Washington, DC - (Feb. 25) Two WomenHeart members appeared today on the "Oprah Winfrey" show that focused on women and heart disease.

Cindy DeMarco, 31, of Alexandria, VA, and Claudette Ellis, 48, of Columbia, MD, both heart attack survivors, were flown to Chicago where they told their stories to Oprah's 7,000,000-member television audience.

Cindy told of being rebuffed by emergency room staff when she told them her chest pains and nausea were serious and probably heart related. "If I hadn't insisted, they never would have given me an EKG or discovered my heart attack. They wanted to send me home, where I probably would not have survived the night." An Army lawyer, Cindy was in training for the Marine Corps Marathon when she had a heart attack in 2000.

Claudette had a heart attack just two weeks after a cardiac evaluation by her doctor. "Even then no one told me how at-risk I was for a heart attack, so when it did happen I was traumatized. We African American women are simply not aware that heart attack is our # 1 cause of death." Claudette works for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and was 45 when she had a heart attack.

Cindy and Claudette's experiences were amplified on "Oprah" through excerpts from a feature film of them and other WomenHeart members produced in 2001 by Cordis, a Johnson & Johnson company. They were joined on the program by two physicians and several other women heart patients.

Both women are strong WomenHeart advocates for changing the way the healthcare system treats women with heart disease. They say women need early detection, accurate diagnosis and proper treatment of their heart disease. "Appearing on "Oprah" gave us the opportunity to tell women - and the world – that heart disease is the # 1 killer of women," they said. "We don't want what happed to us to happen to one other woman."

WomenHeart is the only national patient advocacy organization founded by women heart patients that represents the 8,000,000 American women living with heart disease. Through support, information and advocacy, it aims to decrease the deaths and disability from heart disease among women. WomenHeart is a tax-exempt non-profit organization headquartered in Washington, DC.

Click here for online information about Oprah's show on women and heart disease.