Office of Women’s Health

Segal M. Norplant Birth Control at Arm s Reach. FDA Office of Women s Health Website. 2001 http //www.fda.-gov/bbs/topics/CON SUMER/ CON00009.html. 

HHS/OWH (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services/Office on Women s Health). 2000. HHS Blueprint for Action on Breastfeeding. Washington, DC DHHS. 

To amplify the female view, both the FDA and NIH during the last decade have appointed women to significant roles. Dr Bernadette Healy headed the NIH and created the Office of Research in Women s Health Dr Henny led the FDA until 2001 and within the FDA, Dr Janet Woodcock and Dr Kathy Zoon were appointed to head CDER (drugs), and CBER (biologies), respectively, two of the largest centers perhaps partly in response to an article by LaRosa and Pinn (1993), both women bemoaning the exclusion of women in decisions of research. 

Office of Research and Women s Health, http // orwh.od.nih.gov. 

Mary C. Knipmeyer Office of Women Services U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration Rockville, MD... 

Molecular Entities Approved 1995-1999. June 2001. Office of Special Health Issues, Office of International and Constituent Relations, Office of the Commissioner, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, http //www.fda.gov/cder/reports/ womens health/women clin trials.htm [accessed October 2005]. 

There are reliable and accurate ways to measure mercury levels in the body. These tests all involve taking blood, urine, or hair samples, and must be performed in a doctor s office or in a health clinic. Nursing women may have their breast milk tested for mercury levels, if any of the other samples tested are found to contain significant amounts of mercury. Most of these tests, however, do not determine the form of mercury to which you were exposed. Mercury levels found in blood, urine, breast milk, or hair may be used to determine if adverse health effects are likely to occur (see Section 2.5). Mercury in urine is used to test for exposure to metallic mercury vapor and to inorganic forms of mercury. Measurement of mercury in whole blood or scalp hair is used to monitor exposure to methylmercury. Urine is not useful for determining whether exposure has occurred to methylmercury. Levels found in blood, urine, and hair may be used together to predict possible health effects that may be caused by the different forms of mercury. 

The Department of Labor has many activities to foster and promote the safety and health of workers. The Women s Bureau seeks to improve women s working conditions. Other important agencies are the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Mine Safety and Health Administration, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Office of Workers Compensation Program. 

Jeanne SteUman was one of the few occupational health researchers in this period to be interested in the idea that the office could be hazardous to workers health. At conferences and meetings held by the feminist office workers movement, Stellman was often the lone speaker on occupational health. In 1978 Stellman founded the Women s Occupational Health Resource Center in Brooklyn, New York, which served as a clearinghouse for information on women s occupational health issues and for a time became the center of feminist occupational-health efforts. Between 1981 and 1983 the resource center held training sessions for over four thousand workers, published a newsletter, and... 

Portions of chapter 3 were pubhshed previously by Taylor and Francis as Toxicity in the Details The History of the Women s Office Worker Movement and Occupational Health in the Late Capitafist Office in Labor History 41, no. 2 (2000) 189-213 of chapter 5 by University of Chicago Press as Uncertain Exposures and the Privilege of Impercep-tion Activist Scientists and Race at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Osiris 19 (2004) 266-82 and of chapter 7 by Johns Hopkins University Press as The Elsewhere within Here and Environmental Illness or. How to Build Yourself a Body in a Safe Space in Configurations 8, no. i (2000) 87-120. Thank you to these presses for their permission to republish this material. 

Figure 14. Management s disbelief in office hazards was a frequent theme in cartoons from the women office workers movement in the 1970s. In this cartoon from the San Francisco-area group Union wage, workers literally hit management over the head with the reality of health hazards. From Union Wage Newsletter, April/May 1975.

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