Newsletter

By Donna S. Kohlhepp
Pharmaceutical companies spend millions of dollars a year in advertising to promote product loyalty and increase sales. The article "Brand Name Battles: Drug Companies Try to Buy Your Loyalty" in the November/December 1998 Network News addressed the influence of such advertising on consumers. An equally important issue is the influence of advertising—and other marketing— on physicians.
 

By Diana Zuckerman, Ph.D
More than 400,000 American women with silicone implants will soon agree to a $3.2 billion settlement from Dow Corning. Another 400,000 are suing three other implant manufacturers.

Prior oral contraception (OC) use may increase a heart disease risk factor for some postmenopausal women years after discontinuation. Postmenopausal women who had previously used OC for 5 or fewer years had higher diastolic blood pressure than those who had never used the Pill. No difference was found for postmenopausal women who had used OC for 6 or more years or for premenopausal women.
Journal of Women s Health March 1998 pp. 221-228

Women's health advocates and supportive members of Congress have been trying in recent years to establish gender equity in insurance coverage of prescriptive costs, particularly as it relates to the coverage of contraception.

New resources available from the Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum include Asian & Pacific Islander Women's Health, a 47-page annotated bibliography of existing research which includes cancer, health status, health practices, infectious disease, mental health, nutrition and breastfeeding, birth control, prenatal care and birth outcomes, and domestic violence. Published in 1998, it is available for $5. The Forum also publishes a free quarterly newsletter of interviews, articles and event announcements.

On October 29, with much fanfare, the FDA approved tamoxifen for risk reduction in women at high risk of breast cancer. This action came about as a result of a large clinical trial which found that healthy women taking tamoxifen were less likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer while they were on the drug. The decrease in breast cancer cases was significant—45% fewer diagnoses of invasive breast cancer—but was accompanied by significant increases in potentially fatal complications including endometrial cancer and blood clots.

By Amy Allina

By Anjali Mehta
A woman's period is a few days late. She runs to get a home pregnancy test, and after
several tests comes to the undeniable conclusion she is pregnant. She is sure that she doesn't want to carry the pregnancy to term, but it has only been five weeks since her last period. She falsely believes that she will have to wait at least another three agonizing weeks until she can actually get an abortion. She is unaware that she has several options to terminate the pregnancy right now.

Young women, aged 16-21, are 50% more likely than young men to be infected with HIV. The gender difference is most defined among teens aged 16-18.
Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes & Human Retrouirology September 1998, pp. 67-70