Bernadine Healy RIP
Dear friends of women in science,
Sonia Pressman Fuentes let me know that the first woman to head NIH has passed away from brain cancer at age 67, Dr. Bernadine Healy. You can read more about her here. Later, she was in charge of the Red Cross efforts during the 9/11 crisis. Healy became head of the NIH in 1991 and became President of the Red Cross in 1999. A contentious and controversial leader, as were many of the first females to take on roles previously reserved for men, she was highly effective in some ways and receives universal kudos today for some of her work at NIH.
One of her most famous efforts at NIH was to create the Women's Health Initiative. For years, women had simply been considered slightly abnormal men, and health studies had used almost exclusively men because women's cycles made it harder to get reproducible data. But women were treated with the medicines developed and tested on men, and Healy had the insight to make sure there would be proper tests of medical effectiveness for women too. This study caused important changes in how women with stroke, cardiovascular disease, and cancer, among other diseases, are treated today.
Do any of you trace issues in your health today to pre-WHI erroneous treatment of women? I certainly do. I had breast cancer and it may well have been because I was advised to use Premarin during menopause. After WHI, this advice was given on a much more limited basis, but it was used practically universally before that. And since breast cancer cells of the type I had are stimulated by female hormones, it's not surprising to find that treatment resulted in increased risk of breast cancer.
cheers,
Laura
I agree Michelle. I wanted to comment but everyone sounded so negative it put me off a bit. She was an important woman. Don't all important women encounter resistance? Don't people think they should be fluffy and kind and not forceful and brilliant? She was forceful and brilliant. Go Bernadine!
Why are we all "yes, but" commenting on her? She was an outstanding woman administrator and doctor. Enough said. She made decisions that helped the health outlook of every woman in the US and arguably the world. She was superb. End of sentence!! MKS
I know Healy was highly involved in the startup of the human genome project, and actually recruited Francis Collins to head it up. So she did not solely emphasize clinical/tech transfer research over basic research, a criticism I've heard of her work at NIH. Collins has written a very moving tribute to her since her death, in which he characterizes her as both a leader of health policy and a caring physician.
cheers,
Laura
I know what you mean, Livi, Healy was really pretty unpopular with NIH people, particularly women, ironically. But her greatest achievement was the Women's Health Initiative, and many people admire her for sticking to her guns on that when a lot of people thought it was superfluous (i.e. that studying men would tell you how women would react to diseases).
I did not like her style, but I can't deny that she did at least one important and good thing in starting the WHI.
