By Gallane Dabela and Susan Hahn

Photos by Bill Branson

NIH director Dr. Elias Zerhouni and the Office of Research on Women's Health recently hosted a visit of members of the board of the Wisconsin Women's Health Foundation (WWHF), which was founded by Sue Ann Thompson, wife of HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson, in 1997 to educate women on important health topics. In attendance were health activists and health practitioners who met with a number of representatives from the NIH community.

Zerhouni, Dr. Ruth Kirschstein, senior advisor to the NIH director, and Dr. Vivian Pinn, NIH associate director for research on women's health, greeted WWHF board members who were interested in not only women's health, but also other research at NIH.

NIH director Dr. Elias Zerhouni (l) meets with Sue Ann Thompson (r), wife of HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson, and members of the board of the Wisconsin Women's Health Foundation that she founded.

Dr. James Battey, director of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, gave an overview of current and future stem cell research. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, spoke about the evolution of the SARS epidemic and vaccine development. Dr. Barbara Alving, deputy director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and director of the Women's Health Initiative, discussed the latest results on combination hormone therapy and menopause, and heart disease, which is a major killer of women. Dr. Ted Trimble, head of surgery at NCI's Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program, provided statistics on cancers in women and current cancer research.

Thompson and Zerhouni

WWHF board members said they appreciated the many contributions of ORWH and NIH in bringing increased attention to women's health through research.