Mikulski, Collins Praise Senate Passage of Bipartisan Resolution Introduced by All 20 Senate Women Commemorating the 25th Anniversary of NIH's Office of Research on Women's Health

Press Release

U.S. Senators Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), senior members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, today praised Senate passage of their bipartisan resolution cosponsored by all 20 Senate women to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Office of Research on Women's Health (ORWH). September 10, 2015 marked the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the ORWH.

"For far too long, women were being excluded from clinical research trials and women's health issues were being ignored," Senator Mikulski said. "Twenty-five years ago, women did not have much to celebrate when it came to scientific advances -- we weren't even at the table. Now researchers look at disease in a gender-specific way, and we've made great strides in breast cancer and cervical cancer research, AIDS research, and mapping the human genome. We've changed that paradigm, but we're not done yet. We must continue to raise awareness, raise consciousness and raise hell so that women are not left behind when it comes to their health."

"For the last twenty-five years, the NIH Office of Research on Women's Health (ORWH) has led the charge in increasing scientific understanding and personalized treatment for women across the country and around the world," said Senator Collins. "I am pleased to join with Senator Mikulski in leading this bipartisan resolution that honors this important milestone and champions the continued importance of the inclusion of women's health in NIH research."

Senators Mikulski and Collins are longtime advocates of women's health and supporters of scientific research. In 1990, Senator Mikulski and a group of her women colleagues drove together to NIH in Bethesda, Maryland. Their goal was to assemble key government health officials to address concerns regarding women's exclusion from clinical research. As a result of this meeting, Senator Mikulski and her colleagues were able to build support for the ORWH and successfully worked to establish and fund the Office at NIH.

The ORWH has made significant progress in developing and implementing policies to ensure the inclusion of women in NIH clinical research. The Office's research efforts benefit all individuals with diseases and disorders studied by researchers, including men, women, older and younger adults, children and minority populations. ORWH-supported research has dramatically increased understanding of the importance of gender specific research, and has spurred policy change and programs focused on the health of girls, women and their families.

Today, more than half of participants in NIH-funded clinical trials are women. The ORWH now works in partnership with NIH's 27 Institutes and Centers to ensure that women's health research continues to be a part of the scientific framework at NIH and throughout the scientific community.

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