The last health taboo: why are so many women still suffering with endometriosis?

‘As things stand, the average diagnosis doesn’t come until a woman has spent ten years searching for an answer and seen eight doctors’ … a still from Below the Belt Photograph: PBS

What health condition affects some 200 million people around the world, yet remains woefully misunderstood, underfunded, and barely addressed in medical-school curricula?

The answer to that riddle is no less of a riddle: endometriosis is a disease that the World Health Organization estimates affects one in 10 women and girls globally. And yet the National Institute of Health allocates a whopping .038% of its research resources to the disorder.