Dr. Bernadine P. Healy, Influential Health Administrator, Dies at 67 - NYTimes.com

The Women's Health Initiative  which Bernardine Healy initiated was a major 15-year research program to address the most common causes of death, disability and poor quality of life in postmenopausal women -- cardiovascular disease, cancer, and osteoporosis.  It transformed the understanding of the health risks of older women.  - GWC

Dr. Bernadine P. Healy, Influential Health Administrator, Dies at 67 - NYTimes.com:

"In a hybrid career in the largely male domains of medicine and government, Dr. Healy — a cardiologist and feminist — was a professor at Johns Hopkins University, dean of the Ohio State University medical school, a White House science adviser and president of the American Heart Association. She wrote scientific papers and magazine columns, and once ran for the United States Senate."

"She began the Women’s Health Initiative, a $625 million study of the causes, prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases, osteoporosis and cancer in middle-aged and older women. Long after her tenure, it continued yielding important findings. In 2002, it found that prolonged combined estrogen and progestin hormone replacement therapy in postmenopausal women increased risks of breast cancer, stroke and heart attacks"