Bipartisan Senate Bill Aims to Take the Mystery Out of Menopause

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan Senate bill would provide $275 million to advance federal research and enhance medical services for women experiencing menopause.

The bill, the Advancing Menopause Care and Mid-Life Women’s Health Act, was introduced Thursday by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and has been referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

Co-sponsors include Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., Susan Collins, R-Maine and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.

A number of recent surveys have shown that a majority of physicians have received little to no formal training about menopause, something all women eventually experience in their lives and which is accompanied by a range of symptoms, including hot flashes, chills, night sweats, sleep problems, mood changes, and weight gain.

If passed and signed into law, the bill would:

• Provide $125 million in menopause-related research grants through the National Institutes of Health.
• Provide $50 million in additional training for health workers on menopause and menopause-related issues.
• Allocate $50 million to improve diagnosis and treatment of chronic conditions affecting women in their 50s and 60s, and
• Create a $50 million public awareness campaign about menopause.

The bill also directs the Department of Health and Human Services to provide Congress with regular updates on its efforts involving menopause.

At a Capitol Hill press conference on Thursday. Murray said menopause has been underinvested in and that it’s high time “everyone really started taking it seriously.”

“If men went through menopause, we would’ve adequately researched and funded menopause research decades ago,” Murkowski said.

Joining the lawmakers at their press conference was Academy Award winner Haley Berry, who shared a harrowing, personal tale of going from doctor to doctor — and receiving many different diagnoses for how she was feeling — before finally learning the symptoms she was experiencing were signs of the onset of menopause.

Up to that point, she said, she thought her active and healthy lifestyle would largely shield her from most of the symptoms she was experiencing.

Haley said she plans to personally urge other senators to support the bill and encouraged women to reach out to their representatives on Capitol Hill to do the same.

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