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Biden to Sign EO on Women's Health     03/18 06:07

   President Joe Biden is expected to sign an executive order Monday aimed at 
advancing the study of women's health in part by strengthening data collection 
and providing easier and better funding opportunities for biomedical research.

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Joe Biden is expected to sign an executive 
order Monday aimed at advancing the study of women's health in part by 
strengthening data collection and providing easier and better funding 
opportunities for biomedical research.

   Women make up half the population, but their health is underfunded and 
understudied. It wasn't until the 1990s that the federal government mandated 
women be included in federally funded medical research; for most of medical 
history, though, scientific study was based almost entirely on men.

   Today, research often fails to properly track differences between women and 
men, and does not represent women equally particularly for illnesses more 
common to them. Biden's executive order is aiming to change that, aides said.

   "We still know too little about how to effectively prevent, diagnose and 
treat a wide array of health conditions in women," said Dr. Carolyn Mazure, the 
head of the White House initiative on women's health.

   Biden said he's long been a believer in the "power of research" to help save 
lives and get high-quality health care to the people who need it. But the 
executive order also checks off a political box, too, during an election year 
when women will be crucial to his reelection efforts. First lady Jill Biden is 
leading both the effort to organize and mobilize female voters and the White 
House Initiative on Women's Health Research.

   And the announcement comes as the ripple effects spread from the Supreme 
Court's decision that overturned federal abortion rights, touching on medical 
issues for women who never intended to end their pregnancies. In Alabama, for 
example, the future of IVF was thrown into question statewide after a judge's 
ruling.

   Women were a critical part of the coalition that elected Biden in 2020, 
giving him 55% of their vote, according to AP VoteCast. Black women and 
suburban women were pillars of Biden's coalition while Trump had a modest 
advantage among white women and a much wider share of white women without 
college degrees, according to the AP survey of more than 110,000 voters in that 
year's election.

   The National Institutes of Health is also launching a new effort around 
menopause and the treatment of menopausal symptoms that will identify research 
gaps and work to close them, said White House adviser Jennifer Klein.

   Biden and Jill Biden, the first lady, were expected to announce the measures 
at a Women's History Month reception on Monday at the White House.

   NIH funds a huge amount of biomedical research, imperative for the 
understanding of how medications affect the human body and for deciding 
eventually how to dose medicine.

   Some conditions have different symptoms for women and men, such as heart 
disease. Others are more common in women, like Alzheimer's disease, and some 
are unique to women -- such as endometriosis, uterine cancers and fibroids 
found in the uterus. It's all ripe for study, Mazure said.

   And uneven research can have profound effects; a 2020 study by researchers 
at the University of Chicago and University of California, Berkeley found that 
women were being overmedicated and suffering side effects from common 
medications, because most of the dosage trials were done only on men.

   The first lady announced $100 million in funding last month for women's 
health.

 
 
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