IOM Calls for More Federal Funding of LGBT Health Research

Dr. Harvey Makadon,

In a landmark moment for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, the Institute of Medicine today published a report for the National Insitutes of Health emphasizing the need for more federally funded research on LGBT health problems, ABC News Reports.


When Elle Groves, 24, was still in school at Colorado State University, a doctor treating her at the campus health services insisted that she was not susceptible to contracting a sexually transmitted disease because she was a lesbian. "Actually, quite the opposite is true. ... The education and awareness about using protection for same-sex female partners is very low and a lot of LGBT women out there don't know that they can still get STDs from unprotected sex with a female partner," says Groves.

"It's been a neglected area of health care research, because people don't think of LGBTs as having health issues different from the general population, and because the government wasn't supportive of research in this area," says Dr. Harvey Makadon, director of professional education at the Fenway Institute and member of the committee that published the IOM report.