Tell Your Representatives to Oppose Policies That Will Undermine Women’s Health Research at the NIH
A Fiscal Year (FY 25) appropriations bill moving through the U.S. House of Representatives that funds the Depts. of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS) provides essentially flat funding equal to current FY 24 levels for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and contains a new NIH reform framework that includes a reduction in the number of Institutes and Centers from 27 to 15, which raises questions about where women’s health research will reside and may jeopardize the new NIH-Wide Strategic Plan on Women’s Health Research. The new NIH framework is being advanced in the FY 25 Labor-HHS spending bill without input from the research community or the appropriate vetting through congressional hearings and dialogue with stakeholders.
Find Your Representative
AUGS Member Action Request:
Please use the email below to send a message to staff in the offices of the U.S. Representatives from your state to request they oppose the FY 25 Labor-HHS spending bill in its current. The list below contains the majority members of the House appropriations and authorizing subcommittees with jurisdiction over these issues and the health staff member (HLA) to whom you should send your email.
Please cut and paste the email text to your message and update the bolded text where appropriate. The House of Representatives is expected to vote on final passage of the FY 25 Labor-HHS spending bill at the end of July, so please contact your Representative ASAP. If you have questions, please contact Jill Rathbun, AUGS legislative consultant at 703-217-7224.
Email to send to the health care staffer:
Dear (health care staffer’s name):
I am urogynecologist from (insert where you live), writing to urge Representative (name) to oppose the FY 25 Labor-HHS appropriations bill in its current form when it comes to the House floor for a vote. This legislation contains funding and policy provisions related to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that undermine biomedical research and are inconsistent with current efforts to prioritize women’s health research.
I understand there are budget constraints and appreciate that the NIH did not receive a funding cut in the FY 25 Labor-HHS bill. However, essentially flat funding for the NIH will result in an erosion of biomedical research due to inflation, impede new discovery leading to innovative treatments for diseases and conditions including those that are unique or predominantly occur in women, and restrict opportunities for young investigators who represent our nation’s future scientific workforce. Pelvic floor disorders impact millions of women in this country and impose a significant human and economic toll, and yet effective treatments for these disorders are lacking primarily because women’s health research has been woefully underfunded.
I am also extremely concerned to see the House advancing a new reform framework for the NIH in the FY 25 Labor-HHS bill. There have been no congressional hearings on the proposed NIH reform framework, nor has the framework undergone any vetting with the NIH and the broader research community. As you may know, one of the reform proposals adopted in the FY 25 Labor-HHS bill reduces the number of NIH Institutes and Centers (I/Cs) from 27 to 15, including moving the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) into a new National Institute for Disabilities Related Research and renaming and restructuring the National Institute of Aging (NIA) as the National Institute of Dementia. I support efforts to create efficiencies at the NIH to maximize federal research dollars, however, I am concerned that his framework will jeopardize efforts to prioritize women’s health research and the newly released NIH-Wide Strategic Plan for Women’s Health Research. Both NICHD and NIA conduct important research on women’s health related issues, ranging from endometriosis and fibroids to menopause, yet it is not clear where this research will have a home should the I/Cs be restructured.
For these reasons, I urge Representative (name) to oppose the FY 25 Labor-HHS bill in its current form and work with House colleagues to provide robust funding for the NIH. I also urge Congress to pursue a thoughtful, deliberative and transparent process to properly vet any NIH reform proposal before enacting it into law.
Sincerely,
(Your name)