Rachel Widome, a professor of epidemiology and community health at the U’s School of Public Health, said she serves on a NIH panel that reviews research proposals.
The group was unable to meet last week because the Trump administration barred the NIH from publishing official meeting notices, a requirement for meetings to proceed, she said.
Forcing that panel, along with many others, to halt their review process effectively froze the pipeline for starting new research, she said. The missed meetings caused the review of 16,000 research proposals to be delayed, according to one estimate.
William Jones, a professor and associate chair of the U’s history department, said in an email that “much of the impact has come from people having applications frozen, so they can’t point to money actually lost yet.”
Jones, who is also the president of the U’s American Association of University Professors chapter, said others have seen their access to data interrupted by staffing shortages at federal offices that approve data use.
Tom Wells, of St. Paul, holds an earth flag outside the Minnesota State Capitol during Friday's protest. Wells, a musician and retired teacher, says he’s concerned the people in charge of government are “against anything that is intellectual.” (Aaron Lavinsky/The Minnesota Star Tribune)