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The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women: Exploding the Estrogen Myth
When her aunt died of endometrial cancer in 1959, doctors warned Barbara Seaman never to take Premarin. A fledgling medical journalist at that time, Seaman vowed to make sex hormones a major part of her lifetime beat. No other reporter in the world has covered hormone products so thoroughly for so long. In her new book, Seaman explodes the myth that estrogen should be routinely prescribed for everything from the treatment of hot flashes to the prevention of various forms of cancer. Seaman debunks the myth that estrogen is crucial to menopausal women in preventing medical conditions such as heart disease, osteoporosis, and cancer, and reveals that in many cases, its use may even have a strong role in the development of these conditions. She also talks about alternatives and discusses when estrogen use is safe and even helpful. The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women is a groundbreaking book that blows the lid off the estrogen industry.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2003
About the author
Barbara Seaman
22 books9 followersOne of the most tireless health advocates, Barbara Seaman (1935-2008) was co-founder of the National Women's Health Network, and a pioneer in a new style of health reporting that focused on patient rights. Her groundbreaking investigative book, The Doctors' Case Against the Pill (1969), prompted Senate hearings in 1970 that led to a warning label on oral contraceptives and the drastic lowering of estrogen doses due to dangerous health effects. Well received by a mass audience, Seaman was a columnist and contributing editor at Bride's Magazine, Ladies' Home Journal, Family Circle, and Ms. Magazine. She also contributed to the New York Times, Washington Post, Newsday, and others.
Books
* The Doctor's Case Against the Pill (1969)
* Free and Female (1972)
* Women and the Crisis in Sex Hormones (1977)(with Gideon Seaman, M.D.)
* Lovely Me: The Life of Jacqueline Susann (1987)
* The Greatest Experiment ever Performed on Women: Exploding the Estrogen Myth (2003)
* For Women Only: Your Guide to Health Empowerment with Gary Null (2000).
Contributor to many books, including:
* Career and Motherhood (1979)
* Rooms with No View (1974)
* Women and Men (1975)
* Seizing our Bodies (1978)
Contributor to several plays and documentaries, including:
* I am a Woman (1972)
* Taking Our Bodies Back (1974)
* The American Experience Presents the Pill (2003)
Books
* The Doctor's Case Against the Pill (1969)
* Free and Female (1972)
* Women and the Crisis in Sex Hormones (1977)(with Gideon Seaman, M.D.)
* Lovely Me: The Life of Jacqueline Susann (1987)
* The Greatest Experiment ever Performed on Women: Exploding the Estrogen Myth (2003)
* For Women Only: Your Guide to Health Empowerment with Gary Null (2000).
Contributor to many books, including:
* Career and Motherhood (1979)
* Rooms with No View (1974)
* Women and Men (1975)
* Seizing our Bodies (1978)
Contributor to several plays and documentaries, including:
* I am a Woman (1972)
* Taking Our Bodies Back (1974)
* The American Experience Presents the Pill (2003)
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
September 21, 2009
The Greatest Experiment... is marketed as being updated, but I found the "current section" to be about 10 years out of date. It was divided into two parts: Part I "How Did all This Happen" provided an in-depth history lesson that I enjoyed reading about--for the most part. Ms. Seamon warns that the history is from her perspective, so I read with that in mind. She included interesting factoids as to who/where/what/when on estrogen. Scientists were working hard and fast to find an oral birth control. At about the same time period, research was being done in several places: England, Canada and Germany (during WWII). The race was on. Germany had what other countries didn't. A controlled test group--Jewish women. They conducted a lot of experiments on them including mixing 700 times the highest level of estrogen in our earliest forms of birth control into their only source of food--soup. The women were very ill and had a series of complications so bad that even Nazi scientists had documented the hazards of too much estrogen, which drug companies later ignored.
**She mentions that other studies have been conducted on women who took high doses of estrogen as birth control and later went on to have children. Their kids were not as intelligent and it was believed their ovaries were damaged. **
The author names names and points fingers. She traces certain drug companies as they merged, evolved, changed names. She gives details about the Women's Health Initiative (WHI), which lasted 5.2 years and included 16,608 women to test the effects of Preempro.
She begins by stating that Preempro studies began in England in 1938 and continued for 65 years. This is when she believes The Greatest Experiment began.
The author mentions scientists that had disagreements and split apart as the years passed. Who won monetary awards or recognition, etc. I felt this part dragged as it just went on and on (and on). A nice time-line would have been sufficient. I suppose having this all documented is important, but in the overall scheme of things I found all the name calling distracting from the facts that I was interested in knowing. She even goes on to say what doctor went on to commit suicide....gets a little off track, in my opinion.
