Journal of the American Medical Women's Association (1972)
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J Am Med Womens Assoc · Jan 2001
Office of Women's Health, Food and Drug Administration: future directions for women's health.
The Office of Women's Health serves as an advocate for women's health throughout the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Through and policies, the Office supports research in gender-related issues in the regulation and use of drugs, devices, biologics, and foods; initiates outreach and disseminates health information to women; provides leadership in increasing the number of women and appropriate data analysis in all phases of clinical trials; and promotes women's health in FDA actions. This article summarizes current activities and future directions in women's health at the FDA.
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J Am Med Womens Assoc · Jan 2000
Early medical abortion in India: three studies and their implications for abortion services.
Although legal in India, abortion is frequently performed under unsafe or undesirable conditions. Moreover, the advancements required to make surgical abortion safe in India appear insurmountable in the near future. Because it requires a less extensive infrastructure than surgical abortion, medical abortion offers great potential for improving abortion access and safety now. ⋯ In all three settings in India mifepristone-misoprostol proved to be not only feasible, but safe and acceptable as well. With some changes to current protocols, medical abortion could now be safely phased into the existing health care infrastructure in India. Yet, medical abortion will bring its own set of service delivery challenges to address.
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Women now constitute 43% of US medical students, 37% of residents, and 27% of full-time medical school faculty. Less than 11% of women faculty are full professors, however, compared to 31% of men, and these proportions haven't changed in more than 15 years. ⋯ Reasons include a complex combination of women's choices, sexism, cultural stereotypes, constraints in combining family responsibilities with professional opportunities, and lack of effective mentoring. Multiple approaches are required to overcome these "cumulative disadvantages," among them improving the gender climate at academic medical centers; the mentoring of women faculty, residents, and students; and skill-building opportunities for women.
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Tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable premature death in the United States and, increasingly, around the world. This paper describes the critical role physicians can play in decreasing tobacco use by providing smoking cessation advice and engaging in antismoking advocacy. By helping patients who smoke to quit and working to diminish the economic and political power of the tobacco industry, physicians and other health professionals can help "make smoking history."
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J Am Med Womens Assoc · Jan 2000
Providing medical abortion: legal issues of relevance to providers.
As early medical abortion becomes more widely used and available in the United States, providers of women's health care are questioning whether, and in what way, existing abortion restrictions apply to medical abortion. Many of these laws, virtually all of which were written before early medical abortion was widely used in this country, make little sense in the context of medical abortion. ⋯ In addition, because some abortion restrictions are irrational or impose significant and unwarranted burdens on women's access when applied to medical abortion, they may be vulnerable to legal challenge. We also review possible legal efforts to invalidate these laws, as well as legislative or regulatory changes that can be sought in order to make medical abortion truly accessible to women in this country.