Women and the Health Care Industry: An Unhealthy Relationship?

This volume claims that women are being misled and exploited by the health-care products. It takes a critical look at the kind of health care provided for women by mainstream modern medicine and argues that the current system is primarily designed to meet the needs of health-care providers - especially the manufacturers of prescribed drugs and high-tech medical equipment. While health-care providers undoubtedly benefit from an ever-expanding health-care system, this book shows that the benefits to women, as consumers, are far less clear. Not only do many medical interventions pose risks to women's physical health, they also frequently threaten women's psychological and emotional well-being. Moreover, women as a group are often disempowered by the medicalization of their problems. "Women and the Health Care Industry" highlights the costs to women, both individually and collectively, of being the main consumers of modern medical services. Foster's argument that much modern medicine does women more harm than good applies not just to high-tech forms of medical treatment, but also to so-called preventative services such as breast cancer screening. The book should be of interest to a wide range of sociology, social-policy and health-care students.