‘Sicker, weaker and less competitive': NIH chief to face Senate questions on budget cuts that threaten Mass.

Boston Globe

a day ago

The hearing comes at a pivotal moment for Bhattacharya and the NIH. On Monday, more than 300 NIH workers signed a letter to him decrying grant cuts, job terminations, and what they described as alarming politicization at an agency with a record of nonpartisan support for scientific research.
The proposed cut, which would reduce the NIH budget to $27.5 billion, would be devastating for science and for Massachusetts' economy, said Bruce Fischl, a Harvard professor and neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital.
'I don't think there's a state in the country that's going to be impacted more than Massachusetts,' Fischl said.
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The
The NIH workers'
An agency spokesperson on Monday described the grant cuts as an effort to remove ideological influence from the work NIH supports. 'We are ending wasteful practices focusing on DEI, gender ideology and focusing on NIH's mission of only impactful science,' according to the budget proposal.
The NIH workers who crafted the letter to Bhattacharya see things differently. 'What we've been asked to do seems illegal,' said Sylvia Chou, an NIH program officer and one of the letter's signers, in an interview Monday. 'It's not just a matter of morality or ethics.'
While it is unclear how such a massive cut would be implemented, Chou said one possibility she has heard discussed was to stop issuing new grants altogether.
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Massachusetts received
NIH grant cuts, which face court challenges, reached $8.7 billion nationally as of Monday, and are still growing. Massachusetts has been particularly hard hit, with $2.4 billion in lost grant money so far this year. That accounts for all but $126 million of the grants affected throughout New England.
'President Trump's NIH cuts will halt research into lifesaving cures for cancer, Alzheimer's, ALS — diseases that impact everybody,' Governor Maura Healey said in a statement Monday. 'The President is making our country sicker, weaker and less competitive."
The grants cut so far have targeted specific topics, such as research that touches on LGBTQ+ issues, or institutions, such as Harvard, which has lost $2.2 billion in NIH funding. As devastating as they have been, their harms pale in comparison to what a 40 percent budget cut would do, Fischl said.
'The 40 percent budget cut would destroy science in America,' Fischl said.
He is unsure whether he would be able to continue his own research that explores how AI could evaluate brain imaging to identify the impacts of conditions like Alzheimer's and evaluate the effectiveness of treatments.
The HHS budget document stated NIH is 'committed to gold-standard science and the restoration of scientific integrity and transparency.'
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That promise is hard to reconcile with the impact of the agency's policies, Fischl said.
'The only thing that's consistent with the pattern of actions that's been taken is the radical downsizing of science in America,' he said.
Chou, the NIH worker, plans to tune in to the Senate hearing, she said. She hopes senators ask about the harms already caused by halted research. She expects Bhattacharya to discuss academic freedom and his dislike of intellectual censorship.
'Those are words that ring hollow right now,' she said. 'I really wish he would commit to listening to us.'
Jason Laughlin can be reached at