Louise Slaughter: “Mr. Speaker, there are a wide range of both triumphs and shortcomings in women's health that could be discussed this…”

“Mr. Speaker, there are a wide range of both triumphs and shortcomings in women's health that could be discussed this evening. On the one hand, a woman's life expectancy has increased from 48 years in 1900 to 79 years today. But on the other hand, many devastating women's health disorders still remain a mystery and research is desperately needed to find effective diagnostics, treatments, cures and preventive medicine. Women are now regularly included in clinical studies after having been excluded for decades. There is now an Office of Women's Health at the Public Health Service with corresponding offices at other agencies like NIH, the CDC, FDA, and the Health Resources and Services Administration and the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research. Breast cancer survival rates are up for women for the first time ever. And genes have been identified that are linked to early onset breast and cervical cancers as well as a number of other disorders that affect women like Alzheimer's disease. Estrogen replacement therapy has provided relief for millions of women from the harsher symptoms of menopause as well as osteoporosis and other age-related disorders. The NIH is conducting major women's health initiative designed to study and to track women health in a large population over decades.”