What bothered me was the author seemed to chastise scientists and doctors for what they did in history. She condemned some that used the information they believed to be true, at that time. Then, when someone brought up her first book, written in 1969, about birth control, she got defensive. She wrote about what she knew at that time as did some of the doctors. In my opinion, Ms. Seaman had an ax to grind at some people and she used this book as her forum.
Part II "What Do We Know Now?"
This part was not current. There wasn't any information on bio-identical hormones. Nothing about what Suzanne Somers has been doing and writing about, nor Christian Northrup, M.D., etc. Talked about discovering more estrogen receptors. If looking for current information I recommend another source.
The Greatest Experiment actually ends on page 222, then there is a very lengthy appendix and notes section. FYI
I did find the use of DES scary. Even scarier is that we seem to be repeating a lesson previously learned about tainting our meat supply with hormones. It was done with DES in the past and now we are doing it again--in the United States.
Interesting that the AMA didn't advocate patients having pamphlets with their prescription medicines because doctors use medicine differently than the FDA intended and they didn't want patients to know that because of potential lawsuits.
Somethings were very informative, but I had to wade through a lot of information to get to the good stuff.
**She mentions that other studies have been conducted on women who took high doses of estrogen as birth control and later went on to have children. Their kids were not as intelligent and it was believed their ovaries were damaged. **
The author names names and points fingers. She traces certain drug companies as they merged, evolved, changed names. She gives details about the Women's Health Initiative (WHI), which lasted 5.2 years and included 16,608 women to test the effects of Preempro.
She begins by stating that Preempro studies began in England in 1938 and continued for 65 years. This is when she believes The Greatest Experiment began.
The author mentions scientists that had disagreements and split apart as the years passed. Who won monetary awards or recognition, etc. I felt this part dragged as it just went on and on (and on). A nice time-line would have been sufficient. I suppose having this all documented is important, but in the overall scheme of things I found all the name calling distracting from the facts that I was interested in knowing. She even goes on to say what doctor went on to commit suicide....gets a little off track, in my opinion.
What bothered me was the author seemed to chastise scientists and doctors for what they did in history. She condemned some that used the information they believed to be true, at that time. Then, when someone brought up her first book, written in 1969, about birth control, she got defensive. She wrote about what she knew at that time as did some of the doctors. In my opinion, Ms. Seaman had an ax to grind at some people and she used this book as her forum.
Part II "What Do We Know Now?"
This part was not current. There wasn't any information on bio-identical hormones. Nothing about what Suzanne Somers has been doing and writing about, nor Christian Northrup, M.D., etc. Talked about discovering more estrogen receptors. If looking for current information I recommend another source.
The Greatest Experiment actually ends on page 222, then there is a very lengthy appendix and notes section. FYI
I did find the use of DES scary. Even scarier is that we seem to be repeating a lesson previously learned about tainting our meat supply with hormones. It was done with DES in the past and now we are doing it again--in the United States.
Interesting that the AMA didn't advocate patients having pamphlets with their prescription medicines because doctors use medicine differently than the FDA intended and they didn't want patients to know that because of potential lawsuits.
Somethings were very informative, but I had to wade through a lot of information to get to the good stuff.
January 9, 2025
Good. Really helps to reassure my trust in the pharmaceutical industry. 🙄
Synthetic hormones (specifically estrogen) are known to cause problems like osteoporosis and cancer of various sex organs, yet we still prescribe them for all kinds of problems many of which not studied for actual effectiveness.
It’s evident that the Nazi experiments to create the Uber race continues on today. It is ironic that all our attempts to make men into gods only results in us killing ourselves in new and interesting ways.
Synthetic hormones (specifically estrogen) are known to cause problems like osteoporosis and cancer of various sex organs, yet we still prescribe them for all kinds of problems many of which not studied for actual effectiveness.
It’s evident that the Nazi experiments to create the Uber race continues on today. It is ironic that all our attempts to make men into gods only results in us killing ourselves in new and interesting ways.
January 10, 2023
A very thorough look at the history of estrogen and its use in managing menopause symptoms
Barbara Seaman draws on her history as a women's health reporter to explain the origins of medical hormone therapy, the intentions of its originators, and how it ballooned as the 20th Century closed.
Her writing style is very editorial and reads quickly and easily, though it felt at times like the book has been very obviously rearranged from its original written order. It doesn't detract from the information, I just wish it was organized a bit differently.
