Melinda French Gates: It Took Three Doctors to Diagnose My Perimenopause

Melinda French Gates needed three doctors to get a correct diagnosis for perimenopause. She had access to some of the best healthcare in the country. It still took three tries. That experience — and the fact that only one-third of OB-GYNs in the United States are trained in menopause — is part of what drove her to commit $215 million in new funding to women's health, with a significant portion aimed at menopause research. In this conversation with Norah O'Donnell, French Gates explains why women's health is chronically underfunded, what the consequences are, and how women can advocate for themselves when the system fails them.

The structural gap in women's health research

French Gates points to a stark statistic: only 10% of taxpayer money at the National Institutes of Health goes toward women's research. The result is that women spend an average of nine years in poor health compared to men — and those years are not at the end of life. "A lot of those years are in your most productive years," she says. When women cannot get answers for their health problems, they step back from careers at their peak. One in ten women leaves the workforce during perimenopause or menopause because of severe symptoms.