Trump interrupts support for Women’s Health Initiative, reference for the study of chronic women’s diseases in post-Menopause.
The Trump administration has cut a good part of the federal funding at Women’s Health Initiative, one of the most important research projects on the female health of the National Institutes of Health (NiH), who for 30 years has been investigating the Main chronic diseases and causes of mortality of women in age following menopause. On Tuesday 22 April it has been announced that the funds in support of 40 regional centers of the initiative will be interrupted ahead of time in September, and that the project coordination center will continue to operate until January 2026, “after which its loan will remain uncertain”.
An epochal contribution. The initiative is intended to frustrate the ongoing clinical studies, interrupting the detailed collection of the health data of the participants and precluding the ability of the project to make new discoveries on women’s health in old age, one of the faster growing slices in the United States.
From the 90s to today, Women’s Health Initiative has involved Over 160,000 women between 50 and 7 years old (42,000 of which are still active in current studies), which with their contribution have helped in the prevention of chronic diseases against women, and favorably influenced the guidelines for the care of many conditions.
against tumors and dementia. In the US there are about 55 million post-Menopause women. Over the past 30 years, Women’s Health Initiative has documented 38,000 cases of cancer and as many cases of cardiovascular events, 70,000 bone fractures and 95,000 deaths. Strengthened by these data, the project has become a mine of information of incomparable value to study risk factors, prevention, early diagnosis of diseases related tofemale agingsuch as breast and colon cancer, osteoporosis and heart disease, and the effects and safety of hormonal therapies during menopause.
Over the years and the advance of the age of the participants, the initiative has served to study the fragility connected to advanced age, dementia, loss of visual acuity, mental health problems and isolation connected to the third age and all modifiable lifestyles that can influence these aspects.
A sponge to the inclusion. The suspension of contracts will prevent researchers from following the 42,000 women still enrolled in the studies, who together have made it possible to create the largest US database on women’s health between 80 and 90 years old.
All this, in a historical era in which Policies in support of diversity and inclusion are canceled In scientific research, and after decades in which, as written in the guidelines for the application of gender medicine in research and in the preclinical and clinical studies approved by the observatory dedicated to gender medicine, “women have been excluded or not very represented in clinical studies, as they are considered not suitable due to some variables, in particular relating to the hormonal cycle.
Consequently, the female gender could receive incorrect diagnosis, lose treatment opportunities, receive not appropriate doses of drugs or, even, receive incorrect pharmacological prescriptions ».
Only the beginning? Furthermore, since the announced cuts amount to a total figure of just under $ 10 million a year, the suspicion is that it can be Only the tip of the iceberg of a new wave of cuts in search of billions of dollars inflicted at the National Institutes of Health. Political initiatives that will have a huge impact on the prevention of chronic diseases in the US population.
