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   PUBLICATION        The Toronto Star
   DATE               Tuesday July 25, 2000
   PAGE               A06
   BYLINE             Peter Calamai

   HEADLINE: Women win health support; Allan Rock set to announce new
             agency

   A strong lobby by women's groups has forced federal officials to
   upgrade women's health issues at the government's showpiece centre
   for health research.

   Health Minister Allan Rock is scheduled to announce today that
   Gender and Health has been added to the new Canadian Institutes of
   Health Research (CIHR), a "virtual" agency that will oversee a
   doubling of federal spending on health research within three years.

   Gender and Health will become one of 13 full-fledged institutes
   that make up the new agency, according to officials who spoke only
   on the basis of anonymity.

   The draft CIHR structure, made public last month, relegated women's
   health to the secondary status of a co-ordinating office with a
   minimal budget. The June announcement set off a barrage of criticism
   from women's health advocates and heavy lobbying of Rock and the 19
   members of the CIHR governing council.

   Officials familiar with the lobbying said Rock favoured upgrading
   the proposed office of women's health to a full-fledged institute.

   But opposition from some members of the governing council forced a
   compromise to create the Institute for Gender and Health, so it
   would not appear that women were being either specially favoured or
   placed in a ghetto.

   Women's health advocates said medical research hasn't paid enough
   attention to the different health concerns of women and the
   different treatments sometimes needed.

   The new agency is considered pioneering because the 13 institutes
   will be "virtual" rather than bricks and mortar. Researchers can be
   located at universities, hospitals or other institutions anywhere in
   the country.


   SEARCH TERMS       MEDICAL; RESEARCH; THE;

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