LisaW
Time for me to FLY!
Member since 5/05 13199 total posts
Name:
Did I ever tell you that I hate people?
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Re: August Issue of Self Magazine
this is a good friend of mine- I met her at Cornell 
I applaud her everyday for doing all she does...
When patients do take up the cause, it can make a difference. Risa Levine, a 48-year-old attorney in New York City, endured 10 IVF cycles and four miscarriages, yet remains childless. "Someone who had a breast cancer scare once said to me, 'What you went through is nothing; it's not like you were scared you were going to die,'" Levine recalls. "My thought was, Yeah, but I wanted to."
Instead of withdrawing, she began making calls: Several years ago, outraged at the dearth of funding and research for infertility, Levine approached then Senator Hillary Clinton (D–N.Y.), who went to the CDC. As a result, in 2008 the agency issued a white paper that outlined the very need that Levine and other advocates want fulfilled: more money for more research. There is little knowledge of the link between infertility and chronic diseases, the document notes, and no information on how much infertility could be reduced by promoting better nutrition, exercise and smoking cessation. Of 84,000 chemicals in the workplace, information on reproductive toxicity is available for only a few thousand. No agency tracks the success of treatments that do not involve assisted reproductive technology or measures the health risks of treatment for mothers and children. And the infertility research that has been done emphasizes women, leaving the causes of men's infertility largely a mystery. The CDC report paved the way for the federal government to develop a National Action Plan for infertility, says Maurizio Macaluso, M.D., chief of the women's health and fertility branch of the division of reproductive health at the CDC. He hopes this project will create newfound awareness that will "reduce the concern that [infertility] is a punishment or fate—or that it cannot be altered." Post your comments to the CDC (on the next page) and help craft its plan. After learning firsthand that the average cost of one round of IVF is $12,400, Levine lobbied her congressman, Anthony Weiner (D–N.Y.), who reintroduced the Family Building Act, a bill that calls for federally mandated insurance coverage for infertility. (Currently, only 15 states have some form of mandate; the bill is awaiting a vote in committee.) Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D–N.Y.) has introduced the Family Building Act to the Senate. "One person's passion matters," she says about Levine. Recently divorced, Levine no longer expects to become a parent, a revelation that pains her every moment of the day. Still, she says, "if this cause was important enough for me to fight for while I was trying to have a baby, it has to be just as important when I failed—even more so."
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