In an abrupt reversal, the US Department of Health and Human Services said Thursday that it no longer plans to cut funding for the Women’s Health Initiative, a groundbreaking research project focused on preventing disease in older women.

Days after the Women’s Health Initiative, one of the largest and longest women’s health studies in the world, announced that the Department of Health and Human Services was terminating some of the initiative’s funding, the agency has reversed course.

Federal health officials plan to cut funding to the Women’s Health Initiative, effectively shuttering one of the largest and longest studies of women’s health ever carried out.