This was my introduction to Seaman's work and I will definitely look into her other titles.
Barbara Seaman draws on her history as a women's health reporter to explain the origins of medical hormone therapy, the intentions of its originators, and how it ballooned as the 20th Century closed.
Her writing style is very editorial and reads quickly and easily, though it felt at times like the book has been very obviously rearranged from its original written order. It doesn't detract from the information, I just wish it was organized a bit differently.
This was my introduction to Seaman's work and I will definitely look into her other titles.
October 18, 2012
A must read for all women who care about their health!
May 21, 2025
I felt rage every second of reading this at how the author was presenting arguments and evidence
at points I see her point of view like yes big pharma is for the money. but she is making WILD cause and correlation arguments that are just manipulated or untrue. like she directly related the raise in cancer in women to HRT but like there are SO many things that could have caused that and also... she should have compared the numbers or even mention that cancer cases was also raising in men so it's not a unique thing to women or HRT.
listen the WHI study was highly flawed (though at the time the book was written, 2003, the flaws were unknown) so the arguments are just outdated.
take hormones if you want, don't take them if you want but STOP citing the WHI as a reason to not take it and definitely don't cite this book as a reason not to take it.
just problematic and fails to account that science is constantly getting better. what being done in the 1800s can not be compared to what is done now.
at points I see her point of view like yes big pharma is for the money. but she is making WILD cause and correlation arguments that are just manipulated or untrue. like she directly related the raise in cancer in women to HRT but like there are SO many things that could have caused that and also... she should have compared the numbers or even mention that cancer cases was also raising in men so it's not a unique thing to women or HRT.
listen the WHI study was highly flawed (though at the time the book was written, 2003, the flaws were unknown) so the arguments are just outdated.
take hormones if you want, don't take them if you want but STOP citing the WHI as a reason to not take it and definitely don't cite this book as a reason not to take it.
just problematic and fails to account that science is constantly getting better. what being done in the 1800s can not be compared to what is done now.
March 8, 2024
4 stars only for it being outdated on several points 20 years later.
Greatest Experiment is a brilliant destruction of the mythos surrounding Estrogen and hormone birth control. Breaking down how the medical community insists that formulated hormones can cure or prevent nearly every condition, when the truth is that the data just isn't there. Even the very thing they were created for, reversing the symptoms of menopause, it fails at, often doing much more harm than good. And that the initial "good" effects are usually short lived while the long term effects are horrific and terrifying to face down. Looking into the fight to hide side effects from patients, and the other activities of the hormone manufactures (most importantly Wyeth who went on to create the infamous Fen-Phen).
A well written and in-depth breakdown of the issue without bogging the reader down with medical jargon. I believe this is a worthwhile read for even those with the faintest of medical knowledge.
Greatest Experiment is a brilliant destruction of the mythos surrounding Estrogen and hormone birth control. Breaking down how the medical community insists that formulated hormones can cure or prevent nearly every condition, when the truth is that the data just isn't there. Even the very thing they were created for, reversing the symptoms of menopause, it fails at, often doing much more harm than good. And that the initial "good" effects are usually short lived while the long term effects are horrific and terrifying to face down. Looking into the fight to hide side effects from patients, and the other activities of the hormone manufactures (most importantly Wyeth who went on to create the infamous Fen-Phen).
A well written and in-depth breakdown of the issue without bogging the reader down with medical jargon. I believe this is a worthwhile read for even those with the faintest of medical knowledge.
October 21, 2023
Only giving it 3 stars because it was a pretty hard read to digest at some points, but the information is very interesting. It took me a while to get through it, but definitely opened my eyes on HRT. Anyone interested in the effects/ history of artificial hormones or birth control should read this.
March 15, 2019
Very well researched and written. Of course, take into account that she’s an investigative journalist, so she her style isn’t dry, but rather a bit alarmist. Not that we shouldn’t be alarmed about hormones, but it’s just something to keep in mind.
September 18, 2020
An informative and engaging reading for women who wanna know how Estrogen was sold as the magic pill for menopause.
Want to Read
October 20, 2008NetLibrary has the audiobook for free download, but this is still a "maybe". I don't know enough about the specific topic to be sure of differentiating really good science expose' from bunk, and I'm not familiar with the author. Google tells me she was popular and she died in February, but that's about it.
January 19, 2013
Well researched but poorly written.
February 10, 2011
About tthe controversy of how safe estrogen is, in the use of hormone replacement therapy
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews