Jill Biden's dystopian vision for women's health

The White House's much-lauded Women's Health Research Initiative launched its first major effort this month, the $100 million Women's Health Sprint. Targeted at “industry and venture capital”, it aims to risk advances to create an avenue for investors to invest in new discoveries and technologies in the women's health sector.

At a time when huge economic disparities in women's health and reproductive health care are at stake, this vision of a future in which venture capital will accelerate commercial technology products to market is dystopian. Sprint awards proposals primarily on the basis of commercial feasibility, rather than impact on women's health.

Since the 1970s, the women's health movement has aimed to put knowledge in the hands of women and build collective power within communities around women-identified needs. Sprint for Women's Health is very different from this vision. With a mission of women's health equity and an infusion of potentially transformative government support, we are diverting public resources into private, profit-driven businesses.

The program is an offshoot of a dangerous movement that Jamie Marsella and colleagues at Harvard University's Gender Science Institute have dubbed “investment feminism.” Dissatisfied with policy solutions, investment feminism argues that gender health equity can only be achieved through the use of markets. Reflecting this ideology, McKinsey recently released a report that referred to closing women's health disparities as a “multi-trillion dollar opportunity.”

The White House project, led by First Lady Jill Biden, is prioritizing proposals aimed at developing profitable technologies in “competitive health care markets.” We think he has two problems. First, it confuses patients with customers, and second, it replaces technology on the brink of marketability with standards of empirically supported science. “Sprint” exists to line the pockets of venture capital and healthcare technology companies. Endpoints will become consumer products at the expense of much-needed but unprofitable research, policy, and solutions.

Biden is right that women are underserved by existing technologies and systems. However, this “women's health disparity'' is not caused by a lack of interest from financial companies. The for-profit women's health division raised a combined $1.14 billion from venture capital investors in 2023. Femtech is one of the biggest growth areas in this field. This is not an area that requires government funding. Despite this private investment, we have yet to see changes in the health of women, especially women from historically marginalized demographic groups.

For example, some diagnostic companies that specialize in women-specific diseases are “pioneering” and “addressing” women by using smart tampon or pad devices that allow companies to collect data and enable future developments. It claims to offer an opportunity to “transform health in the field.” Diagnosis and treatment. These promises have not yet materialized, but even if they did, there is no guarantee that customers who submit menstrual data will have access to any treatments or diagnostic tools that may emerge. Only companies that succeed in producing them, or at least persuading investors to keep them alive, receive a return on investment.

More personalized home tests and smartphone health apps for women will only widen existing health disparities. In addition to concerns about data misuse (particularly since Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Healthcare Organization), products such as fertility tracking apps are also preventing reliable information from being sufficient to successfully conceive or prevent an unwanted pregnancy. It has come under intense scrutiny due to a lack of evidence that it provides

Far from removing barriers for women who don't have regular access to doctors and specialists, these technologies work best when used in conjunction with existing health care facilities. Her $100 million commitment to market-ready technology will make women's health tools more convenient for the wealthy and socially connected, while also improving policy and public infrastructure for those who need it most. A future will be built where investment in will continue to be ignored.

The White House's efforts overlook the fact that most, if not all, of women's health problems are policy failures. Women are often America's social safety net, but individual women have to contend with the health effects of precarious working conditions, urban water supplies, and industrial pollution (to name a few). cannot take charge or deal with unreasonable medical costs on their own. .

What women need and deserve are better policies. We need labor policies that include paid sick leave, higher minimum wages, and worker safety protections. We need public policy and funding for quality child and elder care. We need environmental policies that tackle air and water pollution, reduce dependence on toxic resources, curb climate change, and consider the waste streams of new innovations. We need to ensure all communities have access to transportation and health care facilities.

We applaud the White House's advances in women's health, highlighted by the executive order President Biden signed this week. But what we need most to improve women's health isn't some high-tech, money-making solution. Women's health advocates reiterate this presidential commitment to a vision true to the women's health movement: addressing barriers to health for all women and empowering women to take control of their bodies and the role of technology. We should join the urgent call to focus. life and their future.

Jamie Marsella is a PhD candidate in the history of science at Harvard University. Katherine Lee is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at Tulane University. Sarah Richardson is the Alamont Professor of History of Science and the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Harvard University, and Director of the Harvard Gender Science Institute.