Barbro Westerholm (16 June 1933 – 13 March 2023) was a Swedish politician of the Liberals. She was

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house ...

( Riksdag) from 1988 to 1999 and again from 2006 to 2022. From the mid-1960s Westerholm was an early pioneer in the field of

pharmacovigilance Term Given By Tushar Sharma (UPES Batch 2025) Pharmacovigilance (PV, or PhV), also known as drug safety, is the pharmaceutical science relating to the "collection, detection, assessment, monitoring, and prevention" of adverse effects with phar ...

, also working on the early stages of the

WHO Drug Dictionary The WHODrug Dictionary is an international classification of medicines created by the WHO Programme for International Drug Monitoring and managed by the Uppsala Monitoring Centre. It is used by pharmaceutical companies, clinical trial organizati ...

and the WHO Programme for International Drug Monitoring. In 1979 as general director of the

Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare ( sv, Socialstyrelsen) is a Swedish government agency. The agency was the result of a merger between the National Swedish Board of Health and the Swedish Royal Board of Social Affairs in 1968. ...

, she had

homosexuality Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to pe ...

dropped from the list of mental health diseases. Westerholm was a critic of

ageism Ageism, also spelled agism, is discrimination against individuals or groups on the basis of their age. The term was coined in 1969 by Robert Neil Butler to describe discrimination against seniors, and patterned on sexism and racism. Butler de ...

and advocates for the measurement and publicizing of data on the economic value of volunteer work, and in particular the contributions of older people. In 2009 she was awarded the Nordic Public Health Prize for her work in fighting discrimination against the elderly. She was awarded the

Illis quorum ''Illis quorum'' (''Illis quorum meruere labores'') ( English: "For Those Whose Labors Have Deserved It"), is a gold medal awarded for outstanding contributions to Swedish culture, science or society. The award was introduced in 1784 by King Gu ...

by the government of Sweden in 2003. Westerholm died on 13 March 2023, at the age of 89.

References

External links

Barbro Westerholm
at the Riksdag website {{DEFAULTSORT:Westerholm, Barbro 1933 births 2023 deaths Women members of the Riksdag Members of the Riksdag from the Liberals (Sweden) Politicians from Stockholm Recipients of the Illis quorum 20th-century Swedish women politicians 21st-century Swedish women politicians