Trump signs order creating a women's health division at NIH, with no funding figure attached

President Trump signed an executive order Monday creating a new Women's Health Division inside the National Institutes of Health and a White House Women's Health Task Force, in a Rose Garden ceremony where First Lady Melania Trump stood beside him and described the move as "a transformative moment for women in America."

The order, detailed in a White House fact sheet released the same day, directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the NIH Director to stand up the new division within the agency. The administration says it will not replace the NIH's existing Office of Research on Women's Health but will carry a broader mandate that extends past research funding into translating findings into clinical and community care.

What the order actually does

The fact sheet lists six objectives: strengthening research, prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care for women and girls at every life stage; taking a "comprehensive approach" spanning infancy through pregnancy, menopause and aging; supporting regulatory reforms for stage-specific care; coordinating federal research to close scientific gaps; speeding the translation of discoveries into outcomes; and moving research findings into everyday clinical and community practice.

It names a long list of conditions the task force is meant to prioritize, including cardiovascular and heart disease, cancer, stroke, Alzheimer's disease, autoimmune and inflammatory conditions, osteoporosis, mental health, chronic pain, endometriosis, fibroids, infertility, maternal health, menopause and other neurological disorders tied to aging. The order sets no deadline for the task force's work and does not specify a funding figure, saying only that HHS will cover the task force's administrative costs.

No dollar figure, unlike the last such order

That omission marks a contrast with the last time a president made women's health research a signature initiative. President Biden's Executive Order 14120, signed in March 2024, directed roughly $200 million in fiscal year 2025 NIH funding specifically toward women's health research, on top of the legal requirement that NIH-funded clinical trials include women and people of color. Monday's order does not update or formally reference that 2024 effort, and administration officials did not say whether its funding commitments would continue under the new structure.

Asked by reporters how much new money would follow the order, Trump did not give specifics, saying only that Americans would soon hear about "incredible things that we're doing" for women's health care.

Who is driving the effort

Melania Trump said the initiative would advance five goals: directing research funding toward cures for conditions that disproportionately affect women, using artificial intelligence to speed medical discoveries, accelerating new therapeutics, delivering affordable medical breakthroughs, and making conversations about women's health "less taboo." Trump credited his wife with originating the idea for the NIH division and said she had spent months meeting with physicians and researchers ahead of the signing.

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who disclosed a breast cancer diagnosis in March and announced in September that she is cancer-free, is set to help lead the task force alongside Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Trump called Wiles "fantastic" and pointed to her illness as part of the impetus for the order.

"Who the hell wouldn't have a women's health division?" President Trump said at the signing.

White House spokeswoman Allison Schuster said the task force "will work to close critical research gaps and strengthen care for women across all stages of life," though she did not elaborate on specific programs or timelines. The NIH's existing Office of Research on Women's Health, which the new division is meant to supplement rather than replace, has operated since 1990 and was created in response to earlier findings that NIH-funded clinical trials routinely excluded women, a gap that led Congress to mandate their inclusion in federally funded research in 1993.

Built on recent regulatory moves

The fact sheet ties the new order to several actions HHS and the FDA have already taken this year. In November 2025, the FDA began removing decades-old "black box" warnings about cardiovascular disease, breast cancer and dementia risk from menopause hormone therapy labels, a decision then-Commissioner Marty Makary tied to a re-review of the scientific literature and a public comment period; the agency kept a narrower endometrial-cancer warning on systemic estrogen products. The administration also points to TrumpRx.gov, which it says has saved patients an average of more than $2,000 per cycle on fertility medications, and Moms.gov, a site for new and expecting mothers that launched in May 2026.

None of those earlier moves were without controversy. Some physicians argued at the time that the FDA's hormone-therapy label change moved faster than the evidence warranted. Kennedy's HHS has also drawn criticism this year for removing the chair and vice chair of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a decision the American Medical Association publicly rebuked, and for a separate push by White House budget director Russell Vought to subject NIH grants he characterized as "woke" to additional scrutiny, a dispute reported in September to have included some grants on women's health topics.

What happens next

The order does not set a public deadline for when the Women's Health Division will be operational or when the task force must report findings, leaving those details to HHS and NIH leadership to work out. The task force held its first meeting later the same day as the signing, according to reporting on the event, though the administration has not released an agenda or membership list beyond Wiles and Kennedy. Lawmakers and outside researchers are likely to press for specifics on funding and staffing in the coming weeks, given the dispute over NIH grant-making described above and the absence of a dollar figure in Monday's order.