The Trump administration has reversed course and restored financial support for a decades-old study on women’s health.
The National Institutes of Health launched the study, called the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), in the early 1990s to learn about women’s health needs since most medical studies had been conducted on men.
WHI researchers were notified earlier this week that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) planned to terminate contracts in September with the initiative’s four regional centers in California, New York, Ohio and North Carolina.
The Trump administration chose to cut the initiative’s funding because the National Institutes of Health “initially exceeded its internal target for contract reductions,” HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon told NPR.
The White House ordered HHS earlier this month to cut 35 percent of its spending on contracts to ensure that the agency’s funding is being used efficiently.
The move quickly alarmed the scientific community and elected officials with many calling for the administration to reverse its decisions.
“If a program that costs $10 million a year has saved an estimated $35.2 billion in medical costs and improved the healthcare and lives of post-menopause women, it is not wasteful,” New York Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) posted on the social media platform X.
“This decision should be reversed and a more thoughtful and deliberate approach to identifying savings must be implemented,” she continued.
The initiative’s clinical studies have resulted in more effective treatment for diseases like breast cancer and cardiovascular disease for women, according to the initiative’s website.
More than 160,000 women were enrolled in the WHI’s studies in the mid-1990s and over 40,000 are still participating in them.
HHS decided to renew its support for the decades-old study series late Thursday. And HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr called reports on the agency’s decision to withdraw funding for the initiative “fake news.”
“We are not terminating the study. NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya has himself used this study in his own research. We all recognize that this project is mission critical for women’s health,” he wrote on X.
An HHS spokesperson confirmed to The Hill that the agency is working to fully restore funding for WHI and it’s “essential research efforts.”
“NIH remains deeply committed to advancing public health through rigorous gold standard research and we are taking immediate steps to ensure the continuity of these studies,” the spokesperson wrote to The Hill.
