Bernadine Patricia Healy (August 4, 1944 – August 6, 2011) was an American cardiologist and the first female director of the
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...
(NIH).
During her career, Healy held leadership positions at the
Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...
, the
Cleveland Clinic
Cleveland Clinic is a nonprofit American academic medical center based in Cleveland, Ohio. Owned and operated by the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, an Ohio nonprofit corporation established in 1921, it runs a 170-acre (69 ha) campus in Cleveland, ...
,
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...
, and
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
. She was also president of both the
American Red Cross and the
American Heart Association. She was health editor and columnist for ''
U.S. News & World Report'' and a well-known commentator in the news media on health issues.
Early years and family
Born in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
to Michael Healy and Violet McGrath, Healy was one of four daughters raised in
Long Island City,
Queens
Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...
. Healy's parents stressed the importance of education. In 1962, she graduated at the top of her class at the
Hunter College High School in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
.
She attended
Vassar College
Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely foll ...
on a full scholarship and graduated
summa cum laude in 1965 with a major in chemistry and a minor in philosophy and was elected to
Phi Beta Kappa
The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ...
.
She went on to
Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...
, also on full scholarship, and was one of only ten women out of 120 students in her class. After graduating cum laude from
Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...
in 1970, she completed her internship and residency in internal medicine and cardiology fellowship at the
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM) is the medical school of Johns Hopkins University, a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1893, the School of Medicine shares a campus with the Johns Hopkins Hospi ...
and
Johns Hopkins Hospital
The Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) is the teaching hospital and biomedical research facility of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. It was founded in 1889 using money from a bequest of over $7 million (1873 m ...
. After finishing her post-doctoral training, she became the first woman to join its full-time faculty in cardiology and rose quickly to the rank of professor of medicine.
For eight years she headed the coronary care unit at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. At the medical school, she served as assistant dean for post-doctoral programs and faculty development. During that time she organized a nationally covered
Mary Elizabeth Garrett
Mary Elizabeth Garrett (March 5, 1854 – April 3, 1915) was an American suffragist and philanthropist. She was the youngest child and only daughter of John W. Garrett, a philanthropist and president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B. & O.).S ...
symposium on women in medicine which examined the opportunities and hurdles faced by women physicians roughly 90 years after the founding of the medical school in 1893, and at the same time honored Garrett, the Victorian
socialite and philanthropist who made sure that Johns Hopkins School of Medicine opened its admissions to women (the medical school opened its doors in October 1893; and three of the eighteen original candidates for the M.D. degree were women) and ultimately admitted women and men precisely on the same terms.
Affiliations
While at Johns Hopkins, Healy held several leadership positions in organizations such as the American Federation of Clinical Research, the American College of Cardiology, and the
American Heart Association, an organization she later led as its volunteer president, and served on advisory committees to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
The nonprofit
Age of Autism
Age or AGE may refer to:
Time and its effects
* Age, the amount of time someone or something has been alive or has existed
** East Asian age reckoning, an Asian system of marking age starting at 1
* Ageing or aging, the process of becoming older ...
named her 2008 Person of the Year
for her publicly stated opinion that it had not been shown that vaccination is not a trigger or cause of autism, and for her vigorous insistence that adequate science be done to resolve the issue. The scientific consensus was and is that no association has been found between vaccines and autism.
Cleveland Clinic
In 1985 Healy left Washington and moved to Cleveland where she became chair of the
Cleveland Clinic
Cleveland Clinic is a nonprofit American academic medical center based in Cleveland, Ohio. Owned and operated by the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, an Ohio nonprofit corporation established in 1921, it runs a 170-acre (69 ha) campus in Cleveland, ...
Lerner Research Institute and also practiced cardiology. In addition to building major new programs in molecular biology, neuroscience, and cancer biology, she headed a large NIH-funded research program in hypertension, and was the lead investigator for the Cleveland Clinic's participation in a major clinical research study comparing angioplasty with coronary artery bypass surgery. She headed the NIH advisory board for another multi-center clinical study that showed that statins could slow the course of atherosclerosis in coronary artery bypass grafts. During this time she initiated a medical student program in alliance with Ohio State University that served as a precursor to the founding of the
Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine
Case Western Reserve School of Medicine (CWRU SOM, CaseMed) is the medical school of Case Western Reserve University, a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. It is the largest biomedical research center in Ohio.
History
On November 1, ...
in 2004.
