WASHINGTON, DC (December 7, 2016) – Barbra Streisand, co-founder of the Women’s Heart Alliance, released the following statement today regarding passage of the 21st Century Cures Act:

“Since our founding in 2014, the Women’s Heart Alliance (WHA) has worked to change clinical and medical research practices so that women are equally represented in the lab and the clinic. Sex is a biological variable that matters when it comes to heart disease and stroke, which are the number one killers of women. Our ability to analyze sex differences in biomedical research is critical to advancing medical innovation, ensuring sex and gender equity, reducing health disparities and ultimately ensuring longer, healthier lives for our mothers, sisters, daughters and friends.

“The 21st Century Cures Act passed by Congress today includes provisions that take a significant step toward improving representation of women and minorities in research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Understanding how sex and gender differences impact diseases, including heart disease, promotes equity, advances equality, saves money and saves lives.

“WHA strongly supports the provisions and looks forward to President Obama signing them into law.”

About the Women’s Heart Alliance

The Women’s Heart Alliance (WHA) was formed to raise awareness, encourage action and drive new research to fight women’s heart disease. It’s a unique collaboration between two of America’s leading medical institutions—the Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute and the Ronald O. Perelman Heart Institute at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center—and two major philanthropists and leaders in business and entertainment, Barbra Streisand and Ronald O. Perelman. Learn more at www.womensheartalliance.org, and on Facebook @Womens Heart Alliance, Twitter @WHA and Instagram @womensheartalliance.

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Kat Mavengere
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