By Madelyn Adams, Public Policy and Advocacy Manager
At midnight on October 1, government funding officially expired after Congress failed to reach an agreement on a full-year spending bill or a short-term spending measure, known as a continuing resolution, to keep the government funded for fiscal year (FY) 2026. As a result, a government shutdown is now underway and, with the exception of a few key mandatory spending programs like Medicare and Social Security benefits, most federally funded work, including federal research, is at a halt.
Shutdowns don’t just pause progress – they destabilize the scientific enterprise. Agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are impacted immediately, with grant disbursements frozen, the start of new clinical trials delayed, federal research staff furloughed, and the continuity of basic research threatened. For women’s health, which already suffers from longstanding underfunding, these interruptions are especially damaging. Women’s health research – which relies on timely and consistent federal support – cannot afford these setbacks. The ripple effects will be felt not only in research labs, hospitals, and universities, but also in the lives of women waiting for better treatments and answers to urgent health issues.
The Society for Women’s Health Research (SWHR) urges members of Congress to prioritize reaching an agreement on a full-year spending bill to ensure sustained, reliable investment in the federal research infrastructure. SWHR will continue to monitor budget negotiations in the coming days as well as the shutdown’s impact on women’s health research.
More information about how the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) – the department under which the NIH and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), among other agencies, are housed – is operating under the shutdown can be found here.
Anyone wishing to reach out to their members of Congress to encourage them to work swiftly to finalize FY 2026 spending legislation and prioritize women’s health research can use SWHR’s new advocacy resource, “From Awareness to Action: A Guide to Women’s Health Advocacy.”