Speed Skating Gold Medalist Bonnie Blair Joins With Medical Experts toInaugurate Stress Urinary Incontinence Awareness Week, June 8

6/7/2004

From: Elizabeth Baxter, 646-872-8646

News Advisory:

WHAT: Speed skating champion Bonnie Blair join forces with the country's leading advocacy groups and medical experts to share her personal story to help millions of women across the country. Together, they will inaugurate the first Stress Urinary Incontinence Awareness Week, June 7 to 11. Bonnie will also unveil the first public service announcement focusing on SUI.

WHY: Over 15 million women suffer from SUI. Although common, many women do not seek treatment for SUI because they are embarrassed, fear surgery, or believe it is a normal part of aging and that nothing can be done about it. It is different from overactive bladder, where there is a sense of an urgent need to void and risk factors for SUI include childbirth, chronic coughing, obesity, and constipation.

WHO: Walter Saggett, Interim Chief Medical Officer of the Washington DC Dept. of Health

Bonnie Blair, Speed Skating Champion, one of the most decorated women athletes in U.S. history

Vivian Pinn, M.D., Director of the Office of Research on Women's Health at the National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Victor Nitti, M.D., Associate Professor and Vice Chairman, Department of Urology, New York University School of Medicine, representative of the American Foundation for Urologic Disease

Nancy Muller, Executive Director of the National Association For Continence

Cheryle Gartley, President of the Simon Foundation for Continence

WHEN: Tuesday, June 8, 2004, 10 to 11:30 am

WHERE: National Press Club, 529 14th Street, NW Washington, DC, 20045

CONTACT: To schedule an interview with panelists are available at the event, or for more information, please contact: Elizabeth Baxter at 646-872-8646 or elizabeth.baxter@eurorscg.com

Sponsored by the American Foundation for Urologic Disease (AFUD), the National Association For Continence (NAFC), and the Simon Foundation for Continence, in partnership with Eli Lilly and Company and Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc.