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Robert A. Wilson was an American gynecologist who is known for writing the best-selling 1966 book Feminine Forever. He is also known for his organization the Wilson Research Foundation (WRA). In Feminine Forever, Wilson promoted the use of estrogen therapy to avoid the menopause and associated symptoms. He characterized menopause as a serious disease state and made strong claims about the effectiveness and safety of menopausal hormone therapy in alleviating it and improving quality of life and health. Wilson's claims were criticized as not being based on adequate research and evidence. Subsequently, trials such as the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) contradicted Wilson's claims and showed that menopausal hormone therapy could have significant medical risks and that its benefits were not as great as once believed.

Wilson's early medical career was unremarkable, and he did not publish his first papers until 1962, when he was in his late 60s.

It was revealed by Wilson's son, Ronald Wilson, that Wyeth-Ayerst had secretly paid all of the fees for Wilson to write his book and also helped finance his foundation. Other pharmaceutical companies additionally funded the Wilson Research Foundation. Within 10 years of the publishing of his book, in which Wilson promoted the use of conjugated estrogens (Premarin) and of menopausal hormone therapy in general, Premarin became the fifth most-prescribed drug in the United States.

Works

Books

• Robert A. Wilson (1966). Feminine Forever. M. Evans and Company. ISBN 978-0-87131-049-1. OCLC 10373653. OL 5982073M.

Journal articles

• Wilson RA (October 1962). "The roles of estrogen and progesterone in breast and genital cancer". JAMA. 182: 327–31. doi:10.1001/jama.1962.03050430001001. PMID 14001079.
• Wilson RA, Wilson TA (April 1963). "The fate of the nontreated postmenopausal woman: a plea for the maintenance of adequate estrogen from puberty to the grave". J Am Geriatr Soc. 11: 347–62. doi:10.1111/j.1532-5415.1963.tb00068.x. PMID 14001078.
• Wilson RA (December 1963). "The obsolete menopause". Conn Med. 27: 735–6. PMID 14090607.
• Wilson RA, Brevetti RE, Wilson TA (1963). "Specific procedures for the elimination of the menopause". West J Surg Obstet Gynecol. 71 (1): 110–121. PMID 12259259.
• Wilson RA (January 1964). "The obsolete menopause". Del Med J. 36: 20–1. PMID 14113026.
• Wilson RA (August 1964). "The estrogen cancer myth". Clin Med (Northfield). 71: 1343–52. PMID 15446202.
• Wilson RA, Marino ER, Wilson TA (October 1966). "Norethynodrel-mestranol (enovid) for prevention and treatment of the climacteric". J Am Geriatr Soc. 14 (10): 967–85. doi:10.1111/j.1532-5415.1966.tb02880.x. PMID 5924635.
• Wilson RA, Wilson TA (November 1972). "The basic philosophy of estrogen maintenance". J Am Geriatr Soc. 20 (11): 521–3. doi:10.1111/j.1532-5415.1972.tb00753.x. PMID 5082121.

See also

• Anti-aging movement § Menopausal hormone drugs

References

1. ^ Houck, Judith A. (31 December 2006). "7. Feminine Forever: Robert A. Wilson and the Hormonal Revolution, 1963–1980". Hot and Bothered: Women, Medicine, and Menopause in Modern America. Harvard University Press. pp. 152–187. doi:10.4159/9780674038813-008.
2. ^ Elizabeth Siegel Watkins (16 April 2007). The Estrogen Elixir: A History of Hormone Replacement Therapy in America. JHU Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-8602-7. OCLC 237124873.
3. "Hormone Replacement Study A Shock to the Medical System". The New York Times. 10 July 2002. Retrieved 4 April 2023.
4. Daniel Lee Kleinman; Abby J. Kinchy; Jo Handelsman, eds. (6 May 2005). Controversies in Science and Technology: From Maize to Menopause. Univ of Wisconsin Press. pp. 210–. ISBN 978-0-299-20393-1. OCLC 1018085039.
5. Dominus, Susan (2023-02-01). "Women Have Been Misled About Menopause". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-02-07. Every woman has the right — indeed the duty — to counteract the chemical castration that befalls her during her middle years," the gynecologist Robert Wilson wrote in 1966. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first hormone-therapy drug in 1942, but Wilson's blockbuster book, "Feminine Forever," can be considered a kind of historical landmark...Within a decade of the book's publication, Premarin — a mix of estrogens derived from the urine of pregnant horses — was the fifth-most-prescribed drug in the United States. (Decades later, it was revealed that Wilson received funding from the pharmaceutical company that sold Premarin.)

• American gynecologists
• 1895 births
• 1981 deaths