WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump signed an executive order, alongside first lady Melania Trump, on Monday to create a White House task force and a National Institute of Health division focused on women’s health.

The task force will be led by White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, who recently announced that she is cancer-free, and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Trump said at a White House event.

It directs the federal government to pursue a comprehensive approach to women’s health across all life stages, strengthening research to speed up prevention, diagnosis, and treatment and translating those findings into clinical practice and policy, according to a White House fact sheet.

The creation of the task force comes during the Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Wiles recently finished treatment for breast cancer.

“The executive order I’ll sign in just a moment will direct the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a new women’s health division within the National Institute of Health,” Trump said at the event.

“That’s a big deal. They’ve been after it for a long time,” he said.

“Who the hell wouldn’t have a woman’s health division? Melania said they don’t have it.”

The NIH has an Office of Research on Women’s Health, established in 1990.

The new division will operate in coordination with that office rather than replace it.

Published in Dawn, October 20th, 2026