President Joe Biden signed executive order Monday focused on expanding research on women’s health, including strengthening data standards.
The president also announced more than 20 new actions and commitments by federal agencies, including $200 million for research at the National Institutes of Health. The White House described the investments as the first step toward a “Women’s Health Fund” that Biden urged Congress to invest in during his State of the Union address this month.
The executive actions follow first lady Jill Biden’s announcement last month 100 million dollars have been allocated for women’s health.
Speaking at the Women’s History Month event at the White House on Monday afternoon, the president emphasized that while women are “overrepresented overall,” they are underrepresented in his administration.
“We are proud to have an administration that looks like America, with more women serving in high office than at any time in American history,” Biden said. He praised Vice President Kamala Harris, her Supreme Court pick Ketanji Brown Jackson, and women in senior Pentagon positions, including women who serve in top Pentagon positions. The first woman to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff has been confirmed.
Biden emphasized that research into women’s health has “taken too long” and said his executive order directs “the most comprehensive enforcement action ever taken” to improve women’s health.
The president criticized Republicans who opposed the Covid-era economic stimulus bill he signed into law, called the American Rescue Plan, saying its increase in the child tax credit “cut child poverty by nearly half.” He also warned that his opponents were underestimating the “power of women” at the ballot box.
“It’s clear that those who boast about overturning Roe v. Wade to support a national ban on abortion have no idea about the power of women,” she said, referring to conservatives who support the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn the landmark decision.
“They’re going to come back in 2024 and send me a Democratic Congress that supports reproductive freedom,” she added, referring to women voters. “I promise you, we will restore Roe v. Wade as law from the ground up.”
Carolyn Mazure, chairwoman of the White House Women’s Health Research Initiative, said during a press conference Sunday afternoon that “there has never been such a comprehensive effort from the federal government to promote innovation, women’s health, and make more relevant federally funded research work. For women .”
“This is a huge opportunity for transformative change and will help improve the health and lives of women across the country,” Mazure said.
She noted that although women make up half of the population, research on women’s health is underfunded and understudied.
“While we’ve made great progress over the past two decades, from revolutionary discoveries in certain disorders affecting women to increasing numbers of women participating in clinical trials, we still know very little about how to prevent, diagnose and treat a wide range of diseases. Women have a number of health conditions, conditions with different symptoms for women and men, including heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis and Alzheimer’s disease, as well as diseases specific to women, such as endometriosis and fibroids, Mazure said.
The president and first lady launched a White House initiative to investigate women’s health in November. Mazure said Jill Biden led the effort by traveling across the country to tour research institutions and talk to women and health innovators about the need to transform women’s health research.
Jen Klein, director of the White House Gender Policy Council, said the announcements on women’s health research followed the president’s call to invest $12 billion in new funding during his State of the Union address to Congress. Women’s Health at NIH will create a nationwide network dedicated, in part, to the study of this topic.
Klein said the president is directing federal agencies to “integrate women’s health into the federal research portfolio,” prioritizing investments in research and innovation through agencies such as the Health Care Advanced Research Projects Agency ARPA-H and the Small Business Innovation Research program. The effort aims to strengthen research on women’s midlife health, including postmenopausal diseases and conditions such as heart attack, Alzheimer’s disease and osteoporosis, and “assess unmet needs to support women’s health research by identifying gaps in federal funding and requiring reporting from agencies.” about the progress they have made in improving women’s health,” he said.
The executive order comes after widespread backlash over a recent Alabama Supreme Court ruling on in vitro fertilization treatments that said embryos are considered children. state Republicans to pass bills quickly to protect the procedure.
There is Biden repeatedly condemned The Supreme Court’s 2022 landmark Roe v. Wade’s decision to overturn and the Democrats reproductive rights a major focus in their 2024 campaigns.