menopause

Laura Eldridge is a women's health writer and activist. She began working with the founder of the women's health movement and author of The Doctor's Case Against The Pill, Barbara Seaman, when studying at Barnard College. Starting out as an an intern she progressed to become co-author on the publications Body Politic: Dispatches From The Women's Health Revolution and The No-Nonsense Guide To Menopause. This June Seven Stories Press will be releasing In Our Control: The Complete Guide To Contraceptive Choices For Women - a book Laura formed after Barbara Seaman's death in 2008 to provide a revaluation at the time of the Pill's 50th anniversary.

How did hormone replacement therapy become so popular for American women going through menopause? Well, it turns out that pharmaceutical giant Wyeth helped write many of the supportive scholarly articles about its own hormone replacement drugs. The New York Times revealed this morning that the manufacturer of drugs like Premarin and Prempro paid ghostwriters to pen research articles about the hormone replacing drugs, which were then signed off on by a doctor and printed in reputable places like The American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Sales of Wyeth's female hormone replacing drugs have fallen by 50 percent since 2001, when a Women's Health Initiative study linked menopausal hormone treatment to an increased risk of cancer. But before that damning study, the company sold more than $2 billion worth of hormone drugs to thousands of American women. Feeling a little sick?