American Red Cross
Healy was recruited away from Ohio State to become president and CEO of the
American Red Cross in late 1999, succeeding
Elizabeth Dole
Mary Elizabeth Alexander Hanford Dole (née Hanford; born July 29, 1936)Mary Ella Cathey Hanford, "Asbury and Hanford Families: Newly Discovered Genealogical Information" ''The Historical Trail'' 33 (1996), pp. 44–45, 49. is an American attorn ...
. From the outset, she strove to unite the various services and volunteers under the banner "Together we can save a life."
Her tenure at the Red Cross was unsteady. In the spring of 2001, the FDA issued a record fine to the Red Cross for mishandling
CMV infected blood products.
The American Red Cross was criticized in the news media, notably by Fox News Channel host Bill O'Reilly,
New York State Attorney General
The attorney general of New York is the chief legal officer of the U.S. state of New York and head of the Department of Law of the state government. The office has been in existence in some form since 1626, under the Dutch colonial government o ...
Eliot Spitzer, and some in Congress for misleading donors by soliciting and receiving donations worth $564 million after the 9/11 attacks, after it was discovered that the majority of the received funds were put aside for the organization's long-term use rather than going to support victims and volunteers. The Red Cross was forced to change its policy.
Healy also advocated withholding dues from the
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies for not allowing
Israel's Red Cross society (Magen David Adom) to join the international body without adopting the cross or crescent as its symbol. The Red Cross Board of Directors hired her as a “change agent” but chaffed at her steely
managerial style and the board's “loss of control over day-to-day decision-making." The board forced her resignation in the wake of these disagreements and controversies. Healy departed the organization as president on December 31, 2001.
Government service
Presidential Advisor
President
Ronald Reagan appointed Healy deputy director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. She served as chairman of the White House Cabinet Group on Biotechnology, executive secretary of the White House Science Council's Panel on the Health of Universities, and a member of several advisory groups on developing government-wide guidelines for research in human subjects and for the humane treatment of animals in research. She subsequently served on the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology during the administration of Presidents
George H. W. Bush and
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
.
National Institutes of Health
Healy was director of the Research Institute at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation when President George H. W. Bush tapped her in 1991 to become director of the NIH, its first woman head. She took on many initiatives during her two years at the helm, including the development of a major intramural
laboratory
A laboratory (; ; colloquially lab) is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific or technological research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. Laboratory services are provided in a variety of settings: physic ...
for human genomics; recruited a world-renowned team to head the
Human Genome Project, including current NIH director Dr.
Francis Collins
Francis Sellers Collins (born April 14, 1950) is an American physician-geneticist who discovered the genes associated with a number of diseases and led the Human Genome Project. He is the former director of the National Institutes of Health (N ...
; elevated nursing research to an independent NIH institute; and established a policy whereby the NIH would fund only those clinical trials that included both men and women when the condition being studied affects both sexes.
According to Francis Collins, Healy was responsible for pressuring
James Watson to retire as director of the Human Genome Project due to Watson's publicized belief that identified DNA gene sequences should be openly available for use to prevent disease instead of allowing DNA sequences to be patented, an idea which Watson characterized as crazy and insane, and an idea which Healy preferred.
American Heart Association
As president of the American Heart Association from 1988 to 1989, she sought to convince both the public and medical community that heart disease is also a woman's disease, "not a man's disease in disguise." Appointed president of the American Red Cross in 1999, Healy worked to improve the safety and availability of the American blood supply while overseeing the development of a Weapons of Mass Destruction response program. In 2001 she led the organization's response to the
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...
.
U.S. Senate candidate
In 1994, Healy was a
Republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
candidate to represent Ohio in the
U.S. Senate
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and pow ...
. She ran in the GOP primary and came in second in a four-person race. Lt. Gov.
Mike DeWine won and prevailed in the general election.
Ohio State University
Healy served as professor and dean of the College of Medicine from 1995 to 1999. During her tenure, the college expanded its public health programs to become a School of Public Health, re-christening the College of Medicine into a College of Medicine and Public Health.
Her efforts led to the medical school's designation as a National Center of Excellence in Women's Health. A new department of
orthopaedics
Orthopedic surgery or orthopedics ( alternatively spelt orthopaedics), is the branch of surgery concerned with conditions involving the musculoskeletal system. Orthopedic surgeons use both surgical and nonsurgical means to treat musculoskeletal ...
was created along with a planned development of a Musculoskeletal Institute. The James Cancer Center expanded its efforts in basic research with recruitment of Dr. Clara Bloomfield, an oncologist and
leukemia
Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ...
researcher, and her husband Dr.
