Congresswomen Deborah Ross (NC-02), Sydney Kamlager Dove (CA-37), and Teresa Leger Fernandez (NM-03) led 30 of their Democratic Women’s Caucus (DWC) colleagues in calling on President Trump to stop his persistent attacks on women’s health research.
DWC leaders urged the Trump administration to remove a cap on indirect research costs at the National Institutes of Health, expenses which include laboratory space, research equipment, faculty salaries, and building utilities—all critical to making progress. The letter also calls on the Administration to rescind its list of banned and discouraged words, which could arbitrarily limit research on topics that include words such as “women” and “female.” In addition, the letter requests that President Trump prioritize funding for women’s health research.
In their letter, the Members explained why research focused on women’s health care is so critical:
The lawmakers wrote, “Between 2013 and 2023, the NIH awarded only 8.8% of grant dollars to projects focused on women’s health. Rather than encouraging more research focused on women’s health, your administration’s actions are destroying the limited research projects in existence. As a result of the funding cap and the lack of clarity with the list of banned words, women-centered research projects are being rescinded at an alarming rate. These projects include research on early breast cancer detection and long-term health outcomes for children born to mothers who contracted COVID-19 during their pregnancies. Additionally, a $400,000 project to better study intimate partner violence (IPV) during pregnancy was also terminated. Another critical project that is in danger includes a 7-year, $168 million initiative to investigate and improve maternal health outcomes.”
The Members continued, calling on the administration to end attacks on women’s health research:
“Your administration is endangering the lives of millions of women in every corner of the United States. We call on you to direct your administration to remove the research funding cap, rescind the list of banned words, and prioritize funding for women’s health research. Without this research, clinical trials will end, medications will not be approved, and new detection and treatment methods will stall – all of which will leave women to suffer and die, affecting families across the country,” they continued.
Full text of the letter is available here.
The letter was also signed by: Representatives Joyce Beatty (OH-3), Julia Brownley (CA-26), Judy Chu (CA-28), Jasmine Crockett (TX-30), Debbie Dingell (MI-12), Sarah Elfreth (MD-03), Lois Frankel (FL-22), Laura Friedman (CA-30), Sylvia Garcia (TX-29), Chrissy Houlahan (PA-06), Jennifer McClellan (VA-04), Betty McCollum (MN-04), LaMonica McIver (NJ-10), Gwen Moore (WI-04), Eleanor Norton (DC- At Large), Brittany Pettersen (C0-07), Delia Ramirez (IL-03), Andrea Salinas (OR-06), Terri Sewell (AL-07), Mikie Sherrill (NJ-11), Haley Stevens (MI-11), Norma Torres (CA-35), Lauren Underwood (IL-14), Nydia Velázquez (NY-07), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL-25), Nikema Williams (GA-05), and Frederica Wilson (FL-24).
KEY BACKGROUND:
Women’s health research has long been severely underfunded. Historic investments by the Biden administration jumpstarted necessary progress in understanding how women are impacted by health conditions and supported strides towards treatments and interventions for many women-specific diseases. The Trump administration’s actions to eliminate, defund, and restrict women’s health care research puts this progress in jeopardy and threatens the lives and well-being of women and girls—now and in the future.
Congresswomen Deborah Ross (NC-02) and Sydney Kamlager Dove (CA-37) serve as the Democratic Women’s Caucus (DWC) Policy Task Force Co-Chairs in the 119th Congress.