In the early days of United States President Donald Trump’s second term, a directive to pause all public communications from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institute of Health’s parent organization, caused widespread confusion within the U.S. scientific community. Adding to the worries of the scientific community, the administration removed NIH webpages on diversity programs and diversity-related grant funding.
The HHS directive halted key operations at NIH, the world’s largest biomedical funder, such as research grant review panels, travel for scientists inside and outside the NIH, and the publication of guidance documents and regulations, until Feb. 1. According to an NIH spokesperson, the “short pause” on “mass communications and public appearances,” was intended to give time for “the new team to set up a process for review and prioritization.”
Although it’s common for new administrations to pause U.S. agencies’ external communications when they take office, the Trump team enacting an almost two-week-long pause is not business as usual. “Although a short, daylong pause in communications at U.S. agencies has occurred in the past when new administrations have started to reorient strategy, the reach and length of the Trump team’s,” reported Nature, “is unprecedented.”
Even though the executive branch has limited authority to enact drastic changes at U.S. agencies without congressional approval, the unprecedented pause significantly concerned the research community. Carole LaBonne, a Northwestern University developmental biologist whose research has received NIH funding for over 20 years, told Nature that she’s “never seen anything like this before” and that the pause will be “devastating for the scientific community.”
Another member of the research community noted online, “Such grants fund the work/salaries of 300k people at more than 2,500 institutions.”
Generally, the NIH rewards grant funding only after conducting two independent review panels, known as “study sections” or “advisory councils,” of a proposed research project. Although some online have argued that it’s unclear whether grant-review panels fall under the definition of public communications, social media reports started to emerge on Wednesday, Jan. 22, that the Trump team was using the public communications freeze to cancel long-standing advisory committee meetings designed to allocate the agency’s $47-billion budget to fund research, including grant reviews that involved dozens of researchers and had been scheduled a year ago.
In addition, the independent review panel cancelations were issued without any indication of when they would be rescheduled. Because of the complexity of scheduling NIH advisory councils, it will take time to reschedule the canceled meetings, possibly causing a domino effect of cancellations. Notably, this could impact the American economy, with the uncertainty of securing NIH funding in a reasonable time leading to researchers being “laid off or forced to seek employment elsewhere,” LaBonne told Nature, adding that these delays may be particularly hard on early career researchers because they “can mean missing research milestones and jeopardize hiring, promotion and tenure decisions.”
“One of these review panels concerned cancer research,” researcher Gregory Ducker tweeted. “I’m on a study section to review cancer grants but received this email today: NIH has paused all communication, as directed by the new administration, and that apparently includes a pause for all study section meetings.”
Online, people interpreted the Trump team’s public communication pause as effectively halting all cancer research funding in the U.S. “Trump has ordered the National Institutes of Health to cancel their review panels on cancer research,” wrote political commentator and podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen on X (formerly known as Twitter), adding that a senior NIH employee had commented that “the impact of [Trump’s] collective executive orders appears devastating.”
In response to the NIH employee’s statement, an X commentator questioned their wishy-washy sentiment, writing, “Appears devastating. It IS devastating.”
For the reasons stated by LaBonne, even a delay in NIH advisory council meetings puts life-saving cancer research at risk. “Lives depend on timely funding and progress,” commented a person online. “Decentralized science can ensure research continues, free from political interference.”
Other people online echoed similar sentiments about cancer research. One person on X shared a personal story about their wife surviving cancer, posting, “This is some sick shit. My wife just underwent a massive surgery to remove a 10-pound tumor from her abdomen. We were living in hell for an entire month, waiting to find out if it was cancerous. Thankfully, thanks to advancements in science and cancer research, we learned just minutes after the tumor was removed that it wasn’t cancerous. We owe this relief to science and research!”
On Monday, Jan. 27, NBC News obtained a copy of an email from the NIH’s acting director, Dr. Matthew Memoli, clarifying the scope of the Trump administration’s communications “pause” in the wake of widespread confusion of NIH staffers, who were concerned about their continued ability to see patients currently involved in clinical trials at the agency. “Clinical trials at NIH or NIH-funded institutions are ongoing,” wrote Dr. Memoli. “Research participants can continue to participate in clinical trials at the NIH Clinical Center and NIH-funded facilities.”
In fin, the best response to the diabolical debacle in my opinion was:
Published: Feb 4, 2025 04:16 pm