Trump and First Lady Sign Executive Order Creating NIH Women's Health Division and White House Task Force
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on October 19 signed the executive order "Advancing Women's Health to Improve Outcomes in All Phases of Life" at a Rose Garden ceremony at the White House, alongside First Lady Melania Trump, who championed the order. The order has two central elements: it establishes a Women's Health Division within the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and it creates a White House Women's Health Task Force to coordinate federal efforts on women's health research, prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and care. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) confirmed the arrangements in a news release the same day.
Section 2 of the order directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services, acting through the Director of the NIH, to establish the Women's Health Division within an appropriate NIH institute or center within 90 days. The new division will work in coordination with the NIH Office of Research on Women's Health and is charged with increasing scientific review of understudied women's health conditions; advancing and coordinating research across all phases of life, including replication studies; promoting innovation and advanced research technologies to accelerate diagnosis and improve access to prevention, treatment, specialized care, personalized medicine, and coordinated care; strengthening interdisciplinary collaboration; improving data collection and the inclusion of women and girls in clinical trials; holding grant recipients accountable for the NIH policy requiring research to account for sex as a biological variable; and translating discoveries into clinical practice and public health implementation at the federal, state, and local levels.
Section 3 establishes the White House Women's Health Task Force, co-chaired by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. Its members include the Secretaries of War, Agriculture, Labor, Education, and Veterans Affairs, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Commissioner of Food and Drugs, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Director of the NIH, the Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), and the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), with HHS funding the task force's administrative costs. The task force was scheduled to hold its first meeting on the afternoon of October 19 in the Roosevelt Room at the White House, according to the New York Post.
In her Rose Garden remarks, the First Lady set out her "First Lady's Five Pillars of Women's Health Innovation": directing research funding toward cures for diseases that affect women in a unique way; using super intelligence to deepen understanding of female biology and speed up medical discoveries; accelerating promising therapies from laboratories to female patients while maintaining strict safety standards; ensuring medical breakthroughs are accessible and affordable regardless of financial circumstances; and replacing generations of silence with open conversation, education, and compassion. "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," she said. She said the order establishes a new standard for women's health in America and that the mission must serve women at every stage of life, from young girls to mothers to mature women who deserve vitality, dignity, and independence.
President Trump praised the First Lady's "extraordinary leadership and skills" at the ceremony, saying she would help improve the health of the nation's women and girls. "These are mothers, daughters, sisters, wives, and under the Trump administration, we're going to get them the care and support that they need and deserve," he said. The couple signed the order together and exchanged pens, and the president held the document up to show both signatures, according to the New York Post. Section 5 of the order revokes two actions of the prior administration: Executive Order 14120 of March 18, 2024 (Advancing Women's Health Research and Innovation) and the Presidential Memorandum of November 13, 2023 (White House Initiative on Women's Health Research). The order lists areas needing more research, including cardiovascular and heart disease, cancer, stroke, Alzheimer's disease, autoimmune and inflammatory conditions, osteoporosis, mental health, chronic pain, endometriosis, fibroids, polyendocrine metabolic ovary syndrome, infertility, maternal health, menopause, neurological disorders, and aging. The White House fact sheet said the new division will not replace the Office of Research on Women's Health, established in 1990, but will carry a broader mandate coordinating agencies; the order does not specify funding amounts. The NIH spends about $5 billion a year on women's health research, roughly 10 percent of its annual budget, according to USA Today, citing NIH data.
(GSM, based on the White House executive order text, the White House fact sheet, the Office of the First Lady release, and the HHS news release)
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: GSM 行政令统一模板（美国总统行政令）
