[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 16 (Wednesday, February 23, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 23, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
ESTABLISHING OFFICES OF WOMEN'S HEALTH WITHIN THE PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE

                                 ______


                         HON. OLYMPIA J. SNOWE

                                of maine

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 23, 1994

  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. Speaker, today I introduce the Women's Health Offices 
Act, a bill which I previously introduced, as part of the Women's 
Health Equity Act. Just as there was a need for the statutory creation 
of an Office of Women's Health Research at the National Institutes of 
Health, I believe that there is a need for additional women's health 
offices. This bill would establish women's health offices within the 
Public Health Service and at the Food and Drug Administration, the 
Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, the Health Resources and 
Services Administration, and Centers for Disease Control.
  Women's health concerns need to be addressed nationally at the 
highest levels of government. A recent, as yet, unpublished survey 
concluded that physicians are more than twice as likely to perceive 
that the same disease affects men more seriously than women. A study by 
the Commonwealth Fund found that more women than men failed to receive 
the care they need and that in the past year, about one-third of the 
women surveyed did not have any basic preventive services: a Pap smear, 
a clinical breast exam, a pelvic exam, or a complete physical exam. 
Women also reported greater communications problems with their 
physicians. The survey found that women lack the information they need, 
and they are not getting it from their doctors. They are not linking 
at-risk behavior and disease. Another recent study conducted by the 
Centers for Disease Control concluded that about 84 percent of American 
women think that they will not contract sexually transmitted diseases, 
although 13 million cases are contracted annually in this country. As 
with other diseases, women often are undiagnosed for a long period of 
time. This not only complicates treatment and recovery, but often 
proves fatal.
  For the diseases that are not preventable, early discovery greatly 
increases a woman's chance of survival. It improves the quality of her 
life and that of her family. For the diseases that are preventable, 
communication programs and education leading to prevention is vital. 
Short of eradication, early diagnosis and treatment are the keys to 
survival.
  Women have been shortchanged. There are no textbook descriptions of 
the disease that is their number one killer--heart disease, and they 
are more than twice as likely as men to die after a heart attack. There 
is no known cause for breast cancer, the second leading cause of cancer 
deaths among women. Until recently, there was no mandate that they be 
included in clinical trials despite the fact that their physiology is 
distinct from men and they react to drugs differently. There is a 
desperate need to address these discrepancies in women's health.

  This legislation would provide for short and long-range goals and 
coordination of all activities that relate to disease prevention, 
health promotion, delivery of health services, and scientific research 
concerning women. By statutorily creating offices of women's health, 
the new Deputy Assistant Secretary for Women's Health would be able to 
better monitor various Public Health Service agencies and advise on 
scientific, legal, ethical, and policy issues. Agencies would establish 
a coordinating committee on women's health with the director of each 
office as chair and identify and prioritize which women's health 
projects should be conducted. This would provide a mechanism for 
coordination, with each agency, among agencies and with the voluntary 
and corporate sector. This bill would require reports to the main 
women's health office culminating in a report by the Secretary to 
appropriate committees of Congress describing the actions taken during 
the preceding years and would appropriate such sums as necessary for 
fiscal years 1994 through 1996.
  I urge my colleagues to support the Women's Health Offices Act. We 
all know there are deficiencies in communication, education, research, 
and services relating to women's health. Now is the time to prescribe a 
remedy and act. By providing offices of women's health in the Public 
Health Service, you would be ensuring that the health concerns of a 
majority of your constituents are being addressed.

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