Join other advocates to protect women's health initiatives
Advocacy Alert: 3/1/2007
Urge support for the Women's Health Office Act
Take Action!
Help protect leadership for CFS research
The “Women’s Health Office Act” (WHOA) (S. 612, H.R. 1072), a bill to secure the futures of offices and positions of women’s health throughout the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), was reintroduced in the Senate and House on February 15th by Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), and Representatives Carolyn Maloney (D- NY) and Deborah Pryce (R-OH).
This legislation would permanently authorize the women’s health offices and positions in HHS, including the Office of Research on Women's Health (ORWH) at the National Institutes of Health that currently has responsibility for coordinating CFS research at NIH. The ORWH was responsible for the announcement of 7 new grants last fall and has built an active trans-NIH working group for CFS.
The bill also covers women's health offices and positions in other HHS agencies including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA). Further, new amendments would ensure that these offices could not be eliminated, underfunded, or downgraded in the future, without Congressional input, as well as authorize sufficient appropriations for the women’s health offices over the next several years so that they can continue to carry out their important missions.
WHOA was introduced in both the House and Senate in the previous Congress, but was not voted on before adjournment. The CFIDS Association of America joins the Society for Women's Health Research and its Women’s Health Research Coalition (WHRC) in supporting the bill in this Congress. Please contact your Senators and Representative and urge them to cosponsor the WHOA. It's one step to protect CFS research that's easy to take. It's also an opportunity to join with advocates for other causes and to be part of a larger constituency working to protect the health and welfare of people we care about.
