieter than the rest of the sentence. I’m happy when we talk about it at all: for me, the problem is the deafening silence. That a procedure more common than an appendectomy would never be named: In the halls of science and healthcare, that to me is an abomination.

Nicole Wolverston writes about the work of Medical Students for Choice. Jalan Washington, who is also a member of Advocates for Youth, writes about her frustration since starting medical school “with the lack of widespread action to address many of the educational, social, and economic determinants of health.”

“Hearing bleak statistics about Black and Latino health is a commonplace, routinely accepted, and unquestioned part of the American medical landscape. Very seldom do our discussions then proceed to the ways in which health care providers and the medical infrastructure directly contribute to these trends,” she writes.

Mothers Movement Online: The most recent issue of Mothers Movement Online is the pregnancy and childbirth issue. Included among the engaging and informative essays is an interview with OBOS executive director Judy Norsigian.

MMO Editor Judith Stadtman Tucker (read her editor’s notes) is a contributor to the new OBOS book on pregnancy and birth, specifically the section on advocating for the workplace rights of pregnant and parenting women.

In Shift to Digital, More Repeat Mammogram: As doctors learn to interpret digital mammograms, they are more likely to request second tests, reports The New York Times. Denise Grady writes:

At many centers, these nerve-racking calls are on the rise, at least temporarily — the price of progress as more and more radiologists switch from traditional X-ray film to digital mammograms, in which the X-ray images are displayed on a computer monitor.

Problems can arise during the transition period, while doctors learn to interpret digital mammograms and compare them to patients’ previous X-ray films. Comparing past and present to look for changes is an essential part of reading mammograms. But the digital and film versions can sometimes be hard to reconcile, and radiologists who are retraining their eyes and minds may be more likely to play it safe by requesting additional X-rays — and sometimes ultrasound exams and even biopsies — in women who turn out not to have breast cancer.

Over at Well, Tara Parker Pope put up pictures showing the difference between a normal digital mammogram and a normal mammogram from traditional X-ray film.

Plus: Here’s a brief but important post from the L.A. Times health blog on how MRIs may affect breast cancer treatment decisions.

Estrogen Linked to Benign Breast Lumps: “Add another risk to hormone therapy after menopause: Benign breast lumps,” reports the AP. A new study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute re-examines data from the Women’s Health Initiative pertaining to women who took estrogen only (women who had hysterectomies) instead of the estrogen-progestin combination hormone therapy.

Those estrogen-only users doubled their chances of getting non-cancerous breast lumps. That’s a concern not only because of the extra biopsies and worry those lumps cause, but because a particular type — called benign proliferative breast disease — is suspected of being a first step toward developing cancer 10 years or so later.

Razor Blades and Inner Goddesses – Get the Connection?: I missed this story about the latest in razor blade technology when it first came out, but it’s worth noting if only for the silly take on how shaving razors are marketed to women. The piece looks at the new advertising campaign around the Gillette Venus Embrace, which turns users into deities. (Any readers feeling transformed? Do tell.)

“Now we’ve given women the permission to reveal her own goddess,” said Gro Frivoll, who has worked on the Venus account at BBDO for eight years. “Every woman can be the goddess of something, because this allows you to be your most feminine self.”

Ack. Read on and the message is less, um, smooth:

When Gillette pitches razors to men, it tends to emphasize technological innovations. But on the women’s side, “we focus more on the emotional end benefits,” Ms. Frivoll said. ‘Men want to know, What am I paying more for? If a man were paying $25 for lipstick, it would have to have more than the Chanel name on it.”

Caffeine and Pregnancy: A new study (PDF) published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology says too much caffeine during pregnancy may increase the risk of miscarriage. Researchers found that “pregnant women who consume 200 milligrams or more of caffeine a day — the amount in 10 ounces of coffee or 25 ounces of tea — may double their risk of miscarriage,” reports The New York Times.

Dr. De-Kun Li, a reproductive and perinatal epidemiologist at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, Calif., and lead author of the study, said pregnant women should try to give up caffeine for at least the first three or four months. But some physicians had reservations about the study.

