While at this moment, about 20% of the American population has firsthand experience with menopause, this past week, the Senate Special Committee on Aging held the first-ever congressional hearing on the biological stage in the life of women.
“Seventy-five million American women are in perimenopause, menopause, or postmenopause right now,” said Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to open the hearing. “Congress has never held a single hearing on the gaps in care that [those women] face, and that changes today.”
Gillibrand, the committee’s ranking Democrat, said the country is failing women by neglecting menopause research, education, and treatment, calling it “a healthcare failure, an economic failure, and a policy failure.”
It's a failure, the senator from New York said, even on the part of those upon whom women rely the most for answers. A recent survey found that 80% of OB/GYN residents say they're unprepared to talk about menopause with patients.
Among the panelists testifying was Dr. Jean Wactawski-Wende, epidemiologist and SUNY distinguished professor at UB. She said every year, more than a million American women enter menopause. More than 80 million women are expected to be postmenopausal by 2050, said Wactawski-Wende.
“These women represent one of the fastest-growing segments of our population, yet many of their health needs remain inadequately studied and addressed,” said Wactawski-Wende. “Women are not simply smaller versions of men. Biologic differences matter. Understanding those differences is essential for developing effective prevention treatment strategies.”
Also the dean of UB’s School of Public Health, Wactawski-Wende’s work in the subject stretches back to the early 1990s and the landmark women’s health study called the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI).
“I helped to launch WHI when I was a new mom of a young daughter. Today, I'm the grandmother of a 10-month-old granddaughter. Like millions of American families, I want the women in her generation to have access to the evidence, care, and opportunities needed to live long, healthy, and independent lives,” said Wactawski-Wende.
The hearing lasted just over an hour — not nearly enough time to fully discuss an issue that can affect nearly half the population in so many different ways.
“We haven't talked about any solutions outside of hormone replacement therapy, and if you're talking about X percentage of women who can't take that because it increases their breast cancer risk, or it makes their breasts denser, or it gives them breast pain, these are issues that we're not even mentioning,” said Gillibrand. “We've not mentioned the women who have severe bleeding, who have fibroids, who have to have hysterectomies.”
With some level of anguish, Gillibrand admitted, the hearing “barely scratched the surface,” and that a much more robust level of understanding is necessary.
“The common understanding of menopause is: ‘Oh, you get hot flashes. Oh, you might not sleep well. Oh, yeah, deal with it,’” she said.
One of the more common side effects, said Gillibrand, isn’t talked about. About 50% of women can't have sex at some point during menopause because it's so painful. Women deserve the studies and research that can help find answers to their questions, just as men have, she said.
“How much money [have] we spent investing in Viagra for X percent of men who need support. Have we done any investigation for 50 percent of women who might need support?” asked Gillibrand, who said it gets worse for postmenopausal women.
“I don't think we spend any time researching women's health once they hit 70. Like, we're begging for dollars when they're in their 40s and their 50s and their 60s, but I can promise you there's zero for 70s and 80s,” she said.
Gillibrand said for generations, women have been told to suffer in silence.
"That silence ends today,” she said.
