The Trump administration's emphasis on right-wing ideology has had a chilling effect on life-saving medical research — and the researchers themselves — at the National Institutes of Health, according to a new opinion piece in Bloomburg.
NIH "is the largest source of funding for medical research in the world, creating hundreds of thousands of high-quality jobs," according to the government website. "More than 80% of its $48 billion budget" goes to to fund scientific research at universities and hospitals around the country.
But the website language may be changing now that DOGE has put a halt to NIH funding programs that "didn’t align with the administration’s political ideology," like "LGBT+ health, gender identity, diversity, equity and inclusion; vaccine hesitancy; and mRNA vaccines," the article said.
Columnist Lisa Jarvis wrote that the "damage was amplified" when the administration cut $4 billion in overhead costs from NIH grants, "money that institutions rely on to run their facilities and pay support staff. That was followed by job cuts at the agency — reportedly nearly 1,200 of them, in areas spanning Alzheimer’s research to cancer."
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In addition to stunting medical breakthroughs, the Trump administration has "set research and training for future scientists back a generation," Jarvis wrote, adding, "The entire pipeline of biomedical scientists, supported in one way or the other by the funding at NIH, is being culled."
In February, a federal judge announced she was extending a temporary restraining order that prevents the administration from halting funds to research universities and medical schools.
As the case winds its way through the courts, "morale — both at NIH and at the long list of institutions the agency funds — is in the basement," Jarvis wrote.
"A health equity researcher at Northwestern University, whose work hits on all of the buzzwords that Trump wants eradicated from federal government, teared up when describing what the situation means for the students she mentors. Making a career in science has always been exceptionally hard, she says, 'and in this environment, it’s just making it impossible. I’m afraid we’re going to lose some of the best minds.'"
Jarvis concluded, "Unless funding and the freedom to pursue science without political bias are restored, biomedical research in the US will become less ambitious, less competitive and result in fewer breakthroughs."