WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today leaders of the Democratic Women’s Working Group condemned reported efforts by the Bush Administration to slash more than one-quarter of the budget for the Office of Women’s Health.  Congresswoman Lois Capps (D-CA), Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and Congresswoman Hilda Solis (D-CA) cited a report in today’s Washington Post that exposed efforts by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to withhold $1.2 million of the $4 million operating budget appropriated by Congress for the Office of Women’s Health. 

The Office of Women’s Health operates within the Food and Drug Administration and is charged with funding research on male-female biological differences to ensure that women receive the most appropriate drug doses and treatments. The office also produces essential health information about menopause, pregnancy, birth control, osteoporosis and other topics.  Last year the office was involved in a controversial political dispute over the use of the emergency contraceptive "Plan B.”

“This Administration has a troubling history of efforts to undermine the Office of Women’s Health,” said Capps a registered nurse.  “This is yet another example of taking away critical resources from women’s health when we should be providing additional support for these efforts.  The scientific community has just begun to realize the benefits of conducting health research that focuses on women and these cut will jeopardize that life saving progress.  Time and again we have seen this Administration place political agendas above protecting the interests of women’s health. Even more disturbing is the appearance that this raid on the budget for the Office of Women’s Health is payback for a scientifically based decision that contradicted the Administration’s political agenda.” 

 Congresswoman Capps, a registered nurse, serves on the Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health and is Chair of the Democratic Women’s Working Group.  

"Instead of fully funding the Office of Women's Health, the Bush Administration has decided to exact political revenge on an office that not only provides essential services to women, but has also been speaking out on a number of critical issues," said Schakowsky.  "It is time that this Administration stopped playing politics with women’s health issues and instead provided the necessary funding to support these critical issues."

“The Bush Administration’s politicization of science at agencies like the FDA has reached new heights with this proposed funding cut for the Office of Women’s Health.  Instead of working to improve women’s health, the FDA is effectively shutting down this important office as payback for the scientifically-based approval of Plan B,” Solis said. “We must work together in Congress to sustain funding for the Office of Women’s Health so that vital women’s health research is not halted for political retribution.”

A copy of the Washington Post article follows:

Women's Health Office Funds Cut

By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 27, 2007; A13

When is $4 million really $2.8 million?

One answer is "When you're a woman," as the Labor Department has repeatedly found that women earn about 75 cents for every dollar that men earn for the same work.

But this week's answer is "When you are the Office of Women's Health" within the Food and Drug Administration. That office, which was at the center of a politically damaging storm over the emergency contraceptive "Plan B," just had more than one-quarter of this year's $4 million operating budget quietly removed, insiders say.

The office funds research on male-female biological differences to ensure that women receive the most appropriate drug doses and treatments. It also produces heavily requested health information about menopause, pregnancy, birth control, osteoporosis and other topics.

The administration had requested -- and Congress had budgeted -- $4 million for the office in fiscal 2007, just as they have for several years running.

Last week, however, word came down that the FDA intends to withhold $1.2 million of that, apparently for use elsewhere in the agency. Because the remaining $2.8 million has already been spent or allocated for salaries and started projects, the office must effectively halt further operations for the rest of the year, according to a high-level agency official with knowledge of the budget plan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the official is not authorized to speak publicly.

FDA spokesman Robert Ali said in an e-mail that, as a matter of policy, the agency does not discuss its spending plan until Congress has had a chance to review it and comment. However, he added, "the spending plan for the agency is to allow our operating components to spend at least at their 06 level" -- in other words, the full $4 million.

But FDA spokeswoman Julie Zawisza quickly corrected that statement in a follow-up e-mail, saying the spending plan for the agency is "INTENDED" to allow spending of at least the 2006 level, acknowledging that the spending plan is not ironclad.

Women's health advocates inside and outside the agency suspect they are witnessing, at least in part, a long-anticipated payback for the trouble the office stirred during the prolonged debate over nonprescription sales of Plan B. Taking a position that chafed the administration's conservative base, the office had stood up for scientific research that had backed the safety and appropriateness of such sales.

In 2005, the office's then-director, Susan Wood, resigned in protest over the issue, a major embarrassment to the agency. A compromise was finally reached last August that allowed over-the-counter sales of the drug to people at least 18 years old.

Martha R. Nolan, a vice president at the Society for Women's Health Research, a Washington advocacy group, said that big budget bites in Washington are often the beginning of the end and that she worries that this is retribution for the Plan B controversy.

"We fear this is the first step toward eliminating the Office of Women's Health," Nolan said. "We must not allow this office to be eliminated or reduced to an empty shell that has no program funding."

The office was created in 1994 amid growing evidence that some sex-based differences in biology warranted special regulatory attention -- and a recognition that other offices within the FDA did not have the time, money or expertise to focus on women's special needs.

More than 200 research articles based on studies funded by the office have appeared in scientific journals since 1994, and the office's fact sheets and other publications have generated record-breaking responses in recent years.

FDA Commissioner Andrew C. von Eschenbach is to appear today before the Senate appropriations subcommittee to discuss the agency's 2008 budget. Tomorrow, he will have a repeat performance before the House.

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Pictured above: (center) Congresswoman Capps meets with Central Coast firefighters to discuss emergency preparedness.