Actors Mandy Moore, Lupita Nyong'o push for women's health on Capitol Hill

Sandhya Raman, CQ-Roll Call on Sep 16, 2025

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WASHINGTON — Two things changed Lupita Nyong’o’s life in 2014. She won an Academy Award and she was diagnosed with uterine fibroids.

“What should have been a milestone of joy was overshadowed by confusion, pain and fear,” the actress said at a bipartisan roundtable at the Capitol on Tuesday. “I was told I had nearly 30 fibroids and that my only options were to live with debilitating pain and discomfort or undergo invasive surgery.”

She was told there was little she could do to prevent them from growing back.

Nyong’o had surgery, but she was still nagged by a feeling that there should’ve been more options for a disease that affects 26 million women in the United States. And 11 years later, when told her fibroids had grown again, she was presented with the same limited treatment options.

Nyong’o was joined at the roundtable by a dozen lawmakers, singer and actress Mandy Moore and experts from the Society for Women’s Health Research. One thing was clear from the event: There’s a gap in women’s health research.

“Today, I’m here to call on Congress to consider what our current health care spending says about how we value the health and lives of half our population. When we underfund women’s health care, we signal that women’s pain, women’s mortality and women’s quality of life are secondary concerns,” Nyong’o said.

The event highlights what has become a rare bipartisan health issue in Congress at a time when lawmakers are at odds over the fate of insurance premium tax credits, the GOP reconciliation law’s cuts to Medicaid and spending bills covering health and other issues for fiscal 2026.

“I think this is worth mentioning that this is a bipartisan as well as a bicameral issue,” said Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md. “Illness doesn’t care … it strikes without bias.”

Rep. Julia Letlow, R-La., who sits on the House Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations subcommittee, said she recently sat down with National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya to highlight some of these issues about gaps in women’s health research.

“I can’t tell you how many times people have come to our office and shared their story, and it has drafted legislation to go on to make a huge difference in this world,” Letlow said.

Lawmakers and the two celebrities highlighted three bills related to maternal health and uterine fibroids research.

Moore called on lawmakers to pass legislation introduced last year that would authorize an NIH program called Implementing a Maternal Health and Pregnancy Outcomes Vision for Everyone for five years at $53.4 million per year.

“That is why we’re all in this room gathered here today, right, to urge Congress to restore and increase NIH funding for women’s health research in this year’s appropriations process and beyond,” Moore said.

Two of the bills focus on uterine fibroids research, an affliction that lawmakers shared personal experiences of.

“I remember as a city councilor being in hearings sitting atop garbage bags because my blood flow was so heavy from the fibroids that I was carrying and still having to comport myself in a manner that was calm and effective in doing my job,” said Rep. Ayanna S. Pressley, D-Mass.

A bill from Alsobrooks cosponsored by Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., would authorize HHS to award grants to states for programs that help to increase early detection and treatment of uterine fibroids. The House version is sponsored by Rep. Shontel Brown, D-Ohio, and has 40 cosponsors.

The other, sponsored by Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Rep. Yvette D. Clarke, D-N.Y., would authorize $30 million annually for five years for uterine fibroid research.

“These bills do something our system has failed to do,” Nyong’o said. “They say women’s pain is worth studying, worth funding, worth solving. They authorize real investment in prevention, early detection, treatment and public education.”

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