Introduction
Scientists are discovering that women respond differently from men to a surprisingly wide array of diseases and medications. Heart disease is the leading killer of women and men, but women are far less likely than men to survive heart attacks and heart surgery. Experts cannot explain why; the most influential studies of heart disease have studied only men. Women activists charge that medical research has focused on men long enough. Now, they say, it's their turn. Together, female consumers, lawmakers and doctors have won a string of impressive political victories boosting federal research attention to women's health. But some well-respected researchers in the scientific establishment attack this activism as special-interest politics that could ultimately undermine the validity of the scientific quest.
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