Federal research financing to face areas such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease is about $ 1 billion behind the levels of recent years, reflecting the chaotic start of the Trump administration and dictates who have frozen a series of subsidies, meetings and communications.
The slowdown of the National Institutes of Health prizes occurred while a legal challenge takes place on the sudden change of policy of the administration last week to reduce payments for administrative costs and structures relating to medical research. A federal judge in Massachusetts temporarily blocked the cuts, waiting for hearings at the end of this month.
The research financed at the federal level has guided important progress in cutting-edge gene therapies and in the strengthening of the immuno-system system for some tumors, cystic fibrosis and falciform disease.
The wider delay in funding is heard in universities and medical centers from Baton Rouge to Boston, according to the legislators of the congress who are monitoring him. Federal expenses registers show that allocations are about $ 1 billion compared to last year’s disbursements at the moment.
The NiH loan has interrupted the last 10 days, according to Senator Tammy Baldwin, Democrat of Wisconsin.
“The president has completely interrupted the funding for research that discovers care for the diseases that devastate families throughout the country, such as Cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, all so that they can give tax breaks to billionaires and large companies”, Mrs. Baldwin said on Friday. “Don’t make mistakes, their efforts to rob Peter to pay Paul means crushing hopes and dreams of having treatments.”
It was not clear whether the loaning loaned reflected an administrative backlog or the efforts of Trump’s officials to challenge the judgments of the judges who temporarily canceled the efforts to freeze federal subsidies and expenses.
In the first six weeks of 2024, Nih assigned over 11,000 subsidies for an amount of about $ 2.5 billion. In the same period this year, the agency distributed about $ 1.4 billion, a hundreds of millions of dollars less than the amount assigned within this period in the last six years. The agency issued about 36 billion dollars of subsidies last year.
Some administration officials have criticized research bags, claiming to reflect a liberal prejudice and are dedicated to diversity and equity efforts. Some critics also argue that some universities receive much larger disbursements to cover general costs than other institutions.
A Nih spokesman did not immediately return a commentary request.
At the beginning of this week, Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, tried to add a provision to a budget bill that would restore the Nih financing to the agreed levels. The effort failed with a party vote.
“Trump and Elon – or through pure ignorance or a real lack of care – are putting research on life in America on vital support,” he said in a declaration, referring to the billionaire Elon Musk.
Nih has undergone considerable turbulence in the last few days, with two high -ranking officials who have announced sudden departures. The agency does not yet have a permanent leader, although Jay Bhattacharya, candidate for the Trump administration and Stanford professor, started to go around the congress while approaching his confirmation hearings.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the best federal health agency, said he wanted to withdraw research on infectious diseases, a Nih Core study area and instead focus on chronic diseases, which also studies the agency. The agency has 27 separated institutes and centers that finance studies and develop treatments for diseases such as cancer and heart conditions, as well as infectious diseases such as AIDS and Covid.
The meetings of the Agency – during which the experts examine the questions of subsidy and formulated financing recommendations – were abruptly canceled at the end of January after the new administration has issued a large prohibition of communication, effectively stopping the financing of new research . Some of these meetings have been taken since then. THE The Budget Office of the White House has also ordered a break on all federal subsidies, which canceled days later.
The cuts offered to indirect costs for medical research alone were sufficient to raise deep concerns to Dartmouth and in other institutions.
“If the Federal Government reduces its investment, we will have to reduce the cutting -edge research and science will be interrupted,” said Dean Madden, vice -president for research in Dartmouth, during a press conference on Friday. “You don’t know which discoveries will not be made accordingly, but they could include a cure for a little childish cancer or a treatment for Alzheimer’s or dozens of other diseases that afflict patients throughout our country.”