“Just interviewing women, over half of whom had already had their miscarriage, does not strike me as the best way to get at the real scientific question here,” said Dr. Carolyn Westhoff, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology, and of epidemiology, at Columbia University Medical Center. “But it is an excellent way to scare women.”

Kindness RX: Women’s eNews looks at a social-support campaign by and for pregnant African American women, who are nearly four times as likely to die from pregnancy-related causes as white women.The community-based campaign is called “100 Intentional Acts of Kindness Toward a Pregnant Woman.”

No More Drive-By Mastectomies: Celebrities, activists and lawmakers called on Congress this week to pass the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act of 2007, which would require that insurers cover up to a 48-hour stay in a hospital after a woman has had a mastectomy if the doctor and patient deem it necessary. Lifetime’s website collected 20 million signatures in support of the legislation.

According to the Baltimore Sun, only 10 states require up to 48 hours of coverage after mastectomies, and 10 states have no specific time limit. The remaining 30 have no protections.

Interview with Lisa Jackson: Melissa Silverstein interviews fillmmaker Lisa Jackson, who went to the Congo to take the testimony of women and girls being raped and sexually assaulted for the last decade in her new film, “The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo.” The film made its premiere at Sundance and will appear on HBO in April.

Plus: Chances are you saw the Oscar nominations this week, but did you catch the nominees for the 19th Annual GLAAD Media Awards? Here’s the full list of nominees.

The Pill Protects Against Cancer: “British researchers found that women taking the pill for 15 years halved their chances of developing ovarian cancer, and that the risk remained low more than 30 years later, though protection weakened over time,” reports the Washington post. The findings were published Friday in The Lancet.

In response to the study, The Lancet’s editors called for oral contraceptives to be made more widely available to women over the counter.

Calcium Effects Boosted by Vitamin D: The combination of calcium and vitamin D is more effective than calcium alone in preventing bone loss in elderly women, according to a new study that will appear in the March issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).

Buying into Botox: In a story about “How Not to Look Old,” a new advice book by Charla Krupp, a former beauty director at Glamour and columnist for More magazine, New York Times writer Natasha Singer notes that the book “is the latest makeover title to treat the aging of one’s exterior as a disease whose symptoms are to be fought to the death or, at least, mightily camouflaged.” She continues:

But the book offers a serious rationale for such vigilant attempts at age control, arguing that trying to pass for younger is not so much a matter of sexual allure as of job security. [...] Many people would shun a book if it were titled “How Not to Look Jewish” or “How Not to Look Gay” because to cater to discrimination is to capitulate to it. But the success of “How Not to Look Old” indicates that popular culture is willing to buy into ageism as an acceptable form of prejudice, even against oneself.

“Teeth” Provides Feminist Bite: In a review of the new film “Teeth,” a satire based on the myth of vagina dentata, Wesley Morris writes: “[T]here’s something almost subversive about Lichtenstein’s affection for his heroine and the pleasure she ultimately takes in re-appropriating a misogynistic myth. By the end of the film she’s not some virginal damsel. She’s on the verge of becoming a vaginal vigilante.”

Pop Goes Abortion: Yep. Another story about recent films that have avoided abortion … but this Newsday story goes further, addressing television’s representation (and lack thereof) as well: “More frequently, shows duck the issue by having characters back out at the last second (“Beverly Hills 90210,” “Melrose Place,” “The O.C.,” “Felicity,” “Sex and the City”) or miscarry (“Party of Five,” “Beverly Hills, 90210″ and “Melrose Place” – twice.) And Erica Kane? In 2005 she learned her baby wasn’t aborted after all, but transferred to another woman’s uterus.”

OK, it’s been ages since I watched “All My Children,” but he’s joking, right??

Plus: Susan J. Douglas puts in context “The Jamie Lynn Effect.”

Is There Sexism in Lifesaving?: “Want a surefire prescription for dreading old age? Delve into every study that explores the gender gap in medical care,” begins Carol Lloyd, who cites several studies, including one published this week in the Canadian Medical Association Journal that found “women over the age of 50 are one-third less likely to be admitted to ICUs, and then once in ICUs are far less likely to received lifesaving medical interventions like mechanical ventilation and pulmonary artery catheterization than their male counterparts.”

