Women Health activist, Barbara Seamen dies at 72

Barbara Seaman, a pioneer in the health movement of women has died of lung cancer at the age of 72. She died at her home in Manhattan, New York.

Seaman was born Sept. 11, 1935, in New York City and was the eldest of three daughters of Henry and Sophie Rosner. Her father was a public welfare administrator, and her mother was a high school English teacher. So her passion for human rights and writing were there in her blood.

She was the first advocate for female reproductive health, as well as a writer and patients’ right advocate. She also stated that birth control pills can pose serious health risks.

At Ohio's Oberlin College, Seaman received a bachelor's degree in history in 1956. While completing a fellowship in advanced science writing at Columbia University in 1968, she started working on her birth-control book.

Her first book, "The Doctor's Case Against the Pill" was published in 1969. It stated that oral contraceptives containing high doses of estrogen are not good for the women and pose serious risks to health and life of women. The risks include heart attacks, strokes, blood clots, cancer and suicidal depression. Women weren't warned that the pill could cause heart attacks, strokes, depression and a host of other ills.

Her investigative work prompted Senate hearings in 1970 that led to a warning label on the drug and the mandatory inclusion of patient-information inserts.

Her career took its course after the birth of her first child in 1957. She had told her obstetrician that she planned to breast feed. He prescribed a laxative to her as he thought she did not have the right kind of personality for it.

But the laxative was inadvertently passed on to her son through her breast milk and he nearly died because of this.

"He recovered, but in one sense I did not, for I would never again trust a doctor blindly," Seaman wrote in her book "The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women: Exploding the Estrogen Myth."

She wrote many other books including “Free and Female” The Sex Life of the Contemporary Woman,” “The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women: Exploding the Estrogen Myth,” “Lovely Me: The Life of Jacquelin Susann.”

She is survived by a son, two daughters, Elana Seaman and Shira Seaman; sisters Jeri Drucker and Elaine Rosner-Jeria; and four grandchildren.