Ladiesï¾’ Home Journal Establishes The Inaugural Dr. Marianne J. Legato Gender-Specific Medicine Award
Presented at Ladies’ Home Journal’s First-Annual Health Breakthrough Awards (New York, NY – August 2, 2006) – Ladies' Home Journal today announced Dr. Marianne J. Legato as the recipient of its first gender-specific medicine award created in her name. The award will be presented during the first-annual Health Breakthrough Awards, which recognize leading medical professionals who are making life-saving and life-enhancing discoveries in research, diagnostics and treatment – with results that have significantly helped women and families.
Dr. Legato, who is the Founder and Director of The Partnership for Gender-Specific Medicine at Columbia University and Medical Adviser to Ladies’ Home Journal, will receive the inaugural award in her name for forging a new field of medicine that focuses on the differences between women and men. Beginning next year, Dr. Legato will present the annual Marianne J. Legato Gender-Specific Medicine Award to a deserving professional.
“Many doctors resist the notion that men and women are different enough that it warrants significant changes in how we practice medicine,” says Dr. Legato. “But we are different in every system of the body, from our brains to our skin.”
Dr. Legato will be honored along with six other doctors and researchers at the Health Breakthrough Awards Luncheon in New York City on August 2nd, hosted by Ladies’ Home Journal Editor-in-Chief Diane Salvatore, with Special Presenters Oscar and Emmy Award-Winning Actress Sally Field, Emmy Award-Winning News Anchor Ann Curry and Golden Globe-Nominated Actress Andie MacDowell. The honorees will also be featured in the September issue of the magazine, on sale August 8th.
“Our 13.5 million readers are the health gatekeepers in their own families,” says Salvatore. “That’s why they are so eager to be educated about medical breakthroughs, and are so appreciative of the dedicated professionals who diagnose and cure serious illnesses.”
Ladies’ Home Journal’s 2006 Health Breakthrough Award recipients include: Dr. Deborah K. Armstrong, associate professor of Oncology, Gynecology and Obstetrics at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine – Lead investigator for a study that found that a rarely used treatment for advanced ovarian cancer could add 16 months or more of life. Ovarian cancer is one of the deadliest forms of cancer and one of the hardest to detect in its earliest stages, since there is no reliable screening test. This year, an estimated 20,180 women will learn they have ovarian cancer and some 15,310 women will die of it. Dr. Susan Cu-Uvin, professor of Obstetrics/Gynecology and Medicine at Brown Medical School and Director of The Immunology Center at Miriam Hospital – Established the nation's first clinic specifically devoted to the population of menopausal women with HIV/AIDS. HIV is spreading among older Americans, and thanks to effective medications, existing women patients are living longer. As a result, these women are entering uncharted territory: Doctors know very little about how the virus interacts with the hormonal upheavals of menopause. Dr. Mary Ann E. Keenan, chief of the Neuro-Orthopedics Program at University of Pennsylvania – Pioneered surgical techniques that relieve musculo/skeletal deformities resulting from strokes. Dr. Etta D. Pisano, director of the Biomedical Research Imaging Center at University of North Carolina – Pioneered research showing that the newer technology of digital mammograms is as reliable as film mammograms and better at finding breast cancer in young women and those with dense breast tissue. Dr. Frank E. Speizer, Edward H. Kass professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School & and Dr. Walter C. Willett, professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health – In recognition of the 30th anniversary of the Nurses’ Health Study, the largest ongoing health study to focus on women. GlaxoSmithKline is the sole sponsor of both the Health Breakthrough Awards September 2006 in-book feature and the Awards Gala.
The Health Breakthrough Awards reflect Ladies’ Home Journal’s long history of health-advocacy journalism dating back more than a century. The magazine helped to spur the eventual formation of the Food and Drug Administration, put an end to bogus medications and break the taboo of silence about sexually transmitted diseases. More recently, Ladies’ Home Journal has worked with readers to support legislation to make imported produce safer, stop emergency rooms from being closed and improve care in nursing homes.
About Ladies’ Home Journal Founded in December 1883, Ladies' Home Journal has been inspiring, informing and entertaining women for 123 years. Published monthly by Meredith Corporation (NYSE: MDP), Ladies’ Home Journal has a circulation of 4.1 million and a readership of 13.5 million. The magazine’s interactive online companion, www.lhj.com, has 1.8 million unique visitors and 20 million page views each month.
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