President Donald Trump announced an effort Monday to improve women’s health. Spearheaded by first lady Melania Trump, the Advancing Women’s Health to Improve Outcomes in All Phases of Life executive order that the president signed will establish a new women’s health division at the National Institutes of Health along with a White House task force that will be led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.
“Beginning today, we will change the reality of women’s health,” the first lady said at an event with the president at the White House Rose Garden. “Previous generations fought for women’s rights. Our generation will fight to discover the cures that will ensure a woman can live her life in health and to the fullest.”
The first lady laid out her five pillars of women’s health innovation, including research funding directed at finding cures for medical issues that disproportionately affect women and the use of artificial intelligence to speed up medical discoveries.
She also called for accelerating the timeline for getting promising medicines to female patients, ensuring accessibility of medical breakthroughs for women of all income levels and improving education about women’s health.
Melania Trump urged the individuals attending the first White House task force working session on the issue, scheduled for Monday afternoon, to focus on her five pillars as they coordinate a federal effort to improve women’s health at all stages of life.
The president credited his wife with the idea for creating a women’s health division within NIH to promote new research that looks at the understudied diseases affecting women and promotes new technologies to diagnose and treat them more quickly.
“Think of it, a women’s health division, and it hasn’t been done, but it’s been done under Trump,” the president said. “When I heard about it, I said, ‘Are you sure they don’t have that? Who the hell wouldn’t have a women’s health division?’”
The executive order directs the HHS to establish the new NIH division within 90 days. In a statement, the HHS said the new women’s health division will advance research into cardiovascular disease, cancer, autoimmune conditions, chronic pain, endometriosis, fibroids, infertility, maternal health, menopause, Alzheimer’s disease and osteoporosis, among other conditions.
Planned Parethood Action Fund spokesperson Sara Guggenheim, however, sharply criticized the initiative.
“After spending nearly two years making women’s healthcare more expensive and harder to get, the idea that President Trump’s women’s health task force, led in part by anti-abortion anti-vax conspiracy theorist RFK Jr., would actually improve women’s health is laughable at best and delusional at worst,” Guggenheim told Spectrum News in a statement. “This is a desperate ploy from a flailing administration that should be treated for what it is: a joke.”
Other women’s health organizations, including the Society for Women’s Health Research, the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists and the Women First Research Coalition, said they welcome the administration’s announcement.
“Robust and sustained funding is necessary to meaningfully advance research in women’s health and ensure those discoveries improve health outcomes in all phases of women’s lives,” the coalition said in a statement Monday. “What this Executive Order and the National Strategy underscore is that advancement requires a comprehensive government approach that supports the translation of scientific discoveries into clinical practice, equips clinicians with the training and evidence needed to deliver high-quality care, and ensures women can access that care across their lifespans.”
“Significant gaps remain in the scientific understanding of women’s health, including menopause and its relationship to health across the lifespan,” said Dr. Stephanie Faubion, medical director of The Menopause Society. “Continued research is needed to better understand these conditions, strengthen the evidence base and translate scientific findings into approaches that improve prevention, diagnosis and care for women.”
The new NIH division will increase the inclusion of women and girls in clinical trials and work to improve understanding of sex-specific health outcomes, the HHS statement said.
“For generations, women have faced unanswered questions about conditions that uniquely or disproportionately affect them,” Kennedy said in a statement following Monday’s event, where he was also in attendance. “This new NIH division will confront those questions with gold-standard science, accelerate research into prevention and treatment, and turn medical discoveries into better care for women and girls across America.”
Several prominent women were in attendance at the executive order signing, including Kennedy’s wife, actress Cheryl Hines; second lady Usha Vance; Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Erica Schwartz; Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, Dr. Nicole Saphier; Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders; and the wives of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling.
“Today, we’re ensuring women’s needs, experiences and voices guide the care they receive at every stage of life,” Schwartz said in a statement. “This executive order will help us put proven interventions into practice, diagnose conditions earlier, expand treatment options, and prevent disease.”
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin and National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya were also in attendance.
