Trump orders new NIH women’s health division; Alsobrooks calls it ‘a win’ but questions funding

By Philippa Langstrom

WASHINGTON — Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) says President Donald Trump’s new executive order on women’s health is a welcome focus, but she questions whether the administration will fund it after earlier cuts at the National Institutes of Health.

Trump signed the order, “Advancing Women’s Health to Improve Outcomes in All Phases of Life,” on Oct. 19. It was published in the Federal Register on Oct. 22 as Executive Order 14437. It directs the Department of Health and Human Services to set up a Women’s Health Division within NIH within 90 days. It also creates a White House Women’s Health Task Force, co-chaired by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, according to HHS.

What the administration says the order does

HHS says the new division will work with NIH’s existing Office of Research on Women’s Health. It will study conditions that “uniquely or disproportionately affect women,” among them cardiovascular disease, cancer, autoimmune disease, chronic pain, endometriosis, fibroids, infertility, maternal health, menopause, Alzheimer’s disease and osteoporosis. The department says the division will also push for more women and girls in clinical trials and enforce NIH’s requirement that research account for sex as a biological variable.

“President Trump is transforming how our nation approaches women’s health by making it a priority across every stage of life,” Kennedy said in the HHS release. He credited first lady Melania Trump with championing the order. “For generations, women have faced unanswered questions about conditions that uniquely or disproportionately affect them,” he said. “This new NIH division will confront those questions with gold-standard science.”

NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya said the division “will help close lingering evidence gaps, expand and maximize the impact of our research investments, and bring discoveries closer to patients.” The release lists other actions HHS says it has taken since January 2025. They include removing broad boxed warnings from hormone replacement therapy products, approving two new menopause treatments and holding a National Conference on Women’s Health in March 2026.

At the Rose Garden signing, as replayed by WYPR, Trump said, “Think of it, a women’s health division, and it hasn’t been done, but it’s been done under Trump.” The first lady said, “Today, we establish a new ambition, transforming hardship and pain into scientific discovery, effective treatments, and lasting cures.”

Alsobrooks: ‘a win,’ but ‘incongruent’

Alsobrooks spoke about the order in an interview with WYPR’s Wambui Kamau published Oct. 26. “It’s always a win to have a focus on women’s health. So, I definitely regard that as something that’s necessary,” she said.

She also pointed to the administration’s earlier research cuts. “I find it sadly ironic that after canceling billions of dollars at NIH, including dollars that went to fund preventative programs for women, and were directed specifically at women’s health,” she said, adding that it was “maybe even a little hard to believe, since all of their actions don’t align with the stated goal of supporting women’s health.”

“I think the two are incongruent and a little inconsistent,” Alsobrooks said. “If there is a women’s health division, I hope it’ll be funded and I hope that it — they will, stick to the science.”

The WYPR interview does not give a dollar figure for the NIH cuts Alsobrooks described, and this story does not assign one.

The fibroids bill

Alsobrooks’s interest is tied to her own legislation. With Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), she introduced the Uterine Fibroid Intervention and Gynecological Health Treatment Act, S. 2531, known as the U-FIGHT Act, on July 30, 2025, her office announced. Congress.gov lists Sens. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) as cosponsors. The bill would authorize HHS grants for fibroid research, earlier detection and screening, patient education and treatment research.

The bill went to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which held a hearing on March 19, 2026, according to the Library of Congress’s bill status data. Congress.gov lists no committee vote.

The new NIH division’s research list names fibroids, the same condition targeted by Alsobrooks’s bill. “It shocks me how little information we still have,” Alsobrooks told WYPR. She said fibroids affect “close to 80% of all women.”

What comes next

Under the order’s timeline, HHS has until mid-January 2027 to stand up the division. Executive orders cannot appropriate money; that power rests with Congress. Alsobrooks said in the interview that she hopes the division “will be funded.”

The Washington Inquisitor asked the White House press office, the Office of the First Lady, HHS’s press office, Alsobrooks’s office and Hickenlooper’s office, a U-FIGHT cosponsor, for comment on the order’s funding and its overlap with the bill. This story will be updated with any responses.