AIHP members are invited to join us for a online program and panel discussion on Hormones and Health on Wednesday, April 27, from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm Central. This program is free, but preregistration at this link is required.
Hormones play a significant role in human reproduction – from feelings of love, sex and conception, to supporting pregnancy and childbirth. Hormones were identified and first produced synthetically in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The lure of potential profits attracted the interest of the pharmaceutical industry.
AIHP’s Hormones and Health program focuses on how pharmaceutical companies developed a variety of drugs to intervene into women’s reproductive experiences. Panel members will include Jesse Olszynko-Gryn, PhD, a historian of science, technology and medicine at the University of Strathclyde, and Birgit Nemec, PhD, a historian of science and medicine at the Charité Berlin. Dr. Olszynko-Gryn and Dr, Nemec co-lead on the internationally collaborative research project investigating the history of the use and regulation of medicines in pregnancy and the risk of birth defects.
The panel will be hosted by historian Naomi Rendina, PhD, a lecturer at California State University, East Bay. Her dissertation examined how the role of labor-inducing pharmaceuticals influenced the meaning of the emerging “natural” childbirth method in post-war America. Dr. Rendina received an AIHP PhD. Research Support Grant in 2019 to support her dissertation research.
Hormones and Health seeks to broaden the international conversations about the history of the use and regulation of drugs used in pregnancy and during childbirth. We hope you will join for this free program. Please click here to register for the program.
(Posted: April 19, 2022)
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Read MoreUpcoming events hosted by AIHP
November 6, 2025, 3:00 pm (Central): AIHP Annual Business Meeting - Save the Date!
November 19, 2025, 11:00 am (Central): Pharmacy History Working Group: Lauren Thompson, Kennesaw State University.
December 17, 2025, 11:00 am (Central): Pharmacy History Working Group: Beyond medical pluralism: Interactions between physician-pharmacists and other craftspeople in the Graeco-Roman world with Laurence Totelin, Cardiff University.
January, 21, 2026, 11:00 am (Central): Pharmacy History Working Group: Spring Semester Welcome Back Event: A critical reading of Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls, hosted by Kelly O'Donnell, Towson Unviersity.
February 18, 2026, 11:00 am (Central): Pharmacy History Working Group: Audrey Ke Zhao, UC Santa Cruz & CHSTM Research Fellow
March 18, 2026, 11:00 am (Central): Pharmacy History Working Group: Ryan A. Kashanipour, University of Arizona
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Upcoming events of interest to pharmacists and historians of pharmacy, pharmaceuticals, medicines, science, and related fields.
November 13-16, 2025: History of Science Society Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA.
November 16-18, 2025: APhA Joint Federal Pharmacy Seminar 2025, Fort Lauderdale, FL.
December 7-11, 2025: ASHP Midyear, Las Vegas, NV.
July 18-21, 2026: AACP Pharmacy Education, Grapevine, TX.