The Trump administration attaches scientific research despite the court ruling
The Trump administration has prevented the main parts of the federal government agencies to finance biomedical research, which led to stopping effective progress in most of the country’s future actions in diseases such as cancer and addiction despite the Federal Judge’s order to issue grant funds.
The blockage, shown in internal government notes, stems from an order that prohibits health officials from submitting a general notice of the upcoming grant review meetings. These notifications are a mysterious stadium, but it is necessary in the mechanism of providing grants, which provides about $ 47 billion annually to search for Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease and other diseases.
The procedural retention, whose emails were described by officials of the National Health Institutes described as unlimited, had long -term consequences. Dozens of grants have been canceled this week, creating a gap in funding from the National Institutes of Health. Along with other lapses and the proposed changes in the financing of the National Health Institutes early in the Trump administration, the delay is depths of what scientists call the crisis in American medical medical research.
Columbia University College of Medicine Stop employment and spending In response to the lack of financing. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Employment freezes From employees other than faculty members. Vanderbilt University is revaluation Acceptance of a graduate student. Laboratory leaders said in the interviews that they were thinking, and in some cases, they were making jobs with grant requests remaining.
For the National Health Institutes, the largest general financier in the world for biomedical research, the prohibition of granting grant meetings effectively has been suspended examining and approved future research projects. This is an effort to circumvent a temporary federal judge order that the White House stops the release of billions of dollars in grants and federal loans throughout the Trump administration.
“The new administration, whether in broad strokes or by somewhat bureaucratic ways, has been stopped by the operations funded by the national health institutes in the field of biomedical research in the country,” said von Cooper, a microbiologist at the University of Pittsburgh.
He was planning to study urinary tract infections in people with long -term catheter, a project presented by expert auditors a positive degree in the initial audit four months ago. But a review meeting has now been canceled at the highest level to enhance his research and other proposals, putting his work on waiting.
An official from the National Health Institutes of Health wrote in an email on February 7, which was reviewed by the New York Times that the ban of grant review meetings is in a state “indefinitely” and “came from the level of HHS”, referring to the Ministry of Health and Humanitarian Services, which is now leading it Robert F. Kennedy Junior.
It seems that the collapse in the grant review reflects a broader Trump administration strategy to exploit the gaps to maintain a lot of the president’s abdominal spending in his place, despite judicial orders to maintain the flow of taxpayer dollars.
Officials at the National Institutes of Health and the Ministry of Health and Humanitarian Services did not respond to requests for comment on Friday.
The separation in the process of providing grants may satisfy an additional revolution in the national health institutes, which helps to push the pharmaceutical technology and biotechnology industries to spend and generate dozens of dollars in additional annual economic activity every year.
In an internal email message late Friday morning, Dr. Matthew Mimoli, the agency’s agency, warned of the employees of “other changes in the future” and said that he will have “many opportunities to show our value to Minister Kennedy in the coming weeks and months.”
For American research laboratories, which are pushed in many cases, their employees can grant NIH, the lapses in financing can quickly push scientists to dismantle the infrastructure and the workforce that supports experimental lines.
Katie Whittwits, who is studying treatments for drug use at New Mexico University, said that the expected gaps in financing already mean that they will have to give up one employee in the coming months.
She said, “It seems that the national health institutes are freezing.” “People on the Earth will do science the first to go, and this destruction may occur with the delay of financing.”
I have touched almost every field of science. This week alone, the National Institutes of Health had about 47 meetings for experts who were carefully chosen in various fields to weigh grants, which is the first stage of the lengthy review process. But 42 of these meetings were canceled, which stopped proposals to study pancreatic cancer, addiction, brain injuries and child health.
The higher -level reviews have been canceled by reporting whether projects will be recommended in recent weeks. Under a 1972 LawNo type of review meetings is not allowed without announcing the federal registry, a government publication. Such notifications, which usually need to publish at least 15 days It has not been published In the record since January 21, a day after President Trump was inaugurated.
In letters to scientists working in the audit panels, which were reviewed by the Times, officials of the National Health Institutes said that the Federal Registry notifications had stopped updating. They said that any meetings that were not announced in the record were canceled. (It seems that some meetings have passed because they were announced in the federal registry before the Trump administration took office.)
“What happens is that they mainly prevent the process, only by administrative and legal means, instead of the employees’ order not to provide grants,” said Jeremy Berg, who directed the National Institute of Public Medical Sciences at the National Health Institutes. Eight years old and now works as a data scientist and director at the University of Pittsburgh.
On January 21, amid wider efforts from the Trump administration to Connect the communications Among the federal health agencies, Dr. Dorothy Fink, then the Acting HHS secretary, directed the employees not to send any advertisement to the federal registry “until it is reviewed and approved by a presidential appointed,” according to a memorandum reviewed by the Times.
It seems that parts of the arrested communications were finally raised. But the meeting of the meeting of the federal registration remained frozen.
In the internal guidance of the National Institutes of Health published on February 10, which were reviewed by the Times, the agency’s leadership said that the FBI announcements are “still exist.” For this reason, the guidance said, “These meetings will be canceled on a daily basis until more guidance is received.”
In addition to ambiguity, parts of the review panel meetings that were open to the public were closed once in favor of transparency, according to the guidance. As a result, the audit boards were unanimously canceled due to the lack of advertisement for the members of the public who were prevented from attending anyway.
Dr. Berg said: “It is something Cavakaki.”
Stopping the review panel is only one component of a broader withdrawal component in financing biomedical research. The researchers also reported a delay in delivering money and discounts in the new grant awards.
The Trump administration has sought to reduce tax dollars allocated to public research costs such as laboratory maintenance, a plan that is still in place of the temporary judge order.
What increases the difficulties in the national health institutes, an estimated 1,200 employees were rejected as part of Mr. Trump’s plan to reduce the federal workforce. Former agency officials said that these workers are particularly harmful to the agency parts, such as grant management staff, which are frequently shift and thus depend on the test staff.
The scientists said that the national health institutes around the clock to spend their funding for Congress: that is, money that was not issued by the end of the federal government in September can be lost.
Grant review panels generally meet only several times a year, which exacerbates the effect of recent delays. The researchers said that if the proposals remain frozen for a long time enough, then the next stage of checking and staying will be suspended for half a year.
“This crisis – and I do not exaggerate by describing it as a crisis – has already consumed a single financing course,” said Carroll Labon, a biologist at the Northwestern University Stem Cells. “But if this mass continues to publish in the record for a long time, it will swallow two funding sessions, and this will lead to many laboratories from work.”
Jeremy Singer The reports contributed.