Are women being left behind in cardiac research?

I was interviewed by Catherine Morgan at Blogher after the report called Heart Device Studies Still Leave Women Out of Equation was published in the March issue of the journal, Circulation. Catherine asked a number of questions about my take on Dr. Rita Redberg’s findings in this research. For example, one of her questions was:

“How concerned should women with heart disease be about this latest report?”  

My response:

“Any report that indicates “incomplete safety and efficacy details for women” is discouraging and alarming for all women, and it comes back to that gender gap in research trials.

“We know that women do volunteer for hormone or breast cancer clinical trials – but don’t seem as interested in participating in cardiac research.

“This is likely because many women still mistakenly believe that heart disease is a man’s problem, even though it is the #1 killer of women, and indeed kills more women every year than men.

“But women are not alone in our ignorance. In a 2005 American Heart Association study, physicians were asked if they were aware of the fact that cardiovascular disease kills more women than men each year.

“The results were absolutely shocking: Only 8% of family physicians knew this fact, but (even more frightening!) only 17% of cardiologists were aware of it.”