Streisand urges powerful NYers to join fight against women’s heart disease.

New York Post.

Barbra Streisand urged a room of powerful New York women — and a few men — to join the fight against women’s heart disease yesterday. The superstar joined Ronald Perelman at a lunch at the Four Seasons Restaurant to talk about their plan to improve diagnosis and treatment of heart disease in women.

She told a crowd that included Catherine Zeta-Jones, Tamara Mellon, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Debra Messing, Star Jones, Grace Hightower De Niro, Joy Bauer, Alina Cho, Gayle King and Donna Karan that cardiovascular disease is the No. 1 killer of women in the US, and kills more women than all cancers combined, yet most research has been done on men.

Streisand said, “I can’t bear the inequality that exists when it comes to women. Women’s heart disease is no different. Surveys show that a very small percentage of research dollars spent in the United States focuses on the treatment of women with heart disease.” She talked of a doctor trying to grow the first human heart in a petri dish who found that only female stem cells worked: “The male cells got lost, and as we know with men — even male stem cells — they get lost and won’t ask for directions.”

Streisand, who earlier toured the Perelman Heart Institute at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, has raised millions for her namesake Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center at Cedars-Sinai in LA — making a $10 million donation then personally wrangling her wealthy friends including Perelman, Ralph Lauren, Sumner Redstone, Barry Diller and Michael Bloomberg to make large financial gifts.

Despite the serious discussion, many in the power crowd were clearly thrilled to meet Streisand, including “Will & Grace” star Messing, who arrived with a program from an early out-of-town production of “Funny Girl,” which Streisand happily leafed through, sighing, “Happy memories” before she signed it.

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