The
Seventh Woman Foundation Promotes Complementary & Alternative Research On Women's
Hormonal Health
Our Vision
Our Vision at the Seventh Woman Foundation is about women taking care of women.
Each of us can be our Sister's Keeper by helping our mothers, daughters, sisters and friends to learn about the healthful changes they need to
make in order to insure their hormonal well-being and live fulfilling, productive and loving lives.
Our Beginning
Three women who wanted to make a difference started the Seventh Woman Foundation.
They had become aware of newer approaches to what have been referred to as the "women's diseases" - to new hormonal therapies that
were addressing the host of symptoms all women experience in varying degrees. Their investigation opened up whole new ways of looking at themselves.
It changed the way they viewed the passing stages of their lives, the way they cared for themselves and their families, and the way they envisioned
their futures. It gave them new hope.
Hope is important. Few women haven't been touched by the sickness or death of a friend or family
member due to a "woman's disease" - fibroids, osteoporosis, autoimmune problems, cervical dysplasia, breast cancer. And their treatments: mastectomy,
hysterectomy, chemotherapy, radiation and pills with serious side effects; all treatments but no cures. Hope hasn't been forthcoming. Years have
passed, millions of dollars have been raised and somehow the diseases persist.
The catalyst for the Foundation came from the NIH July curtailment of segments of the Women's Health
Initiative, which opened the eyes of American women. It is now frightfully clear that, since the 1950's, women's hormonal health has been compromised.
And, it is apparent, that it is still not clearly understood.
The Seventh Woman Foundation took shape and determined to become an advocate for women's health. Our
first priority is to make women aware that they have choices and to help them take full charge of their own health by giving them access to important
information. We seek to partner with authors and other subject matter experts to produce top quality visual presentations which make this complex subject easy to grasp.
The Educational Mission is to inform women of options:
Because research results are written by and for medical industry professionals, little real information
reaches average women. The Seventh Woman Foundation will promote simplifying visual information tools, web sites, books and research to women who are not doctors. This
is more difficult than it sounds because most women know very little about their bodies and have a certain level of confidence in the misinformation
dished out by equally unaware physicians who in fairness, can't keep on top of the flood of medical data that comes their way every year.
It is surprising at how little doctors really know about hormonal health. It's even more surprising that
the research that has been done on women's hormonal health has yielded so little in terms of improved mortality. It seems the best women can hope for is
early detection, but what about prevention?
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The Research Mission is prevention:
The Seventh Woman Foundation's immediate interest is to promote information that looks outside the confines of traditional hormonal
therapies for answers to the long list of unresolved health problems that affect the majority of American women: from early onset menses and fibrocystic
breasts, to insomnia, fat gain, autoimmune disorders and breast cancer.
Current research appears to overlook the fundamental causal factors focusing instead on relieving symptoms.
We believe that the focus on low estrogen levels is an inaccurate premise for research and results in wildly divergent studies which contribute little or
nothing to our understanding of women's hormonal issues, but which are highly successful at marketing estrogen products.
The Seventh Woman Foundation will promote research and publications that side-step current pharmaceutical research and ask more basic questions…such
as "why are menopausal symptoms found primarily in women of industrialized nations?" "If we know estrogen's primary function is to promote cell growth and to cause
blood to coagulate, why are we so surprised when we discover it causes tumors, strokes and heart disease?" "What rationale leads us to the premise that menopause
is a disease?"
Our website is a beginning. We hope to act as a doorway through which women can find better answers. Your support
can make that happen more quickly. Click on "Membership" now and join us.
For more information
email Pamela Bateman at ptb@theseventhwoman.org.
Therapies are termed 'complementary' when used in addition to conventional treatments. Alternative when used instead of conventional treatment.
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The Seventh Woman Foundation Activities
Our fund raising activities will be focused on education.
Educational Activities
The Seventh Woman Foundation is seeking partners who desire to reach out to women with visual educational tools and information
that will help them begin to build a better understanding of their own health. Our goal is to provide women with graphic images about the information necessary to help make informed choices with respect to their health care.
Advocates for Women's Health
The Seventh Woman Foundation will act as advocates for the acceptance and integration of preventative therapies into
traditional practice. We will monitor legislative actions and we will contact government decision makers and become a major voice for women's health
concerns. We will seek to collaboratively partner with other women's organizations on raising the awareness of women to their freedom of therapeutic choice.
The Seventh Woman Foundation Logo
Our logo of seven women with the eight's empty form in their midst depicts the pain of the lost mothers, daughters, sisters
and friends. One woman in eight will die of breast cancer in 2003. Many thousands more will have hysterectomies and endure severe physical and emotional pain because not
enough is known about women's hormonal interactions and balance. The "Seventh Woman" represents the hope…the seven of us left who must seek answers…or become the next
statistic…one in seven.
The Seventh Woman Foundation is determined to make a difference in the world of women's health. We believe we are our
sister's keepers. If enough women work to raise the awareness of other women in their communities, we can make a difference and we can be heard! The Seventh Woman
Foundation welcomes your interest and participation. We encourage you to become a member and to extend your service to the women around you.
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