Snowe honored for leadership, legislation on women’s health issues

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, R-Maine, was honored this week for her leadership on women’s health issues.

Along with Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md., Snowe is featured in the July issue of Good Housekeeping, and the two were honored with the Good Housekeeping Wyeth Award for Women’s Health at an awards luncheon held Wednesday at the Library of Congress.

In accepting the award, Snowe recounted how far women have come during her time in Congress while identifying future challenges in women’s health.

“For too long, women’s health was the ‘missing chapter’ in America’s medical textbooks,” she said. “Women were systematically excluded from clinical medical trials. Only a decade ago, we were astounded to discover one study on breast cancer that was conducted entirely on men. But together, we sounded a clarion call. We established an Office of Women’s Health Research at NIH [the National Institutes of Health], and now we’re anticipating the results of a 15-year Women’s Health Initiative project. We’ve secured more than $5.7 billion for federally funded breast cancer research over the past decade. And with an estimated 233,000 new cases of breast cancer diagnosed just last year, we’re not stopping there.”

Good Housekeeping noted the leadership Snowe and Mikulski exercised on women’s health matters, from spearheading legislation to ensure uninsured women could be screened for breast or cervical cancer to working together to permit states to use Medicaid funds to pay for surgery and follow-up care. The magazine cited Snowe’s legislation, co-sponsored by Mikulski, to require coverage of prescription contraceptives at the same level as other medications.

The award is accompanied by a $25,000 prize, which Snowe and Mikulski will divide.

Snowe said she has asked the award organizers to distribute her $12,500 prize to five organizations that are working on the front lines of women’s health in Maine:

. Maine Center for Osteoporosis Research and Education at St. Joseph Hospital in Bangor.

. Sam and Jennie Bennett Breast Care Center at Central Maine Health Care in Lewiston.

. Maine Cancer Foundation in Portland.

. TAMC Women’s Health Center at The Aroostook Medical Center in Presque Isle.

. Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, Maine affiliate, based in Brewer.