Drawing from a wide range of scholarly research, archival records, and interviews, The Estrogen Elixir provides valuable historical context for one of the most pressing debates in contemporary medicine.
The Estrogen Elixir tells the story of the rises and falls of hormone replacement therapy and its promise to women to prolong youthfulness and forestall the diseases of aging. In 1992, after several decades on the market, estrogen became the most prescribed drug in America, but it lost popularity ten years later when the Women's Health Initiative reported that it increased the risk of heart attacks, strokes, blood clots, and breast cancer. Estrogen continues to be used by midlife and older women, although not without controversy. As the first complete history of HRT, The Estrogen Elixir is essential reading for one of contemporary medicine's most pressing debates.
"Much has been written about post-menopausal estrogen therapy . . . This wonderful book tells the story."--New England Journal of Medicine
"This book takes an in-depth, socially analytical look at the evolution of menopausal hormone therapy in the United States, with a focus on estrogen since its discovery . . . Watkins tells the story accurately and objectively."--JAMA
"A significant work on the social history of American medicine and a major contribution to the growing literature on hormonal therapeutics and research."--Isis
"Sets a high standard for future histories of pharmaceuticals and of aging."--Journal of American History
"Watkins provides a fascinating, multi-faceted study of HRT, leaving no voices out of the debate."--History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences
"A good read."--Journal of Clinical Investigation
Elizabeth Siegel Watkins is a professor in the History of Health Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, and author of On the Pill: A Social History of Oral Contraceptives, 1950-1970, also published by Johns Hopkins.
