Owen Dyer
These are dark and fearful times at all US federal agencies, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is no exception. But at the NIH the fear is compounded by a mystery: why us?
The disruptions seen at the agency, and the threats emanating from the president’s circle, have already brought laboratory closures, reduced graduate programmes, and hiring freezes at universities around the country, as their leadership braces for a research funding famine with no precedent.
The vast majority of the research projects currently blocked at the NIH have not transgressed any political taboo. Studies looking at vaccine uptake and hesitancy, unpalatable to the new health secretary, Robert Kennedy Jr, have already been singled out for freezing or cancellation. They total 42, including some misidentified in haste.1 The NIH has also closed the door on grants researching climate and health,2 as well as covid-19.
The NIH has arguably sustained heavier attacks than either the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)—both of which have no shortage of conservative enemies or past ire from President Donald Trump. The cuts and barbs have been heavier than at perhaps any agency except the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Department of Education, both now formally slated for destruction.
The scale of Trump’s onslaught was met with some bafflement at the NIH. What political motive could drive such a broad shutdown of research on subjects as apolitical as arthritis and diabetes? For many government scientists, none sprang to mind. At universities, however, alarm bells were ringing.
The damage done
The NIH is a mighty engine of US scientific and economic dominance. Its $37bn (£28.6bn; €34.3bn) in grant awards last year—30 times the amount disbursed by the UK’s Medical Research Council—generated almost $95bn in economic activity and …