Trump orders a women’s health division at NIH, with Kennedy and Wiles running a new task force

By Staff Reporter

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Monday ordered the National Institutes of Health to set up a new Women’s Health Division within 90 days and created a White House Women’s Health Task Force to be co-chaired by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. The executive order, which the White House said first lady Melania Trump led, also revokes the Biden administration’s two women’s health research directives.

What the order does not do is attach new money. Like most executive orders, it says it will be carried out “subject to the availability of appropriations,” and it leaves the size, budget and home of the new NIH division to be decided later. The administration’s push to cut the agency’s budget has drawn pushback from Congress, which will decide how much the new division gets.

What the order says

The order, titled “Advancing Women’s Health to Improve Outcomes in All Phases of Life,” directs the HHS secretary, acting through the NIH director, to establish the Women’s Health Division “within an appropriate institute or center.” The division is to work with the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health, which the NIH says has been the agency’s focal point for women’s health research since 1990. The new unit will not replace that office, Reuters reported, citing a White House official.

The order lists seven jobs for the division, including expanding scientific review of understudied conditions, increasing the inclusion of women and girls in clinical trials, and developing “accountability for grant recipients” to follow the NIH policy that requires research to account for sex as a biological variable. It names a long list of conditions that need more study, among them heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, autoimmune disorders, endometriosis, fibroids, infertility, maternal health and menopause.

The task force’s membership spans the government: the secretaries of War, Agriculture, Labor, Education and Veterans Affairs; the EPA administrator; the heads of the FDA, CDC, NIH, ARPA-H and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; and anyone else the co-chairs invite. It may hold public hearings and roundtables, and HHS is to pay its administrative costs. Its mandate is to push research into clinical practice, including by advising agencies on pilot programs that “remove obsolete silos” between programs.

Section 5 revokes Executive Order 14120, “Advancing Women’s Health Research and Innovation,” which President Joe Biden signed March 18, 2024, and Biden’s Nov. 13, 2023, memorandum that created the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research. The White House fact sheet says the rescission is meant “to broaden beyond research and prioritize translating research into improved clinical care.”

Who said what

“Despite amazing advances in medical science, many diseases and conditions that disproportionately affect women remain chronically understudied,” Trump said at the Rose Garden signing, according to States Newsroom. The first lady described a “new ambition, transforming hardship and pain into scientific discovery, effective treatments and lasting cures.” Kennedy, Wiles, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, CDC Director Erica Schwartz and CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz attended.

In an HHS release, Kennedy said the new division “will confront those questions with gold-standard science.” Bhattacharya said it would “help close lingering evidence gaps, expand and maximize the impact of our research investments, and bring discoveries closer to patients.”

Critics focused on the funding and on Kennedy. Dorianne Mason of the National Women’s Law Center called it an “unfunded order coming from an administration that is actively decimating health care access for women,” pointing to the Medicaid cuts in the 2025 tax and spending law. Brad Woodhouse, president of the health care advocacy group Protect Our Care, called the task force “a pathetic election-year gimmick.” The order arrived 15 days before the Nov. 3 midterm elections.

Reuters noted that the administration has sought cuts at NIH, moved to cancel grants on diversity-related topics and opened a safety review of the abortion pill mifepristone. The order itself does not mention contraception or abortion, States Newsroom reported.

What to watch

Three things will show whether the division is more than a new box on the NIH chart. The first is where it lands and who runs it, due by mid-January under the 90-day clock. The second is money: the fiscal 2027 Labor-HHS spending bill, which funds NIH, is unfinished, and the government is running on a stopgap that expires Dec. 11. The third is the task force’s first public work product. The order sets no deadline for one.

The Society for Women’s Health Research, which joined the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Women First Research Coalition in a statement Monday welcoming the order, said a new division alone will not close the gap. “Establishing a new NIH division can help elevate women’s health as a research priority, and that’s a meaningful step forward,” Lindsey Miltenberger, the group’s chief advocacy officer, said in written responses to the Inquisitor. “But as the National Strategy to Close the Women’s Health Gap makes clear, no single action will be sufficient to address these longstanding challenges.” She added that “robust, sustained funding is going to be necessary.” That strategy, which the groups launched in July, calls for a $20 billion investment over 10 years, according to the joint statement.

Miltenberger urged Congress to “prioritize increased funding for the National Institutes of Health in final fiscal year 2027 appropriations,” including dedicated increases for the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Asked about the revocation of Biden’s order, she said that “lasting progress in women’s health is going to require sustained commitment across administrations, Congress, federal agencies, and the broader research community.”

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists referred the Inquisitor to the joint statement and to its July announcement of the National Strategy. The White House press office and the NIH’s Office of Communications and Public Liaison did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday. The Inquisitor also asked the National Women’s Law Center and Protect Our Care whether they plan to press Congress for dedicated funding.

Updated Oct. 20, 2026, with responses from the Society for Women’s Health Research and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Photo: The Clinical Center on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Md. NIH Image Gallery / Wikimedia Commons, public domain (U.S. government work).