I was so pleased to see Michelle Landsberg bring attention to this negative
approach of blaming and looking for solutions at an individual level. It
was great to have a journalist point to broader societal factors
contributing to heart disease in women.
Didn't hear the CBC story, but thanks, Dennis, for your eloquent response.



At 10:41 AM 2/14/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>I am sending on this article from today's Toronto Star because it seems to
>touch on a lot of issues.  Negative messages, changing supports, funding
>and gender issues.  As a feminist I find it interesting that I am to blame
>for what is happening and not the medical community.
>
>Anyone have comments?
>
>S
>
>
>February 14, 1999
>
>
>Putting their money where heart is
>
>
>AH, FOGEYDOM. ONCE upon a time, Valentine's Day meant red cinnamon hearts
>and those cut-out paper valentines with dreadful Grade 4 puns. Now,
>Valentine's Day just brings our annual scolding from the Heart and Stroke
>Foundation.
>
>This year's Heart and Stroke valentine thwonked into my consciousness with
>all the airy charm of a concrete balloon. ``Women fail,'' said the
>headlines. Unfit and ignorant of the menace of heart disease, which is an
>equal opportunity killer. Worse still: we're too stressed, too busy working
>and caring for our families and two-thirds of us are at an ``unacceptable
>weight.''
>
>``It's the leaders within the women's movement we're trying to influence,''
>said Dr. Anthony Graham of St. Michael's Hospital.
>
>Feminists, according to Graham, are so powerful that we could give heart
>health the same high profile as breast cancer, consistently rated as
>women's top concern even though it kills fewer than heart attacks do.
>
>(Hey. Just a thought: if Heart and Stroke thinks all this overwork and
>stress is so bad for women, how about lobbying for daycare, elder care,
>home care and equal pay for work of equal value?)
>
>More seriously, I'd like to tell the Heart and Stroke a thing or two about
>its annual tongue-lashing of women. Insulting us is not the very best way
>to engage us in higher awareness of a serious health risk. And by the way,
>breast cancer awareness is not a feminist conspiracy against cardiologists.
>The reasons for women's fear ought to be obvious. Breast cancer is
>specifically a women's disease, it was hugely underfunded until women's
>groups started to agitate, it hits women at a much younger age than heart
>disease and, at that younger age, it's more dangerous.
>
>Demographically speaking, doesn't it make sense that the ``boomer''
>generation (overstressed, as you fellas point out) worries most and lobbies
>hardest against the disease that threatens it most imminently?
>
>For your future information, most women do not respond well to framing this
>discussion as a competition between two serious diseases. You're right that
>women have to get serious, sooner, about heart health. As political
>activists know, however, the best way to stir people to action is to offer
>them a strong alternative.
>
>If women knew that there was support and help available to prevent heart
>disease, they'd line up for it - which is just what they do at Women's
>College Hospital, home of Canada's very first Women's Cardiovascular Health
>Initiative and Women's Cardiac Rehabilitation program. Thanks to a $400,000
>grant from Canada Trust, Women's College was able to set up an appealingly
>sleek and attractive small gym. A team of hospital staff, headed by
>cardiologists Dr. Len Sternberg and Dr. Vera Chiamvimonvat, kinesiologist
>Karen Unsworth (the only full-time staffer), as well as the nutritionist,
>clinical care nurse and other specialists, offer individual attention out
>of their own volunteer commitment.
>
>Results are impressive. In co-ed rehab programs for heart attack patients,
>only 15 per cent of patients who attend are women - and of those, only 5
>per cent stay in the program, with 15 to 20 per cent improvement in heart
>function at the end.
>
>The Women's College record: 80 per cent in the all-women classes stay in
>for the whole six months, improving their heart function by 52 per cent.
>Most of the ``graduates'' express greatly increased confidence, optimism
>and well-being. Why the difference? You can't fake it. A glitzy new
>``Women's Centre'' sign in an otherwise indifferent institution just
>doesn't do the trick. The understanding has to be deep, permanent and
>evolving, springing from a whole culture that understands women's needs.
>
>At the Women's College program, the practitioners have learned, by
>listening, what the patients feel. Older women, it seems, are intimidated
>by the competitive atmosphere of male-dominated gyms. They're embarrassed
>by co-ed gym work, partly because they're weaker to begin with and so need
>a more gradual program. They enjoy the emotional support of small groups of
>other women. They're poorer then men, and therefore can't afford costly
>gyms and have less access to cars or taxis. Domestic responsibilities can
>keep them away. Above all, female cardiac patients can be dragged down by a
>depression intensified by guilt. The program has worked out helpful
>responses to all these concerns. The rewards - in prevented illness and
>restored health - are great.
>
>I asked the Heart and Stroke Foundation how much research money it targeted
>for women's heart health, since the disease is so different in women. The
>answer: $2 million out of a total of $23 million in research grants
>(although, the foundation hastened to point out, any general research might
>benefit women as well as men).
>
>I confess, Heart and Stroke did get my attention this year with its rather
>negative approach. Next year, maybe they'll brush up their courtship skills
>and woo us with a prettier valentine - say, great big grants for
>researchers in women's health, at female-friendly institutions. Now that's
>the way to a woman's heart.
>
>
>Michele Landsberg's column usually appears in The Star Saturday and Sunday.
>
_______________________________________________________________

"This is the future: to fight in favor of change or to fight in favor of
keeping the present" Freire