Halle Berry confronts stigma
Academy Award-winning actress Halle Berry joined a group of US senators to announce new legislation that would provide tens of millions of dollars toward menopause research and education.
“The shame has to be taken out of menopause. We have to talk about this very normal part of our life,” said the Hollywood star, who picked up a best actress Oscar for the 2001 romantic drama “Monster’s Ball.”
The bill, Advancing Menopause Care and Mid-life Women’s Health Act, is sponsored by senators from both parties and would divert $275 million to research, raising awareness and training health care professionals to deal with the hormone shift that women go through, mainly in middle age.
“Menopause is not a bad word. It’s not something to be ashamed of,” Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington state, told reporters at the news conference outside the US Capitol.
“And it is not something Congress or the federal government should ignore.”
The measure has no clear path yet to US President Joe Biden’s desk, but Murray and her colleagues told reporters the aim was to get as many co-sponsors as possible before asking that it be put to a vote in the Senate.
Meanwhile, Hollywood A-lister Anne Hathaway has disclosed that she is now five years sober a er quitting due to a bad hangover in 2018, CNN said, citing a report from The New York Times.
“The Princess Diaries” actress first shared her decision to quit drinking alcohol during an appearance on the “Ellen Degeneres Show,” explaining at the time she wanted to be fully available and present to her young son. “In a new interview with The New York Times, Hathaway reflected on her health and being in her forties,” CNN said.
“There are so many other things I identify as milestones. I don’t normally talk about it, but I am over five years sober,” she told The New York Times in a recent interview. “That feels like a milestones to me. Forty feels like a gi . The fact of the matter is I hesitate at calling things ‘middle age’ simply because I can be a semantic sticker and I could get hit by a car later today. We don’t know if this is middle age. We don’t know anything.”