Future Nobel Prize Winner?: Jennifer Block, author of “Pushed Birth,” notes that Ricki Lake’s documentary, “The Business of Being Born,” is such a hit in Australia, it’s being likened to Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Legalization Opens Doors for Women in Mexico City: “Abortion remains illegal in the rest of Mexico, as it is in nearly all of Latin America,” writes Hector Tobar in the L.A. Times. “But in Mexico City, legalization is bringing a profound, if quiet, change to the way thousands of women lead their lives. In a country where unwanted pregnancies often strip women of their independence and ambitions, the extraordinary number of legal abortions taking place every day is beginning to diminish the procedure’s considerable cultural stigma.”

Plus: The New York Times profiles abortion doctor Susan Wicklund. “In her forthcoming book ‘This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor” (Public Affairs), Dr. Wicklund describes her work, the circumstances that lead her patients to choose abortion, and the barriers — lack of money, lack of providers, violence in the home or protesters at clinics — that stand in their way,” writes Cornelia Dean. “But she said her main goal with the book was to encourage more open discussion of abortion and its prevalence.”

Plus 2: Roman Catholic bishops this week approved voting guidelines for Catholics that are somewhat less rigid on abortion. Neela Banerjee writes in the Times:

“Abortion is among a few evils greater than others, the document asserts. But it also concedes that Catholics face difficult decisions when voting and in some cases might be able to vote for those who support abortion rights or stem cell research. ‘There may be times when a Catholic who rejects a candidate’s unacceptable position may decide to vote for that candidate for other morally grave reasons,’ the document says.”

More Money = Less Housework: “In married working couples, the more money a woman earns, the less housework she will do, regardless of how much money her spouse makes, says Sanjiv Gupta, a sociologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst,” according to this release based on a study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family. “Gupta goes further and says, based on his newest research, that for every $7,500 in annual earnings a married woman working full time makes, she can expect to do one hour less of routine housework each week.”

Paging Dr. Cliche: Disability Studies blog critiques a couple of recent episodes of “ER,” but as Penny L. Richards writes, the NBC series used to do much better by the disability community. “Characters with physical, mental and sensory disabilities have been presented as rounded human beings with full civil rights, at least as well as any other 44-minute network TV drama has done (admittedly, that’s a low standard to achieve).”

Geneticist Salome Gluecksohn-Waelsch Dies at 100: I only learned about Salome Gluecksohn-Waelsch this week when I came across her obit. After fleeing Nazi Germany, she first worked as a researcher at Columbia University and later became chair of the department of genetics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. And that’s not the half of it. Meet an underappreciated “truly great woman of science.”

Plus: There are approximately 40,000 Americans who are 100 years old or older, according to the New England Centenarian Study — and 85 percent of these centenarians are women. More from the L.A. Times.

So Not Pretty in Pink: Cheers for U.S. Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA), for taking on women’s magazines for running Camel No. 9 cigarettes ads — the pink version of Joe Camel aimed at female smokers.

“In June, 40 of my congressional colleagues joined me in writing to the publishers of 11 leading women’s magazines: Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, InStyle, Interview Magazine, Lucky, Marie Claire, Soap Opera Digest, Us Weekly, Vogue and W. We asked them to stop accepting misleading advertisements for deadly cigarettes, particularly for Camel No. 9,” Capps writes in the Washington Post. “Not one of the magazines bothered to formally respond. We wrote again on Aug. 1. Seven of the 11 magazines responded, but none has committed to dropping the ads.”

National Coming Out Day: Oct. 11 was the day, and Pam Spaulding has a great post about it, with video.

Plus: The New York Times last week looked at the prejudices elder gays and lesbians face, particularly those living at long-term care facilities where little thought may have been given to sensitivity training. Also see the accompanying audio and photos of Fred and Emile, and there’s a good list of related reports and demographic information.

Pink That: Lucinda Marshall at Feminist Peace Network put together a list of some of “the most crass, opportunistic list of supposedly cure-supporting crap I’ve ever seen.” And there’s more where those came from.

