Story: Women’s health

Women’s health activist Sandra Coney’s book The menopause industry: a guide to medicine’s ‘discovery’ of the mid-life woman was published in 1994. Arguing that menopause was a natural life event that many women managed comfortably, Coney was fiercely critical of medications sold on the basis of maintaining women’s attractiveness to men, and of hormone replacement therapy (HRT). She argued that HRT's role in preventing osteoporosis was exaggerated, and the increased risk of cancer was underplayed. Studies released in 2002 and 2007 confirmed a link between long-term (five years or more) and on-going use of HRT and increased rates of ovarian, breast and endometrial cancers.

Reproduced with the permission of Penguin Group (NZ)