For 23 years, I was an attorney in the Division of Investment Management at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C. I retired in 2014.

I became interested in medical research while researching treatment options for my then-teenage daughter, who has familial hypercholesterolemia (FH), a genetic disease that causes very high LDL-cholesterol. My husband also has FH. I am a member of the Walking Gallery of Healthcare.  In addition, I am a member/administrator of the Familial Hypercholesterolemia (FH) Discussion Group on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/47098836197/).  I am patient advisor for Circulation:  Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, one of the American Heart Association journals. I help edit a series of articles by patients or their family members (listed here). I am also a patient reviewer for BMJ and a member of the stakeholder engagement committee for C3FIT, a trial of post-stroke care, funded by PCORI. I am a member of the Society for Participatory Medicine. In 2021, I was diagnosed with microvascular angina.

Follow me on Twitter @MarilynMann.

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Disclosures:  My husband and I have invested primarily in the Thrift Savings Plan and in diversified mutual funds. However, after my mother died in March 2020, I inherited some individual stocks and bonds, including some stocks and bonds issued by certain drug and device manufacturers and a health insurance company. Some of these securities were held in an IRA or received a step-up in basis at my mother’s death, and I was able to sell them without major tax consequences. However, some of these securities received a step-up in basis at my father’s death in 2006 and did not receive another step-up in basis at my mother’s death. Selling these latter securities caused me to incur capital gains. I sold those securities over a couple of years, to spread out the capital gains taxes. I sold the last of them in January 2022.

Unfortunately, my brother Andrew passed away in March 2022. I inherited some health care related stocks from him, namely Abbott Labs, Johnson & Johnson, Stryker, and United Healthcare. I sold these stocks immediately after they were transferred to my account in October 2022.