Maternie

The Trump administration has continued slashing women’s health research funding, going from more than $30 million in April to over $50 million in cuts by the middle of June.

Based on Maternie’s analysis, this is an increase of more than 50% in just two months. But the cuts go far beyond the administration’s claims of eradicating “DEI” — i.e. any research that dares to focus on minority populations, despite massive discrepancies in health outcomes.

A few notable examples of research far outside the scope of “DEI” excuses include:

— $1.2 million to Washington State University to study fear in infants, and how mothers in the postpartum period and beyond might affect that.

— Nearly $610,000 to the University of Washington to study gene mutations that lead to ovarian cancer 

— Over $823,000 to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center to study how breastmilk antibodies affect immune reactions in an infant’s gut

— $1.9 million to UC San Francisco to study the “immunological, epigenetic, and developmental determinants of early pregnancy success”, i.e. infertility causes

— Nearly $661,000 to the University of Texas to study gene mutations that lead to uterine fibroids

–$1 million to Washington University to study antibiotic treatments for pregnant women with UTIs

Here is a breakdown by category of cuts to women’s health research so far:

You can find details on these cuts at Maternie’s spreadsheet here.

Talking Points Memo reported in early April that the entire team running the PRAMS (Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System) database at CDC was fired. It was a decades-long research database tracking infant and maternal health from pregnancy through the postpartum period.

As part of mass HHS firings, NBC reported the elimination of the entire CDC team responsible for tracking the success rates of IVF clinics in helping patients have a live birth. As Aaron Levine, a Georgia Tech professor who worked with the CDC team over the last decade, told NBC:

“The data was produced at the clinic level every year, so you could say, ‘Is this clinic successful 15% of the time, 20% of the time, 25% of the time. And you can imagine that is super valuable information for patients considering IVF, or maybe considering IVF at multiple clinics, and trying to make their choices.”

The six-person team was made up of epidemiologists, data analysts and researchers, and their firing shocked IVF advocates, given Trump’s claims to be the “fertilization president.”

Jessica Valenti at Abortion, Every Day reported that $35 million in Title X funding was frozen on April 1: “California, Hawaii, Maine, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Tennessee, and Utah will receive zero Title X dollars. Most of Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Alaska will lose access as well. Other states impacted include Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia.”

Politico reported later in April that the cuts reached $65 million. Clinics that had been given ten days at the start of April to fill out forms proving they weren’t promoting diversity had not received a response as of April 22. 

The landmark Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) announced that HHS, under Sec. Kennedy, in early April verbally terminated all regional contracts at the end of September 2025. The WHI is unlike any other study in America, following over 160,000 women starting in the 1990s, and continues to follow around 42,000 women.

After intense criticism, the Trump administration on April 24 told media outlets they would not, in fact, be cancelling the WHI. HHS spokeswoman Emily Hilliard said they were “now working to fully restore funding to these essential research efforts.”

WHI leadership confirmed on May 6 that they had received formal confirmation of the funding getting restored.

According to the New York Times, the study has led to more than 2,000 research papers and generated around $35 billion in savings, based on the number of cancer and cardiovascular disease cases that have been averted.