Being Anita Hill: “Back then, she was either a charlatan or a heroine, depending which side you took in the epic, gut-wrenching showdown that was the Clarence Thomas confirmation battle,” writes the AP’s Jocelyn Noveck. “Sixteen years later, Anita Hill can be found on a tranquil New England college campus, sifting through thousands of documents to try to answer this question: Have things gotten any better in our nation’s workplaces?”

An Emphasis on Homework: Interested in perfecting your housekeeping skills and learning how to defer to your husband in all matters? Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, offers an academic homemaking program — open only to women — that includes “lectures on laundering stubborn stains and a lab in baking chocolate-chip cookies,” reports the L.A. Times.

Linking Stress to Disease: A commentary in the Oct. 10 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association explores whether psychological stress increases the risk of disease. “The evidence from studies of depression and heart disease is most convincing. The HIV/AIDS data are a little weaker. The evidence for stress playing a role in cancer isn’t all that good, even though there is supporting evidence from studies of animals,” said lead author Sheldon Cohen.

“Perfecting” Ann Coulter: Gloria Feldt, writing at Huffington Post, shares the inspiration for her new list: “Full disclosure: I am mentioned 10 times — more than even Jane Fonda or Betty Friedan — by the anti-feminist Kate O’Beirne in her book, Women Who Make the World Worse: and How Their Radical Feminist Assault Is Ruining Our Schools, Families, Military, and Sports. From my perspective, this means I must be doing something right. With those credentials as well as being an aficionada of Keith Olberman’s nightly ‘Worst Person in the World’ shtick, I recently decided to start my own list of the Stupidest Women in America (SWIAA ™).”

Vaginal Cosmetic Surgery: Self magazine takes a close look at vaginal surgeries. One 21-year-old dipped into her student loan money to pay for a labiaplasty that cost $5,000 — and left her “deformed” and in unbearable pain. The reconstructive surgery cost an additional $8,700.

Are Annual Check-Ups a Thing of the Past? According to medical organizations like the the American College of Physicians and other professional groups, it’s no longer recommended. “That’s because there is scant scientific evidence showing that yearly checkups help prevent disease, death or disability for adults with no symptoms. Many tests and procedures performed during the visits have questionable value, experts say,” reports the Chicago Tribune.

According to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which does not endorse yearly physicals, “interventions that help patients change health-impairing habits or that spotlight emerging illnesses for which reliable and effective treatments exist” do make a real difference. Some examples, according to the Trib, are “Pap smears, mammograms, cholesterol tests, blood-pressure checks, and counseling to stop smoking, lose weight, get more exercise and eat a healthier diet.”

UK Promotes Water Births: The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, a UK health watchdog group, issued guidelines stating that all expectant mothers should be offered water births. From The Guardian:

“There is a perception that water is just nice,” said Dr Julia Sanders, a consultant midwife and member of the group which drew up the guidance. “But it is the most effective form of pain relief barring an epidural in labour. I would like to see more women using water and fewer women using the types of pain relief that are less effective.”

Nice also said clinical intervention should not be offered or advised when labour was progressing normally and the woman and baby were well. Once a woman was in established labour, she should receive supportive one-to-one care.

The guidance is expected to mean longer labours for some but could also mean fewer medical interventions, which can result in more painful and complicated labours.

Our Bodies Ourselves Executive Director Judy Norsigian and Managing Editor Heather Stephenson recently wrote about the potential side effects associated with some medications for post-menopausal osteoporosis, and they offered smart tips to help navigate the pharmaceutical hype.

Writing in the Washington Post, Nancy J. Nelson personalizes the challenge of determining one’s risk for bone fractures and making informed decisions about treatment options:

I share an anxiety with several women friends in their 50s and 60s. We’ve all been told that because our bone mineral density is low — though not low enough to meet the definition of the brittle-bone disease osteoporosis — we need to take medication to reduce our chance of fractures. This means primarily hormones or Fosamax, the top-selling osteoporosis drug, for which doctors wrote more than 20 million prescriptions last year, nearly $2 billion worth. Knowing the associated risks — heart disease, stroke and breast cancer for hormones; ulcers of the esophagus and stomach, and jaw decay for Fosamax — none of us is eager to follow our doctors’ orders. [...]

