But we have known for over twenty years that the genetic difference between a woman and a man is fifteen times greater than the genetic difference between two men, and that these genetic differences really matter when it comes to health care.

 

From over-looked symptoms, to overdoses on medications, to procedures ill-fitted to women’s bodies — women receive sub-par healthcare every single day, worldwide, because of the basic inequality in the practice of medicine. Women are literally at risk of life and limb.

 

Almost every disease affects women differently than it does men. And unfortunately, in most cases, diseases that are particularly debilitating to women receive less attention and research dollars than erectile dysfunction.  But our film cannot take on all those diseases. Our film will focus on the number one killer of women — heart disease.

 

The death toll from heart disease in women outnumbers all cancers combined. And yet most women don’t know when they are having warning signs of an impending heart attack, because women’s heart attacks present differently than men’s do. Rather than the pain in the left arm and the intense, gripping pain in the chest that is often depicted in dramatic style via Hollywood films, women are more likely to have jaw pain, indigestion, or weakness and exhaustion that is unusual and debilitating.

 

Even more alarming — a great deal of the medical community is also not aware of these differences.

 

The New England Journal of Medicine reports that female heart patients in their 50’s or younger are seven times more likely to be misdiagnosed and sent home from the ER during a myocardial infarction than are male patients. The FDA and the NIH have both issued directives requiring pharmaceutical research to include women. But those directives have done little to turn the tide toward sex specific medicine in practice.  

 

Things change when people change, and people only change when they are moved. This is why our film will be following the stories of people: real women whose lives and families have been disastrously affected by this basic inequity in the medical care that women receive. Through their stories we will experience just how strong women can be, and just how much we, as individuals, are able to change the world.