Trump administration health research cuts total $1.8 billion, analysis finds
By Nancy Lapid
(Reuters) -In a roughly five-week period this year, the U.S. National Institutes of Health terminated $1.81 billion in medical research funding, according to a new analysis.
Between February 28 and April 8, the NIH canceled 694 grants in response to the Trump administration's policy shifts and its efforts to shrink the federal budget, the authors of the analysis published on Thursday in JAMA found.
That number included 128 grants administered by the National Institute of Mental Health and 77 administered by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities.
The terminated funding was highest for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at nearly $506 million.
Cuts at the minority health agency totaling nearly $224 million accounted for nearly one-third of its previously active funding.
Last month, researchers sued to secure reinstatement of NIH grants that funded research on topics like LGBTQ health, COVID-19 and vaccine hesitancy that were canceled as part of an "ideological purge."
One termination letter from the NIH seen by Reuters in mid-March told researchers their study investigating changes in gene functions in different populations was 'incompatible with agency priorities and no modification... could align the project with agency priorities.'
Across 210 recipient institutions, Columbia University saw the highest number of terminated grants, at 157, according to the new report. The Trump administration has been at odds with Columbia over what it has said was antisemitic harassment, as well as pro-Palestinian protests, around the school's New York City campus.
Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, Emory University, University of Michigan, Northwestern University, University of California San Francisco and University of Miami each had between 12 and 19 grants terminated.
Larger-than-average grants were also more likely to be terminated, the analysis suggested.
Although most of the terminated grants were funding research projects, 20% were funding researchers' training or career development.
Next year, the White House wants to reduce U.S. health spending by more than 25%. The Trump administration last week proposed to cut the NIH budget by $18 billion, leaving it with $27 billion.
The authors of the analysis used the Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System database to identify all grants awarded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that were terminated since the start of the current Trump administration in January. The NIH falls under HHS purview.
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