I also suspect my friends and I are a lot less at risk than someone in my parents’ generation. My mom and three of her pals have all fallen and had fractures; no one I know in my generation has done either.

My search of the scientific literature suggests we are right to be wary of over-medication.

Low bone density is only one of several well-established risk factors for bone fractures. Age and fracture history are just as important, according to Michael R. McClung, director of the Oregon Osteoporosis Center and a member of the council of scientific advisers for the International Osteoporosis Foundation. None of these factors alone is very good at predicting fracture risk. But some doctors don’t appear to have gotten the message.

“Many younger women whose bone density is borderline low are getting treated, although their risk of fracture in the next five to 10 years is fairly low,” said Nelson B. Watts, director of the University of Cincinnati Bone Health and Osteoporosis Center and chairman of the Food and Drug Administration’s Advisory Committee for Endocrine and Metabolic Drugs. “And many patients who have had fractures are not being evaluated or treated, even though their risk of a second fracture in the next five to 10 years is fairly high.”

Nelson reports on a new fracture-risk tool that may be published later this year by the World Health Organization. The tool, which will combine bone density with other risk factors, could end up altering osteoporosis treatment guidelines.

And it’s still important to remember the basics when it comes to good bone health: quitting smoking, limiting alcohol consumption to two drinks per day, exercising (particularly weight-bearing exercises like running or tennis) and making sure you get enough calcium and vitamin D.

Plus: It’s never too early to start educating girls about good bone health, note Newsweek columnists Barbara Kantrowitz and Pat Wingert:

Getting that message across is the focus of a new public service educational campaign sponsored by the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS) and the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). The campaign ads feature a young girl with the headline “Almost Past Her Prime.” “This is a prevention campaign,” says Dr. James H. Beaty, AAOS president and a pediatric orthopedic surgeon at the Campbell Clinic in Memphis. “We’re trying to prevent future problems rather than treat them when the kids become adults.”

Margaret Morganroth Gullette, a resident scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University and a contributor to “Our Bodies, Ourselves: Menopause,” has written a compelling piece for The American Prospect Online calling out hormone replacement therapy, not menopause, as the public health issue with which the medical community should be concerned.

Ever since the National Institutes of Health cut short a hormone therapy study called the Women’s Health Initiative estrogen-plus-progestin study, which found a higher risk of breast cancer, stroke, blood clots and heart attacks among women taking the combined therapy, the pharmacy industry, argues Gullette, has taken the position that the WHI overstated the risks, scaring too many women away from hormone treatments.

And the media has played along, presenting menopause as a condition that must be treated despite the fact that “the end of menstruation is unremarkable to about 90 percent of American women — the vast majority that never sought help,” writes Gullette, adding, “Even before the 2002 findings, rates of estrogen use varied — from a low of 8 percent in Massachusetts to 40 percent in California. Most women soon forget menopause.”

In December 2006, researchers announced a startling drop in the rate of breast cancer cases. This decrease is believed to be tied to the reduction of women taking hormone treatments since the publication of the WHI study. Gullette writes:

Feminists had long sounded warnings: feminist health activist Barbara Seaman called hormone treatment The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women in 2003. A companion experiment may be on midlife men. Big Pharma has lost so many women customers since 2002 that promoting testosterone (and human growth hormone) is next, according to cultural historian John Hoberman in his 2005 book Testosterone Dreams. Men will be at risk unless they understand that the drummed-up “disease” of menopause has created a model for selling hormones to them as well.

Before 2002, Americans could read about volumes about menopause and never discover that women’s health advocates thought hormone treatment dangerous. Far from teaching the controversy, the media acted as if it didn’t exist. And even since 2002, despite clear evidence of estrogen carcinogenesis, many in the media are in effect promoting the hormone comeback that Big Pharma wants. Estrogen bias drives what we are told about midlife women, what women are told in advance, the language that gets used, and the facts that remain hidden.

Continue reading here.

Related Reading: “Our Bodies, Ourselves: Menopause” has a section titled “Can We Trust the Evidence in Evidence-Based Medicine?” that’s available online. And you can read Gullette’s terrific personal essay about body image here.