Heart For Women Act

Floor Speech

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise today to share my thoughts as the lead cosponsor on the Heart for Women Act, introduced by Senator Stabenow and myself along with 21 original cosponsors. Heart disease, stroke, and other cardiovascular diseases are critically important health issues that combined, are the No. 1 cause of death in all American women, taking the life of one female nearly every minute. The Heart for Women Act will decrease the burden of heart disease in women, which coupled with stroke will claim the lives of nearly half a million women in America in 2008; this is more than all deaths from breast, cervical, and lung cancers combined.

A new study shows that while in young men under age 45, the heart disease death rate is declining, the rate in young women has actually increased and is now at its highest level since 1987. We cannot idly sit back and allow more of us to become part of these statistics, so to address heart disease mortality and these significant disparities between men and women, Senator Stabenow and I have introduced The HEART for Women Act.

Our legislation, the HEART for Women Act, does three things: First, it provides the public with better information about safe and effective treatments for women by requiring drug safety information to be stratified by sex, race, and ethnicity. This information will help doctors, researchers, and patients better understand why certain treatments work better in men than in women. Second, this legislation expands the WISEWOMAN Program that provides free heart disease and stroke prevention screening to low-income, uninsured women. This program has been incredibly successful throughout the U.S. three out of four women screened by this program had at least one risk factor for heart disease and stroke. The HEART for Women Act also raises awareness among health care providers about the risk for heart disease and stroke. A 2004 survey found that less than 20 percent of physicians were aware that more women than men die each year from cardiovascular diseases.

After all this, there is some good news--a USA Today article from January 2008 points out that heart disease deaths rates fell among women by almost 27 percent between 1999 and 2005; however, researchers estimate that epidemics of diabetes and obesity could threaten these gains.

I encourage my colleagues to join us and support women's heart health. Passage of this legislation will ensure that providers have greater access to lifesaving drugs and screening services to prevent the rise of cardiovascular disease in women.

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