A Pioneer in Women’s Health

By CYNTHIA T PEGRAM

When Dr. Vivian Pinn was tapped to be the first director of the Office of Research on Women’s Health for the National Institutes of Health, she thought she’d be there a few years.

"That was 27 years ago, and I’m still amazed," Pinn said, speaking recently at the Lynchburg Academy of Medicine.

Over time, her habit of speaking her mind has not waned, she said, but "I’ve learned to be more diplomatic."

Accepting the job, "changed my calling, changed my life," Pinn said.

The Lynchburg native and valedictorian of Dunbar High School Class of ’58, is a graduate of Wellesley College in Massachusetts. She holds her medical degree from the University of Virginia.

Pinn’s is a career of successes and many firsts, including that of being the first female chair of the department of pathology at Howard University College of Medicine in Washington.

The NIH office she leads was born, in part, by the efforts of advocates for women’s health, as well as by science. She was appointed to lead the new office in 1991.

Until the 1990s, most medical research was done on men, then applied to women as though they were the same, but that view is no longer seen as correct, Pinn said.

That’s a big difference from the 1980s when women’s medicine was seen in terms of reproductive medicine only, and not life-span issues, she said.

A growing body of research is finding differences even in the genetic makeup of cells, "basic biological differences in organ systems and tissues."

The results of research on women’s health show, for example, that pain syndromes are different in men and women. She noted findings that heart attack presents differently in women than in men.

Today, one of the roles the Office of Research on Women’s Health is to ensure that all 27 of the institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health include research on women.

Despite the increased knowledge from research, the U.S. placed 32nd in life expectancy in a recent study done by the World Health Organization , Pinn said. And in several areas in the U.S., life expectancy actually declined.

Obesity, smoking, and HIV-AIDS are important factors, she said.

And health questions remain – such as the cause of a surge in strokes in women between ages 30 and 64; why fewer women are getting mammograms; why women are less likely than men to keep cholesterol under control; and why there a correlation between a drop in the use of hormone treatments in women and decline in the numbers of breast- cancer cases.

Pinn noted the HPV vaccine, which protects against cervical cancer, seemed like an ideal breakthrough, yet it has created major controversy.

Cynthia T. Pegram writes for The News & Advance in Lynchburg.

Originally published by Media General News Service.

(c) 2008 Richmond Times – Dispatch. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.