Albert de la Chappelle, a world-famous geneticist: Together, they expanded the college's programs in cancer research and tumor genetics. Cardiovascular research and practice grew with the recruitment of Dr. Robert Michler of
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, who helped to revitalize the
thoracic surgery
Cardiothoracic surgery is the field of medicine involved in surgical treatment of organs inside the thoracic cavity — generally treatment of conditions of the heart (heart disease), lungs (lung disease), and other pleural or mediastinal stru ...
and heart transplantation programs and developed one of the earliest robotic heart surgery programs. Dr.
Pascal Goldschmidt, a cardiologist and researcher, who was recruited from Johns Hopkins, helped create the Heart and Lung Institute.
Advisory boards
Healy served on numerous medical advisory committees and boards over her career. They included committees of the
National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine, of which she was a member, and the national
Academy of Engineering; the
Department of Energy A Ministry of Energy or Department of Energy is a government department in some countries that typically oversees the production of fuel and electricity; in the United States, however, it manages nuclear weapons development and conducts energy-re ...
,
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...
, and the National Institutes of Health. She participated briefly on an advisory board of
The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition
The Advancement of Sound Science Center (TASSC), formerly The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, was an industry-funded lobby group and crisis management vehicle, and was created in 1993 by Phillip Morris and APCO in response to a 1992 Unit ...
(an organization later shown to have been funded by
Philip Morris), and served on numerous advisory groups and boards of the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology, where she was an outspoken critic of smoking and its effects on the cardiovascular system.
Press
Over her career Healy served as a medical commentator and consultant for
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
,
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
and
MSNBC
MSNBC (originally the Microsoft National Broadcasting Company) is an American news-based pay television cable channel. It is owned by NBCUniversala subsidiary of Comcast. Headquartered in New York City, it provides news coverage and politi ...
, and made numerous appearances on
CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
,
C-SPAN and
Fox News Channel. Healy authored a column, "On Health", for ''
U.S. News & World Report'' beginning in 2003 on a wide array of medical topics from women's health to
marijuana,
coronary artery disease to
cancer
Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...
, tattoos to male
circumcision
Circumcision is a procedure that removes the foreskin from the human penis. In the most common form of the operation, the foreskin is extended with forceps, then a circumcision device may be placed, after which the foreskin is excised. Top ...
, and medical preparedness to health reform.
Healy became the focus of controversy when she questioned the 2004 finding of the Institute of Medicine that the evidence refuting a link between childhood vaccinations and autism was conclusive. In a nationally televised CBS interview with
Sharyl Attkisson
Sharyl Attkisson (born 1961) is an American journalist and television correspondent. She hosts the Sinclair Broadcast Group TV show '' Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson''.
Attkisson is a five-time Emmy Award winner, and a Radio Television Digi ...
, she alleged that the government has avoided studying whether there are any susceptible population sub-groups in which vaccination may result in autism, because of a fear that, if such a link were found between vaccines and autism, people would stop vaccinating.
Family
Healy was married to cardiac surgeon Floyd D. Loop, a former CEO of the Cleveland Clinic. She and her husband had one daughter, Marie McGrath Loop. She had another daughter, Bartlett Bulkley, from her previous marriage.
Death
Healy died two days after her 67th birthday on August 6, 2011, in
Gates Mills, Ohio
Gates Mills is a village in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States. The population was 2,270 at the 2010 census. Gates Mills is a suburb of Cleveland and was originally part of Mayfield Township.
The village was named for Halsey Gates, the propri ...
, ending a thirteen-year battle with
brain cancer.
Popular media
Healy is the subject of a 2018 episode of
Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Timothy Gladwell (born 3 September 1963) is an English-born Canadian journalist, author, and public speaker. He has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' since 1996. He has published seven books: '' The Tipping Point: How Little ...
's podcast ''"Revisionist History"'' : ''"Strong Verbs, Short Sentences"'', Season 3, Episode #9.
References
External links
Press release from Ohio State University regarding Healy's departureMount Union College 2004 commencement speaker informationLakeland Community College 2002 commencement speaker information*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Healy, Bernadine
1944 births
2011 deaths
American cardiologists
Women cardiologists
Deaths from brain cancer in the United States
Johns Hopkins Hospital physicians
Hunter College High School alumni
Vassar College alumni
Ohio State University faculty
Johns Hopkins University alumni
Harvard Medical School alumni
People from Long Island City, Queens
Ohio Republicans
American women physicians
American Red Cross personnel
People from Gates Mills, Ohio
Directors of the National Institutes of Health
George H. W. Bush administration personnel
Clinton administration personnel
21st-century American women
Deaths from cancer in Ohio
Neurological disease deaths in Ohio
Members of the National Academy of Medicine