HERS Honored With Women's Way Award

Amid the applause of 1,100 guests, the Women's Way 32nd Annual Powerful Voice Awards were presented in Philadelphia on May 6, 2009. The awards honored the accomplishments of Women Organized Against Rape (WOAR) Director Teresa White, community organizer and HIV/AIDS awareness advocate Waheedah Shabazz-El, and women's rights advocate and activist, Hysterectomy Educational Resources and Services (HERS) Foundation President Nora W. Coffey.

Women's Way Executive Director Melissa Weiler Gerber says of the award, it "serves as a call to action to women everywhere, encouraging us to increase women's influence in the media and make a difference in the community."

Women's Way is the first major women's organization to publicly acknowledge the importance of educating women about the damaging effects of hysterectomy and the lifelong functions of the female organs. The award is recognition that hysterectomy is one of the most serious health issues facing women today. As demonstrated in Nora's book THE H WORD, co-authored by Rick Schweikert, the hysterectomy rate is on the rise, and every woman with a uterus is at risk.

Women's Way presented HERS with an excellent opportunity to talk about the issues, but the award presenter was a pharmaceutical company representative. Nora's first thought was, "I can't accept an award presented by someone from the industry." HERS is an independent women's health education organization with a policy of not accepting support from the medical industry.

"Because there was no opportunity to address this issue publicly at the banquet," Nora said, "in keeping with HERS' mandate of education, I presented a copy of THE H WORD to the pharmaceutical rep as she handed me the award. That way, she could educate herself and her pharma colleagues about these issues."

Since 1977, Women's Way has been the country's oldest and largest women's funding federation. This award brings into focus the imperative to provide women with the information required for hysterectomy informed consent.

We welcome any ideas you might have about getting exposure for HERS and THE H WORD. Each time someone reads the book, it's another person who has been educated about these issues and someone who may educate others and join us in changing the law. Each time the book is in the media, in a bookstore, on a blog, or on a library shelf, the number of people who have access to this vital information is magnified many times over.

This is an opportunity to put hysterectomy information into the hands of those who need it...to save a girl, to save a woman, to save a family. To prevent hysterectomy from becoming the legacy of another generation of women and girls.

Hysterectomy Causes Heart Disease

The American Heart Disassociation     

Heart disease was once thought to be less of a problem for women than for men. Research now indicates that heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death among women in the US (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Heart Disease Facts and Statistics, 2008), while confirming that women with an intact uterus have a lower incidence of heart disease because they benefit from the uterine advantage.

     In his article, "Prostacyclin From The Uterus And Woman's Cardiovascular Advantage," James D. Shelton writes, "Prostacyclin emanating from the uterus is proposed as a major contributor to the reduced risk of coronary disease among women." He refers to the uterus as a "systemically active organ whose removal significantly increases subsequent risk of myocardial infarction" (Prostaglandins Leukotrienes and medicine, 1982). 

     The American Heart Association reports that in 2006 there were 16.8 million cases of coronary heart disease in the US. About one in 18 Americans suffers from heart disease. This number would be much lower, if not for hysterectomy.

     Studies reveal that premenopausal removal of the uterus is associated with a three-times-greater incidence and prevalence of heart disease (Brandon S. Centerwall, "Premenopausal Hysterectomy and Cardiovascular Disease," American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 1981) and that women who undergo a bilateral oophorectomy (surgical removal of the ovaries, castration) have a 5.5 times greater cardiovascular risk (Jacqueline C.M. Witteman et al, "Increased Risk of Atherosclerosis in Women After The Menopause," British Medical Journal, 1989). Other studies demonstrate that women who are castrated before age 35 are hospitalized for myocardial infarction 7.2 times more often than women with intact uterus and ovaries (Lynn Rosenberg et al, "Early Menopause and the Risk of Myocardial Infarction," American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 1981).

     Hysterectomy is the most commonly performed non-obstetric surgery in the US, and there is general consensus even among the medical community that a majority of hysterectomies are unnecessary. Hysterectomy rates are subject to variations that do not necessarily correlate with health factors. Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), for example, tell us that women in the South are 50 percent more likely to be hysterectomized than in the Northeast. And the hysterectomy rate among black women is 20 percent higher than among white women.

     Some researchers and medical writers attempt to explain the higher incidence of hysterectomy and removal of the ovaries in black women by demonstrating that they have a higher incidence of fibroids. As the Hysterectomy Educational Resources and Services (HERS) Foundation makes clear in the online educational video, "Female Anatomy: the Functions of the Female Organs," fibroids are benign growths that rarely cause symptoms or problems, until a doctor spots them incidentally during a routine exam.

     Although less than 1 percent of fibroids are cancer (William Parker et al, Obstetrics and Gynecology, 1994), fibroids are the leading reason doctors perform hysterectomy. But women who are told they need a hysterectomy for fibroids may merely have the wrong doctor. Not surprisingly, not only are black women more likely to be hysterectomized, heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death among black women.

     The CDC's Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention reports that 870,000 people died in 2008 - 2,400 each day - from heart disease. "The cost of heart disease and stroke in the United States," the CDC concluded, "is projected to be more than $448 billion in 2008, including health care expenditures and lost productivity from death and disability." The financial burden and tragedy of heart disease as a result of hysterectomy is largely avoidable.

     According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, one of every three women is hysterectomized before the age of 60, while the American Heart Association reports that nearly one out of every three women dies of heart disease.

     Visitors to the "Go Red For Women" web site are encouraged to tell the American Heart Association "about the choices you've made to improve your well being." Women can avoid much of the risk of heart disease by retaining their uterine advantage - cardiovascular well-being that depends in large part on the lifelong functions of the uterus.''     

     Drastically reducing cardiovascular risk, circumventing much of the staggering cost of heart disease charged to medicaid and Medicare, and avoiding the tragic toll of thousands of strokes and deaths may be achieved by helping women avoid hysterectomy.

Published February 16, 2009 in Truthout.