---
title: "Trump orders new NIH division and White House task force on women’s health"
id: "stat-news-0-trump-orders-creation-of-nih-division-task-force-on-women-s-health"
canonical_url: "https://medichelpline.com/clinical-feed/stat-news-0-trump-orders-creation-of-nih-division-task-force-on-women-s-health"
content_type: "clinical_feed_article"
specialty: "General"
source_name: "STAT News"
source_url: "https://www.statnews.com/2026/10/19/executive-order-melania-trump-nih-division-on-womens-health/?utm_campaign=rss"
published_at: "2026-10-19T17:42:45.000Z"
evidence_level: "Verified Feed"
license: "CC-BY-NC-4.0 / Informational Use"
---
# Trump orders new NIH division and White House task force on women’s health
## Provenance & Clinical Metadata
- **Canonical URL:** https://medichelpline.com/clinical-feed/stat-news-0-trump-orders-creation-of-nih-division-task-force-on-women-s-health
- **Specialty:** [General](https://medichelpline.com/clinical-feed/general.md)
- **Primary Source:** STAT News
- **Source URL:** [Original Journal Publication](https://www.statnews.com/2026/10/19/executive-order-melania-trump-nih-division-on-womens-health/?utm_campaign=rss)
- **Published At:** 2026-10-19T17:42:45.000Z
- **Evidence Rating:** Verified Feed
## Executive GIST (TL;DR)
- The president signed an executive order establishing a new division at the **NIH** and a White House task force focused on **women’s health**, announced by **Melania Trump**. - The order directs the new NIH division to be set up within 90 days; specific organizational details were not disclosed in the source. - The division is intended to coordinate research on understudied women’s health conditions across the lifespan, improve diagnostics and treatment, and strengthen inclusion of women and girls in clinical trials, an NIH spokesperson said. - The new unit will not replace the existing **Office of Research on Women’s Health**, the order said. - The White House task force will be led by Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and includes cabinet members, the acting FDA commissioner, and the CDC director; the source lists named members but did not provide a charter or detailed responsibilities. - The Department of Health and Human Services will fund administrative costs for the task force; the order did not specify funding for research or the new division’s budget. - The source documented concerns among researchers about prior disruptions to women’s health research, including special reviews of grants and funding cuts, which have driven academic and investor attention elsewhere. - Advocates and some NIH officials had signaled a planned refresh of NIH’s strategic plan for women’s health research emphasizing innovation and data science; the source referenced these prior statements but did not report implementation details. - The article cites prior literature and reviews to describe historic underinvestment and clinical consequences for women, including diagnostic delays and differential prescribing, but did not report new clinical data from the executive order itself. - Operational questions remain: staffing, budget lines for the new division, how it will coordinate with existing NIH offices, and specific accountability mechanisms were not provided in the source.
