The word fell at 9 a.m. on April 14, they did. Marcia Stefanick of Stanford and three other leaders of regional centers who, for decades, did research on the health of women heard from national leaders of their study that their funding would end in the exercise.
They all had ready contracts and awaited to be signed to extend their part of the women’s health initiative, a massive and revolutionary study that changed medical practice on hormone therapy, bone health and cardiovascular health.
“It was like being struck in the intestine,” recalls Stefanick. The researchers, sick about the news, were informed by the Coordination Center to wait a few days before informing the Study steering committee, investigators from their respective regions and other persons involved in study management. Friday, April 18, they put the word during a call to their colleagues. “It was then that they had their punch.”
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