Academy Award-winning actress Halle Berry is teaming up with U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito to promote the health, education, well-being and empowerment of West Virginia’s women and girls, specifically regarding research around menopause.
Alongside Capito, Berry paid a visit to the Capital City Wednesday where the duo made an initial stop at Piedmont Elementary for a Girls Rise Up event before making their way to the main branch of the Kanawha County Public Library to lead a roundtable discussion about menopause with women’s health experts from around the state.
At the roundtable and on her 58th birthday, Berry told her own personal menopause story and the scares she faced with it along the way in an effort to promote new bipartisan legislation known as the “Advancing Menopause and Mid-Life Women’s Health Act”, which would bring that stage of life for women into greater light.
Berry said she wanted to be a voice for all women going through the confusing and often very emotional time.
“I felt compelled in that moment to use my voice and do something about it and sort of change that reality for myself, but then by changing it for myself, I’m changing it for other women.”
She said when she initially started going through menopause without even knowing it, she woke up one morning only to experience a terrible health scare. An OB-GYN informed her that she had herpes, the worst case he had ever seen, in fact.
After her and her husband went and got tested for the STD, however, they came to find out that neither of them had it. Her doctor later called her to relay the same information that she in fact, did not have herpes.
However, she later came to find out that she was experiencing a condition that is associated with menopause that her doctor didn’t know about.
Berry said she also came to discover that little is still known about menopause and its symptoms, with only 13% of doctors in the country knowing fully of what it entails. She said many other doctors and society, as a whole, also just simply doesn’t want to talk about it.
“You know, forever it has been dirty, woman have felt such shame, such stigma around this time of life, even the word, doctors can’t say it,” she said. “One of my doctors didn’t talk to me about my increasing eye condition and the moisture in my eyes because he was afraid to say to me that this was because of menopause.”
Earlier this year, Berry went to Washington D.C. to advocate for the new menopause legislation and to speak in front of about a dozen female senators, Capito included.
Capito, a co-sponsor of the Advancing Menopause bill, said the legislation will bring more federal study into the arena on the issue.
“A lot of it is based on what Halle has explained, and basically it’s research and as I’ve looked into this issue more definitively with her and others, I realized it doesn’t really start when you’re 55 or 56 or 48, whenever you go and start to do this, the symptoms begin much earlier,” Capito said.
She said the research into the issue that the bill will bring will then be able to further transpire into more information about it and doctors and medical professionals finding more treatment for it.
Capito said it will be legislation that can benefit all women entering that stage of life.
“This is basically just pulling together what we already have but also putting greater emphasis and obviously greater dollars into researching what is going to be a part of, if you live long enough, every woman’s life,” she said.
Capito said through research of her own she learned that there’s only three doctors in the state who can be considered menopausal experts.
She said while Berry will take the issue across the nation, she wanted to show her specifically how the issue translates here in rural communities.
“What kind of access we have, what kind of barriers there are for rural America, because as we know, the health liberty system is different in those different capacities,” Capito said.
Several female health experts spoke at the roundtable discussion Wednesday, including West Virginia Department of Health Cabinet Secretary Sherri Young and West Virginia Department of Human Services Secretary Cynthia Persily.
Young said it’s crucial menopause is addressed with the same seriousness and dedication as other major health transitions.
“By increasing education, research, and access to care, we can significantly improve the quality of life for women in West Virginia and ensure that no woman has to navigate this stage of life without the support and resources she need,” Young said.
Persily highlighted how the state’s Medicaid program could play a pivotal role in the expansion of menopause related health care access.
“By collaborating with federal initiatives like this one, we can ensure that West Virginia women have access to the care they need, regardless of where they live. With an increasing number of women reaching menopause daily, the need for comprehensive care and support is more pressing than ever, and Medicaid can be a key player in making sure these services reach even our most rural communities,” said Persily.
Berry said the ages between 45 and 60 could be the best years of a woman’s life if they had more information about menopause and what’s actually going on with their body’s during this transition, and she wants to work to help shed more light on it.
“I have realized that women deserve more, we deserve optimum health care, we deserve to live out the second act of our life in good health,” Berry said. “Women are living longer than men but we’re living in poor health, why is that? Well, that’s why I’m working tirelessly on this bill trying to get research and dollars there, create awareness and get women to de-stigmatize.”
Capito said while they seem to be generating some interest in Washington over the bill that now has 16 co-sponsors, she still doesn’t foresee it passing this year. She said they plan to first hook it into other bills and raise more dollars and awareness so it can pass sometime in the near future.
A total of 75 million women are in perimenopause, menopause, or post-menopause currently in the U.S., but research shows only 30% of U.S. residency programs offer formal menopause curriculum