## Clinical Analysis & Structured Key Points
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Test your knowledge with our new weekday mini crossword [ Start solving ](https://www.statnews.com/stat-mini-crossword/) [Health](https://www.statnews.com/category/health/) # Trump orders creation of NIH division, task force on women’s health ## New unit to be set up quickly and will not replace current office of women’s health research * [Manage alerts for this article](https://www.statnews.com/my-account/edit/#emails) * [Save this story for later](https://www.statnews.com/my-account/saved/) * [Share this article](https://www.statnews.com/2026/10/19/executive-order-melania-trump-nih-division-on-womens-health/?utm_campaign=rss) ![](https://www.statnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/GettyImages-2300487214-645x645.jpg) First Lady Melania Trump and President Trump, at the signing ceremony for a women’s health initiative.Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP via Getty Images ![](https://www.statnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/liz-c-avatar-small2-80x80.png) By [Elizabeth Cooney](https://www.statnews.com/staff/elizabeth-cooney/) Oct. 19, 2026 Cardiovascular Disease Reporter ![](https://www.statnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/liz-c-avatar-small2-80x80.png) [Elizabeth Cooney](https://www.statnews.com/staff/elizabeth-cooney/) 1. [](https://x.com/cooney_liz "X") elizabeth.cooney@statnews.com Liz covers cardiovascular and metabolic disease, asking [why we’re not doing better](https://www.statnews.com/2024/10/15/cardiovascular-disease-rising-experts-on-causes/) or even [losing ground](https://www.statnews.com/2024/04/24/heart-failure-deaths-decline-undone/) against the world’s leading killer. Send tips on Signal at LizC.22. [Get email alerts for Elizabeth CooneySigned up for email alertsRemove email alerts](https://www.statnews.com/2026/10/19/executive-order-melania-trump-nih-division-on-womens-health/?utm_campaign=rss) [Subscribe](https://www.statnews.com/stat-plus/) or [log in](https://www.statnews.com/login/) to STAT+ to unlock email alerts A new division in the National Institutes of Health and a new task force within the White House will advance the cause of women’s health, [an executive order](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/10/advancing-womens-health-to-improve-outcomes-in-all-phases-of-life/) signed by President Trump promises. “Beginning today, we will change the reality of women’s health,” first lady Melania Trump said in announcing the initiative Monday. “Our generation will fight to find the cures to ensure a woman can live her life with health and to the fullest.” Advertisement The new NIH division, to be set up within 90 days, is intended to streamline research into understudied diseases in women, advance innovation in diagnostics, and improve treatment, establishing “a new standard for women’s health,” the first lady said. Funding for scientific research in general and women’s health in particular have come under fire since Trump returned to the White House. The Department of Health and Human Services will pay for the administrative costs of the task force, Monday’s order said, but details about the new NIH division, which does not replace the current Office of Research on Women’s Health, were not disclosed. In June, Nicole Kleinstreuer, deputy director for program coordination, planning, and strategic initiatives at NIH, [predicted a refresh](https://www.statnews.com/2026/08/26/womens-health-reverse-pitch-profit-driven-approach-endometriosis-osteoporosis/) of the NIH-wide strategic plan for women’s health research in the fall. Speaking at a [Yale conference](https://medicine.yale.edu/whr/news/discovery-to-impact/), she promised a new effort that “explicitly emphasizes innovative methods and technologies and data science to comprehensively prevent and treat conditions affecting women.” Advertisement Related Story ![](https://www.statnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Womens_Health_Money_03-768x432.jpg) ### ![](https://www.statnews.com/wp-content/themes/stat/images/home/statplus.svg) [STAT Plus: When it comes to women’s health, money talks](https://www.statnews.com/2026/08/26/womens-health-reverse-pitch-profit-driven-approach-endometriosis-osteoporosis/) Working with the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health, the division would expand and coordinate research on understudied women’s health conditions across all stages of life, improve diagnosis and treatment, strengthen inclusion of women and girls in clinical trials, and increase accountability for considering sex as a biological variable in NIH-funded research, an NIH spokesperson told STAT on background. The new task force, whose first session was set to convene Monday, will be led by White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, who recently completed a round of breast cancer treatment. Other members include cabinet secretaries such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Pete Hegseth, acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas, and Erica Schwartz, newly confirmed director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In remarks following the first lady, Trump recalled being surprised that there was no women’s health division with the NIH. “Think of it: a women’s health division, and it hasn’t been done, but it’s been done under Trump” he said, appearing to go off-script. “When I heard about it, I said, ‘Are you sure they don’t have that? Who the hell wouldn’t have a women’s health division?’ Melania said, ‘They don’t have it.’” Women’s health research has been a flashpoint since early in the second Trump administration, with scientists saying their work was in jeopardy because it fell in the [blast zone of “gender ideology.”](https://www.statnews.com/2025/03/07/womens-health-sex-differences-research-david-page-whitehead/) The word [“women” in grants triggered special reviews at the NIH](https://www.statnews.com/2025/02/13/trump-dei-ban-banned-words-list-scrambles-research-nih-veterans-affairs/) while the nation’s academic research was paralyzed by moves to[ slash funding](https://www.statnews.com/2025/02/07/nih-slashes-indirect-costs-on-all-grants-to-15-percent-trump/) or [eliminate diversity mentions](https://www.statnews.com/2025/01/23/fda-purges-pages-clinical-trial-diversity-after-trump-dei-ban/) or both. Academics and investors have been looking elsewhere. [Chronic underinvestment in women’s health](https://www.statnews.com/2026/08/26/womens-health-reverse-pitch-profit-driven-approach-endometriosis-osteoporosis/) calls for new funding structures, Basmah Safdar, an emergency medicine physician and director of Women’s Health Research at Yale, a center within Yale School of Medicine, wrote in a [Lancet commentary published Aug. 17](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736\(26\)01416-9/abstract). “Reframing women’s health through a rigorous, biology-based framework corrects a health-care system built on incomplete science and missed opportunities,” she wrote. Advertisement That historical neglect places women at greater risk than men for adverse reactions to drugs, makes them more likely to die from undiagnosed stroke, and means they receive less effective treatments for chronic pain conditions, as summarized in a 2025 review [published in Science Advances](https://www.science.org/toc/sciadv/current). Women are seven times more likely than men to have a heart condition misdiagnosed or to be sent home from a hospital during a heart attack, a [landmark study](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM200008243430809) said in 2000. If women are admitted to a hospital, they are [less likely to leave with prescriptions](https://www.escardio.org/news/press/press-releases/Women-with-heart-disease-are-less-likely-to-receive-life-saving-drugs-than-men/) to reduce their likelihood of another cardiac problem, research presented in 2024 said. These and other factors add up to women being [more likely to die](https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/ATVBAHA.123.319370) after a heart attack. “Despite amazing advances in medical science, many diseases and conditions that disproportionately affect women remain chronically understudied, but we’re studying that right now,” Trump said Monday. _STAT’s coverage of chronic health issues is supported by a grant from_[ _Bloomberg Philanthropies_](https://www.bloomberg.org/) _. Our_[ _financial supporters_](https://www.statnews.com/supporters/) _are not involved in any decisions about our journalism._ [NIH](https://www.statnews.com/topic/nih/), [Policy](https://www.statnews.com/topic/policy/), [research](https://www.statnews.com/topic/research/), [White House](https://www.statnews.com/topic/white-house/), [women’s health](https://www.statnews.com/topic/womens-health/) [Submit a correction request](https://www.statnews.com/contact/?how_can_we_help_=Editorial%20Correction%20Request)[Reprints](https://www.parsintl.com/publications/stat/) 1. ![](https://www.statnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/liz-c-avatar-small2-80x80.png) [Elizabeth Cooney](https://www.statnews.com/staff/elizabeth-cooney/) 1. [](https://x.com/cooney_liz "X") 2. [](https://bsky.app/profile/elizabethcooney.bsky.social "Bluesky") 3. Cardiovascular Disease Reporter 1. [](https://x.com/cooney_liz "X") 2. [](https://bsky.app/profile/elizabethcooney.bsky.social "Bluesky") 3. Liz covers cardiovascular and metabolic disease, asking [why we’re not doing better](https://www.statnews.com/2024/10/15/cardiovascular-disease-rising-experts-on-causes/) or even [losing ground](https://www.statnews.com/2024/04/24/heart-failure-deaths-decline-undone/) against the world’s leading killer. Send tips on Signal at LizC.22. ![](https://www.statnews.com/wp-content/themes/stat/images/article-new/envelope-open.svg) ![](https://www.statnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Morning-Rounds-Logo-Black-640x295.png) ### Newsletter Understand how science, health policy, and medicine shape the world every day Please enter a valid email address. Sign Up Your data will be processed in accordance with our [Privacy Policy](https://www.statnews.com/privacy/) and [Terms of Service](https://www.statnews.com/terms-conditions/). You may opt out of receiving STAT communications at any time. 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