Rump guts the first and only NIH Women's Health Initiative

[Lemon Drop]

Yes, absolutely Diana

I'd like to know who made this decision, and why.

[Speedy]

Lemon Drop wrote:
Yes, absolutely Diana

I'd like to know who made this decision, and why.

To save money since it is redundant.

[vision63]

Lemon Drop wrote:
Yes, absolutely Diana

I'd like to know who made this decision, and why.

Certainly no mystery why. It's just part of losing.

[PeterB]

Lemon Drop wrote:
Yes, absolutely Diana

I'd like to know who made this decision, and why.

The why is fairly obvious: because misogyny.

As for the who, good luck finding this out. We have a head of government who claims not to know anything about anything that's done under his administration, including the texting of war plans on an insecure medium, despite his being commander-in-chief. So they will never take responsibility for anything they do, nor will they ever admit who has done what.

[$tevie]

Launched in 1991 under NIH’s first woman director, Bernadine Healy, it was hugely ambitious, focusing on treatments that might prevent heart disease, breast and colon cancer, and bone fractures from osteoporosis in postmenopausal women.

These women can't pump out babies. So who needs them?

[Janit]

$tevie wrote:

Launched in 1991 under NIH’s first woman director, Bernadine Healy, it was hugely ambitious, focusing on treatments that might prevent heart disease, breast and colon cancer, and bone fractures from osteoporosis in postmenopausal women.

These women can't pump out babies. So who needs them?

They're useful for watching the babies, though, which helps to maximize baby output.

[Michael]

The article that Lemon Drop linked says the funding of the WHI is $10 million a year.

I think that one of the big universities with a big endowment and a particular interest in women's health should take over the $10 million basic funding of the WHI. It seems to me that this it might cause problems for the Trump administration and NIH cuts because it should get a LOT of press for taking it over. It's hard to imagine that the overall populace of the US would be in favor of saving a relatively small amount of money at the cost of women's health. Trump does respond to public pressure if it's big enough and this might be a place to start. If it's successful, it might give courage to other groups that are being decimated by the cuts.

[gabester]

Janit wrote:
The new gender ideology:

Anything relating to gender is against policy.
Research about women is de facto about gender.
Research about men is de facto not about gender.
Therefore everything known about men should apply equally to women.

Therefore, if Trump wants more babies, he should make the men have the babies.

Wait, what?

LOVE IT.

If just 1% of the women each gave $6 to this program, it would be fully funded.

It would be nice if one of the revisions to our governance after all this insanity was some additional checkboxes on income tax returns - not just to put $3 to the federal election commission to fund candidates, but for programs like this, USAID, NASA. While we're at it, I've been drumbeating about this for a while, artificial wombs research. Then the men can have the babies if they want to take care of them.

[Lemon Drop]

But they want non-government orgs to take over science funding, that's their goal. So I think the Trump admin would be thrilled if a university stepped up to take over the WHI.

The problem with university-based science is it is so often funded by drug companies or stakeholder groups with an interest in the outcome of the work.

Not always of course, but often enough to be a problem in American medicine. Government funding is neutral and usually free of corporate bias. That's what made NIH the global powerhouse of science it has been. Up until now anyway.