NIH funding freeze stalls applications on $1.5 billion in medical research funds

Old_Joe

Following are excerpts from a current NPR report:

The National Institutes of Health has stopped considering new grant applications, delaying decisions about how to spend millions of dollars on research into diseases ranging from heart disease and cancer to Alzheimer's and allergies.

The freeze occurred because the Trump administration has blocked the NIH from posting any new notices in the Federal Register, which is required before many federal meetings can be held. While that may seem arcane, the stoppage forced the agency to cancel meetings to review thousands of grant applications, according to two people familiar with the situation, one of whom was not authorized to speak publicly and the other who feared retribution.

Already, the meeting freeze has stalled about 16,000 grant applications vying for around $1.5 billion in NIH funding, one of the people who is familiar with the grant-making process said. Officials at the NIH hope to get the freeze on Federal Register notices lifted soon to avoid a severe funding disruption. With an annual budget of nearly $48 billion, the NIH is the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world.

Some outside observers defended the situation.

"A temporary pause in publicizing or funding new grants in order to review them is typical for a new administration," Judge Glock, director of research and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, wrote in an email to NPR. Soon after Trump was inaugurated, the federal government froze all grants, including NIH grants. But that freeze was temporarily blocked by a federal judge.

Some researchers suspect the NIH's Federal Register freeze is an attempt to circumvent that ruling. Other observers dispute that interpretation. Even some of the NIH's biggest supporters believe the agency could benefit from changes, such as making the grant-making process more transparent. But some observers say the Trump administration's approach so far has been indiscriminate and counterproductive.

The NIH has been hit with cuts to its workforce, losing about 1,200 people so far. At the same time, the Trump administration is trying to cap the rate at which the NIH pays for the indirect costs of doing medical research at 15%, which is far lower than the rate that has been paid at many institutions. Scientists say it could cripple medical research. A federal judge in Boston is deciding whether the cap can go forward.

Many scientists fear the moves are just the beginning of what could eventually lead to a restructuring of the NIH. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who now leads HHS, which oversees the NIH, has said it needs major reforms.

In addition, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the Stanford University researcher President Trump has nominated to be director of the NIH, has also criticized the agency. Some Republican members of Congress and conservative think tanks have proposed major changes to the NIH, including sending most of the agency's $48 billion directly to states through block grants.