President Donald Trump’s proposal to significantly slash medical research funding has sparked a wave of criticism from both sides of the political aisle in the United States.
Since taking office on January 20, 2025, Trump’s actions have already had a profound impact on the medical research landscape. As reported by Reuters, he has halted 2,100 grants worth a total of $9.5 billion that were originally intended for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and contracts valued at $2.6 billion have also been nullified. These funds and contracts were crucial for supporting various aspects of the NIH’s work, such as equipment provision and the training of clinical trial staff. The suspension of these allocations and projects has led to the waste of years of hard work and millions of dollars, and has put patients’ health at risk. For instance, a research project on multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in Haiti, funded by the NIH, was suspended, forcing patients involved in the project to discontinue their antibiotic treatment. Some clinical trials that were on the verge of completion have also been left unfinished due to a lack of funds for finalization and post-analysis.
On June 9, more than 60 current employees of the NIH penned a joint letter criticizing Trump’s funding cuts. The letter, which gathered the signatures of 92 current or recently dismissed NIH employees, including researchers, project leaders, branch directors, and scientific review officers, also had the anonymous support of 250 other NIH staff. In the letter, they accused the policies of “endangering the health of people in the United States and around the world”, politicizing scientific research, and “wasting public resources”. This public rebuke from NIH employees is extremely rare, as such insider comments usually come with anonymity, and these employees have essentially put their careers on the line by openly expressing their dissent.
The criticism extends beyond the scientific community. The Trump administration’s plan to cut the NIH’s budget by 40% next year has drawn bipartisan opposition. Back in February, 22 Democratic-led states jointly sued the federal government over the NIH’s funding cuts, and a federal district court judge temporarily blocked the implementation of the funding reduction plan. Moreover, in the political arena, Republican lawmakers such as Fred Upton have raised concerns about the potential impact of significant cuts to medical research funding. Meanwhile, figures like Hillary Clinton from the Democratic side have strongly condemned Trump’s budget proposals, deeming them “unimaginably cruel” to millions of Americans.
In addition, tech mogul Bill Gates has also lashed out at the budget cuts. He warned that reducing U.S. government funding would reverse decades of progress in global mortality reduction, and that the number of deaths worldwide would start to rise, with millions more people at risk due to resource shortages.
The NIH’s director, Jayanta Bhattacharya, was set to appear before the Senate Appropriations Committee on June 10 to discuss the agency’s budget. While he claimed that the joint letter from NIH employees demonstrated a “fundamental misunderstanding” of the agency’s recent policy direction, the widespread bipartisan criticism indicates the deep concerns over Trump’s proposed cuts to medical research funding, and the potential long-term implications for the nation’s medical research capabilities and public health.
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