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Barbara Seaman | Health advocate, 72

Barbara Seaman, 72, an advocate for women's health who raised questions about the safety of birth-control pills in the 1960s, died of lung cancer Wednesday at her home, said Cindy Pearson, executive director of the National Women's Health Network in New York, which Ms. Seaman helped found.

As a journalist in the 1960s, Ms. Seaman focused on the health risks associated with the oral contraceptive pill, which had recently come on the market.

In 1969, she wrote

The Doctors' Case Against the Pill

, which looked at such risks as blood clots and strokes and led to Senate hearings in 1970. After the hearings, information about the risks began to be included with the pill.

She continued her advocacy over the rest of her life.

- AP