Donald Trump’s block on federal research grants has riled thousands of US scientists but the impact of sweeping restrictions on staff at the world’s biggest health funder has had a personal resonance for one Indiana-based biologist.
“I have created an annual lecture in structural biology in memory of my first wife Miriam Hasson who died from a brain tumour in 2006,” explained David Sanders, an associate professor of biological sciences at Purdue University. “This year we had invited a researcher from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as the speaker. The event is on hold because of the travel ban.”
A travel ban on researchers is just one of a number of restrictions placed on the NIH by Trump’s administration. Besides the ban, a hiring freeze that may prevent the renewal of fixed-term research contracts and directives prohibiting any sort of public communications, the $47 billion (£38 billion) science agency that funds about a quarter of all US health research, has effectively been barred from approving further grants until at least 1 February. Similar freezes have also occurred at the National Science Foundation (NSF), which supports $9 billion of research annually, and the Department of Energy, which provides about $8 billion via its Office for Science.
Those actions may be lifted shortly but could persist for weeks, even months, if a senate nomination hearing blocks Trump’s nomination of vaccine sceptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr to run America’s Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the NIH and other health funders.
“It seems clear that the Trump administration does not respect science, public health, or, indeed, people’s lives,” reflected Sanders, who stressed, like many researchers these days, that he was not talking on behalf of his institution. “The well-being of both children and seniors is being put at risk by the disruption to the research endeavour.”
Using a term that has tellingly gained recognition in recent weeks, Sanders stated bluntly that the health agency leaders proposed by Trump “lack the necessary qualifications and exemplify the kakistocracy” – defined as “government by the less suitable or competent people”.
Unfortunately, blocks on research grants have not been affected by a White House u-turn that rescinded an order made on 27 January to withhold $3 trillion of federal grants and financial assistance programmes, insiders said. It may, however, unlock some $300 million of Fulbright Scholarship funds to be distributed to US students and researchers heading overseas.
But other executive orders are likely to hit US science in different ways, critics argue. Under the “ending radical and wasteful government DEI programmes and preferencing” order, agencies will be expected to furlough or reassign staff in their diversity offices by the end of January, explained Brian Mosley, associate director of the Computing Research Association.
This directive will also to apply to those working on “environmental justice” programmes supported by federal funds, or in related offices designed to safeguard or research, for instance, the health of disadvantaged communities and vulnerable populations.
In a briefing, Mosley also drew attention to how Trump’s rescinding of Biden-era executive orders related to artificial intelligence research could also shut down a three-year NSF pilot worth about $2.4 billion.
But the rollback of Biden-era edicts on highly skilled immigration via an executive order ostensibly targeted at “foreign terrorists and other national security and public safety threats” could also have a “significant impact” on US science if tougher visa vetting prevents the inflow of research talent, said Mosley.
“Anti-immigrant actions were anticipated but they will still be deleterious for the scientific enterprise,” said Purdue’s Sanders, noting “the US only became the world leader in science and technology because of the influx in the mid-20th century of immigrant scientists and intellectuals.”
For many, however, it is the block on NIH funding that is causing unprecedented chaos – with enormous funding, worth about $200 million a day, in stasis. To give a sense of the scale, the NIH’s state-by-state breakdown of science projects explains California has more than 10,000 active NIH projects receiving almost $7 billion while New York’s NIH take is $5.2 billion with more than 5,200 active projects.
Lucky Tran, a biomedical scientist and science communicator based in New York, described the freeze on grant reviews, hiring and communications as “unprecedented” and “significantly disrupting to life-saving science in the US”.
“NIH funding has saved millions of lives by, for example, supporting the development of vaccines for Covid, smallpox, HPV, and measles; and treatments for HIV, sickle cell disease, diabetes, heart disease, and many different types of cancers, but research progress is greatly influenced by timing,” he said.
“Even a short delay in funding can permanently derail a key project and halt the development of a new groundbreaking vaccine or treatment. For patients, being forced to spend more time waiting to participate in a clinical trial can be a matter of life or death.
“For the sake of everyone’s health, it is critical that US research is not delayed by political interference for even a minute longer.”
