Over the past year, interns Molly Bargar, Alicia Whittington, Angela Killilea, Jessica Rooney, Jin In, and Bernadette Brown made invaluable contributions. They helped with everything from our involvement in the Prevention First coalition and follow-up to our educational work with members of Congress on the stem cell/ cloning debates, book distribution, and conducting workshops for teen writers at Teen Voices magazine.

PREVENTION FIRST, A Coalition of Independent Health Organizations

A new coalition with six other women’s and consumer health groups,¹ Prevention First’s goal is to publicize and gain national support for public health initiatives. We ground our efforts in the so-called Precautionary Principle, a science-based approach to setting public policies that are guided by the philosophy of “First, Do No Harm,” and we have no financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry. Initially, we are working to counteract ill effects of direct-to-consumer advertising (“DTCA”) of prescription drugs, especially where the ads are false and misleading. Our first article about this subject, published in the April issue of Sojourner, now appears at our website as well as in Spanish in Revista Mujer Salud, the magazine of the Latin American and Caribbean Women’s Health Network. 

This coalition has begun with a focus on the advertising of tamoxifen, the first anticancer drug promoted for healthy people. We are also challenging the misleading ads for Sarafem (Prozac repackaged for the ill-defined indication of “Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder" - PMDD). 

Aware that environmental links to disease are innumerable, unavoidable, and hard to trace, our coalition seeks to change the public’s perception of “pills for prevention” as the first line solution to many health problems. Rather, we stress a prevention approach underscoring the critical role of unpolluted air, clean water and safe food.

Stem Cell Research, Cloning, and related issues 

Working with colleagues at the Council for Responsible Genetics (CRG) and the Center for Genetics and Society, we developed a position statement on cloning that has been signed by over 100 individuals. The statement was prepared in part because of the immense confusion around questions of embryo cloning for research purposes and the larger debate around embryonic stem cell research, the latter mired in the abortion controversy. Our statement makes it clear that a pro-choice advocate can support most stem cell research, yet oppose embryo cloning for research purposes, especially before an effective universal ban on human cloning has been established. 

We were invited to present at several educational briefings for Congressional staffers as well as at Congressional hearings dealing with cloning legislation. Dr. Stuart Newman, a CRG board member, also testified at these same hearings and subsequently co-authored an op ed piece on this subject in the Boston Globe along with Judy Norsigian. This past month, we joined other women’s groups to protest ethicist John Robertson’s recommendations to allow for sex selection via the use of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. (Developers of this technique originally declared that it would be used only for the detection of serious medical problems.) 

Other Highlights of BWHBC Advocacy and Activism in 2001

• Dr. Sathyamala, a longtime friend and colleague from India , visited us in Boston while presenting at Harvard University and subsequently joined us at our exhibit booth at the American Public Health Association, where we featured her new book, An Epidemiological Review of the Injectable Contraceptive, Depo- Provera. Now available in the United States through our office, this book offers a critical review of all the literature on this injectable contraceptive. 

• Princess Aisha Bint Al Hussein of Jordan invited us to the World Bank for a personal consultation about her ideas for promoting awareness about women’s health issues in her country, specifically a women’s health center proposal that would initially serve women in the military, including female family members of men in the military.

• We joined 15 other women from around the world for a meeting in Geneva to help plan for the 9th International Women and Health Meeting, scheduled for August 2002 in Toronto, Canada.

• We co-organized a small strategy session in San Francisco for activists and researchers interested in women and the new genetic and reproductive technologies.

• We organized a training session for a group of ten Armenian educators/ administrators, visiting the U.S. under the auspices of the Cambridge-Yerevan Sister City Association. Topics covered: microbicides, STD prevention, and sexuality education for both adults and teens, encouraging a more proactive approach on these issues in their schools.

• We continued to alert students and policy makers to controversies surrounding quinacrine sterilizations (almost all of which take place in other countries), the CRACK campaign (where women in selected communities across the country are urged to become sterilized or use Norplant in exchange for a sum of $200), abstinence- only sexuality education, a newly emerging and risky trend towards greater utilization of Cesarean section without justified medical need , and other developments that threaten women’s reproductive and sexual well-being. 

Presentations: 

American Dental Association (Kansas City), Yankee Dental Congress (Boston), Brandeis University, Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts Board of Overseers meeting, National Summit on Safe Motherhood hosted by the Centers for Disease Control (Atlanta), Champaign County Health Consumers Coalition (Illinois), Illinois Women’s Health Coalition (Chicago), Rollins College (Winter Park, FL), University of Florida (Gainesville), University of California at San Francisco, Nova Scotia women’s health conference, Festival of the Book (Charlottesville, VA), University of Massachusetts (Boston), Hampshire College (Amherst) 

Meetings: 

American Public Health Association (Atlanta), Strategic Advisory Board of the Consortium for Industrial Collaboration in Contraceptive Research, Technical Advisory Committee of CONRAD (Contraceptive Research and Development Program), Women, Girls and Tobacco Advisory Committee (Massachusetts), Technical Advisory Committee of Family Health International (North Carolina).