STAT+: Despite Kennedy’s stated support, funding for Women’s Health Initiative remains in limbo
Funding for a landmark health study, the Women's Health Initiative, was cut then reportedly restored, but researchers are still waiting for confirmation.
The word came down at 9 a.m. Pacific on April 14 that they were done. Marcia Stefanick of Stanford and three other leaders of regional centers that for decades have researched women’s health heard from their study’s national leaders that their funding would end with the fiscal year.
They all had contracts ready and waiting to be signed to extend their parts of the Women’s Health Initiative, a massive, groundbreaking study that has changed medical practice on hormone therapy, bone health, and cardiovascular health.
“It was like being punched in the gut,” Stefanick recalled. The researchers, sick about the news, were told by the coordinating center to wait a few days before informing the study’s steering committee, investigators in their respective regions, and others involved in running the study. On Friday, April 18, they spread the word in a call to their colleagues. “That’s when they got their gut punch.”
