Barbara Seaman
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Barbara Seaman (born 1935) is a women’s health activistwho, through persistent investigative journalism, reporting, and social organizing, has brought about significant changes in the relationship between the medical and pharmaceutical establishments and women in America. As an activist, she introduced the concepts of informed consent, full disclosure, and sexism in healthcare, provoked a US Senate hearing, established the National Women's Health Network(a network which advocates for women's health advancement and does not accept funding from pharmaceutical companies), and authored a number of critical books and articles.
Seaman was in New York City and received her BA and LHD from Oberlin College as a Ford Foundation scholar. She was also Sloan Rockefeller Fellow at Columbia University's School of Journalism. She began her career as a science writer and editor for various women’s magazines as a frequent contributor to the New York Times and the Washington Post and has been either a columnist or contributing editor at Ms., Omni, Ladies' Home Journal, Hadassah, Bride's and Family Circle. [1]
In 1969, she completed her first book, The Doctors’ Case Against the Pill, which led United States Senate to call for hearing on the safety of the oral contraceptive. As a result, a health warning was added to the pill, the first informational insert for any prescription drug.[2] On April 27, 1970, Robert Finch, Secretary of HEW, wrote in a letter to Barbara Seaman: "I just wanted you to know that I read your book, THE DOCTORS’ CASE AGAINST THE PILL, and it was a major factor in our strengthening the language in the final warning published in the Federal Register to be included in each package of the Pill."
Seaman continued to author articles and advocate for women’s safety and participation in their own medical treatment specifically concerning hormonal contraceptives and childbirth and the unwillingness of some doctors and pharmaceutical companies to disclose risks to patients and consumers, and allow them to make informed consent. In June of 2000, the New York Times published a piece entitled, "The Pill and I: 40 Years On, the Relationship Remains Wary."[1]
Although she began as a journalist for well-known women’s magazines, by the 1980s, the power of the pharmaceutical companies which advertised in these magazines and newspapers caused Seaman to be blacklisted from many publications for her criticism and exposure of the industry. [3]
She continued to write, and in time, many of her books have been re-released and her biography of Jaqueline Susann was turned into a movie. Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney said on the Congressional Record Oct 17 2005: “In the 1980s Barbara was essentially blacklisted from magazines by pharmaceutical companies who would not advertise in publications that carried her stories. Her relentless insistence on questioning the safety and effectiveness of their products earned her their condemnation and our praise. Barbara took advantage of the this forced lull by turning to biography.”
Her works were recognized by the Library of Congress as the first to raise the issues of sexism in health care, and she was cited by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfareas responsible for patient package inserts on prescriptions. Seaman went on to create many books, articles, plays, films, and anthologies. Her major works include: Free and Female (1972), Women and the Crisis in Sex Hormones (1977 with G. Seaman), Career and Motherhood (1979), Rooms with No View (1974), Women and Men (1975), Seizing our Bodies (1978), Lovely Me: The Life of Jacqueline Susann (1987), The Greatest Experiment ever Performed on Women: Exploding the Estrogen Myth (2003), and For Women Only: Your Guide to Health Empowerment with Gary Null (2000).
Seaman has been a critical part of many women’s, health, Jewish, and aging women’s organizations, and she continues to advocate and mentor younger generations of activists, in the name of informed consent and full disclosure for patients and consumers.
[edit] Trivia
Seaman's biography of Jacqueline Susann was turned into a movie. Michele Lee's biopic, Scandalous Me: The Jacqueline Susann Story[2], in fact, is based on Seaman's work, Lovely Me: The Life of Jacqueline Susann[3] and Seaman herself has appeared on many biopics about Susann, most recently The Divine Ms. Susann which is a part of the 2006 Fox DVD of Valley of the Dolls.
In 2000, Seaman was named by the US Postal Service as one of 40 honorees of the 1970s Women’s Right Movement stamp.[4]
[edit] References
Suzanne Braun Levine's Inventing the Rest of Our Lives: Women in Second Adulthood (New York: Viking, 2005):
"We owe any mastery we have achieved over our own health management to the efforts of Seaman and her sisters-in-arms. The strategy was established early on: Energize a grassroots constituency that lacked a voice; create coalitions from smaller autonomous groups (mobilized around particular conditions, or the needs of a particular demographic group, or local issues); share strategies, contracts, and information through informal but efficient networks; and for alliances with sympathetic sources on the inside of government, industry and the profession. And there was one more thing. 'We made it is rule to take no money from those who might expect their pound of flesh in return Seaman remembers. 'Otherwise Grassroots turns into Astroturf.' "Although our medical problems are not yet getting the attention they deserve, women's health interests are now on the public agenda. They are there, because women whose medical needs have been neglected are demanding attention, because women's health has become a field with a body of information that professionals have to be aware of, and because women consumers have become active participants in their own care. Today there remain urgent societal problems in need of a movement. One of them strikes particularly close to home.
PBS American Experience: The Pill
Who's Who in America: 46th - 61st edition 2007
Science Magazine, Aug 11 1995, article by Charles Mann entitled Women¹s Health Research Blossoms
[edit] Notes
- ^ Author Bio. Hyperion Books (2002). Retrieved on 2006-09-05.
- ^ Barbara Seaman. Jewish Women's Archive. Retrieved on 2006-09-05.
- ^ Amy Bloom (September 5, 2006). The 25th Anniversary of the Doctors' Case Against the Pill. National Women's Health Network Newsletter. Retrieved on 2006-09-05.
- ^ Seaman Honored with US Postage Stamp
