At Congress’ first hearing devoted to menopause, experts urged lawmakers to close gaps in research, medical training and care.
Editor’s update (Sept. 29): Since this article was published, the Senate Special Committee on Aging held Congress’ first hearing devoted to menopause on Sept. 16. Chair Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and ranking member Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) heard testimony about gaps in menopause research, medical training and care. The two senators also requested a Government Accountability Office review of how the federal government funds and coordinates menopause research and care.
Among the witnesses was Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, executive director of Ms. partnerships and strategy and author of the forthcoming When in Menopause: A User’s Manual and Citizen’s Guide. She urged lawmakers to invest in research, improve medical education and expand access to evidence-based treatment. Read her account of the hearing and an essay adapted from her written testimony here.
PUBLISHED 9/15/2026
As America marks its 250th anniversary, politicians, historians and citizens are taking stock of the achievements that have defined the nation’s legacy. Few deserve recognition more than America’s extraordinary contributions to science and medicine.
But one of America’s most overlooked scientific failures belongs to both political parties: For decades, Democratic and Republican administrations alike presided over a medical research system that routinely excluded women. The result? Modern medicine was built on incomplete science—and women are still paying the price.
Women were not missing from medical research by chance. For much of the 20th century, researchers justified their exclusion by citing concerns about pregnancy and hormonal differences, while assuming that findings in men could simply be generalized to women. The male body became medicine’s default; women were treated as the exception or as smaller men.
It wasn’t until the NIH Revitalization Act of 1993 that federally funded clinical trials were required to include women. Yet changing who participates in research does not rewrite decades of medical knowledge overnight. By then, physicians had already been trained using male-centered evidence, diagnostic standards had been established, and countless drugs had already been dosed using evidence derived solely from men.
Take cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death for American women. For decades, physicians were taught to recognize a heart attack using the “classic” symptom most commonly observed in men: crushing chest pain. Women, however, often experience shortness of breath, nausea and extreme fatigue. Today, women are 50 percent more likely to receive an initial misdiagnosis after a heart attack—an error that can often mean the difference between life and death.
This problem extends to the medication women take every day. Historically, many prescription drugs were tested primarily in men before reaching the market, despite well-established biological differences in hormones, body fat percentage and metabolism. These differences were often overlooked when determining whether medications were safe, effective and appropriately dosed for women. Since 2000, women have reported adverse drug reactions 52 percent more frequently than men, with serious or fatal reactions occurring 36 percent more often.
Three decades later, one question remains: Why hasn’t medicine caught up? The uncomfortable answer is that this failure belongs to all of us.
Between 2013 and 2023, Democratic presidential administrations acknowledged the problem but rarely treated women’s health as a national priority or matched that recognition with sustained investment.
But in 2023, women’s health research still accounted for just 7.9 percent of the NIH’s total research funding, even as the agency’s overall budget continued to grow.
The Biden administration sought to reverse that trend by announcing the first-ever White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research in 2024. However, research from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (a private non-governmental organization) shows closing the gap would require an additional $15.71 billion in federal funding over five years—roughly doubling the NIH’s current investment in women’s health research.
Republicans, meanwhile, have increasingly threatened the progress that has already been made.
In 2025, the Trump administration has proposed cutting the NIH’s budget by roughly 43 percent (equivalent to $20 billion per year). Its broader HHS budget proposal called for eliminating or consolidating several programs supporting family planning and maternal and child health. Federal agencies also came under pressure to scrutinize or reject grant proposals containing terms such as women, leading to paused or cancelled fellowships and research on conditions such as uterine fibroids and pregnancy.
First-Ever Congressional Hearing on Menopause
There are signs, however, that Congress may finally be beginning to treat women’s health across the lifespan as a serious policy issue.
On Sept. 16, the Senate Special Committee on Aging will hold Congress’ first-ever hearing devoted to menopause. Led by ranking member Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), “Half the Country, Zero Hearings: Meeting the Moment to End the Menopause Care Gap in America” will examine the nation’s lack of menopause research, informed medical care and provider training—and make the case for greater federal investment. (Watch the Senate Special Committee on Aging’s hearing live here Wednesday, Sept. 16, at 12:30 p.m. PT / 3:30 ET.)
Among those testifying is Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, executive director of Ms. partnerships and strategy, executive director o the Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center at NYU Law and author of the forthcoming book When in Menopause: A User’s Manual and Citizen’s Guide.
The hearing represents an overdue step forward. But women’s health cannot remain vulnerable to political cycles. Regardless of which party holds power, it must become a permanent priority within American policy and medicine.
That begins with strengthening requirements for sex- and gender-inclusive clinical research beyond current NIH policies, ensuring that women are represented not only in participation but in analysis, reporting and drug development. Inclusion cannot end with recruitment—it must shape every stage of research.
Beyond clinical research trials, women’s health must be treated as a core component of medicine, rather than a separate specialty. Women’s health extends far beyond just reproductive care, yet it is too often viewed through that narrow lens. Medical education should teach sex-based differences across every field of medicine, and clinical practice should incorporate that evidence into everyday patient care.
As America looks ahead to its next 250 years, it has the opportunity to build on its history of scientific innovation. For too long, women have been treated as the exception rather than an equal consideration in medicine. Correcting these failures will require more than the priorities of just one administration or just one party—it will require a bipartisan commitment to making women’s health a permanent priority in research, education and clinical care.
America’s next chapter should ensure that the benefits of medical progress finally include the other half of its population.
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Poll after poll shows a majority of Americans support reproductive healthcare access. Yet public debate overlooks the lives shaped by abortion access, contraception, IVF, miscarriage care, maternal healthcare or comprehensive sex education—countless women who chose to pursue an education, have children, not have children, protect their health and chart their own future. What’s your reproductive freedom story? Add your voice. Together, these stories will help show not only why reproductive freedom remains a majority value, but also what it makes possible.
