US President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Monday March 18 ordering his administration to make long-neglected women's health research a priority.
In the middle of an election year, the president also took the opportunity to distance himself from his Republican adversaries.
“Those who brag”
about rolling back the federal right to abortion, or who
“support a national ban on abortion, have no idea of the power of women
,” Joe Biden said at the signing of the decree.
This document represents the most comprehensive set of actions ever taken by the executive on this subject, according to the White House.
In particular, he orders federal agencies to
“prioritize”
investments in research on women’s health, which for example have long not been included in clinical trials.
The decree also specifically asks to encourage research into diseases more likely to affect women after menopause, such as osteoporosis, heart attacks or even Alzheimer's.
Vice President Kamala Harris and First Lady Jill Biden were in attendance.
The president also called on the US Congress to release $12 billion to create a fund dedicated to research on women's health within the prestigious National Institutes of Health (NIH).
An investment of $200 million is planned to begin in fiscal year 2025.
“Women’s health has been understudied and underfunded”
“Women make up half the population, but for far too long, research on women's health has been understudied and underfunded
,” said Dr. Carolyn Mazure, director of the Center for Research on the Subject. at Yale University, and involved in the White House initiative.
“We still know too little about how to effectively prevent, diagnose and treat a wide range of women's health problems
,” she told reporters.
She cited diseases presenting different symptoms in women than men (heart attacks, etc.), more common among them (Alzheimer's, etc.), or even specific to them, such as endometriosis.
In addition to the decree, the White House listed around twenty actions going in the same direction, for example within the Ministry of Defense, in order to improve care for the health of military women.