The referee extends the block to the cuts of Nih medical tests

On Friday, the federal judge agreed to extend the ordering order of the National Institutes of Health from limiting the financing of subsidies to institutions conducting medical and scientific research until he made a eternal decision.

Judge Angel Kelley from the Federal District Court for the Massachusetts district temporarily blocked the Trump administration cuts before entering this month, and he stopped on Monday. This caused an urgent trial on Friday, in which states and associations representing these institutions encouraged her to stop cuts more permanently.

The rates of the claim were relieved during one part of the Friday hearing, which focused on “irreversible harm”, in which Judge Kelley asked both sides to explain whether the suspension of funds is an irreversible blow to universities and hospitals at all a country that depends on financing.

Nih proposed a reduction in subsidies at about $ 4 billion, which provides “indirect costs”, which he described as contact expenses for things such as objects and administrators, and which, as he said, can be better spent on direct financing of research. The proposal provided for a reduction in financing these indirect costs to a 15 % rate for all institutions that receive funds that a lawyer for the government was consistent with private investments.

But lawyers representing states and research institutions argued to the judge that direct and indirect costs are often related.

One of the lawyers asked Judge Kelley to consider the script of the researcher conducting experiments directly financed from NIH subsidies and an employee getting rid of hazardous medical waste caused by all experiments carried out in this facility.

“It is equally essential for research that both people receive remuneration for their work,” said the lawyer. “Research could not happen without it – but one is classified as a direct cost, one is an intermediate expense.”

The plaintiff lawyers have marked a number of undesirable effects that may result from a break in financing.

They asked the judge to consider the consequences of potential dismissals of highly qualified employees, such as veterinary technicians, who supervise research on animals and hospital nurses. They warned against stopping clinical trials on stopping novel drugs. They claimed that many institutions would not be able to restore employees they lost when experiments and attempts were forced to stop.

Brian Lea, a lawyer representing the government, said on Friday that the wide effects mentioned at the hearing were largely speculative, part of the “non -specific aura of urgency” that the research institutions drum without showing specific damage.

From the universities during the party season, the plaintiff’s lawyers described the cluttered environment in which both schools and doctorate. Applicants would have to assess again whether the projects they plan to implement would be feasible. And they expressed fear of smaller universities, which probably will not be able to fill the unexpected gap left in their budgets.

The plaintiff, even in larger schools with huge Dajki, the promise of financing the government has already influenced huge investments.

They pointed to the $ 200 million neuroscience laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, completed in 2020, for which the university expected to partially pay for financing.

“There will be a hole in the research budget in Caltech, and actually huge,” said the lawyer.

The plaintiff’s lawyers stated that other groups not related to a lawsuit, such as associations of dental and nursing schools, also invested in the result, fearing disturbances of their own operations.

“Are you ready to agree that the plaintiff will suffer damage?” Judge Kelley asked a government lawyer after hearing a long list of examples sent by posing groups.

“Not irreversible,” Lea replied.

He said that the government and associations posing the government had other ways of recovering lost funds, such as suing under Tucker actwhich allows groups to sue the government in contract claims. He added that the 15 -percent limit was in line with what private foundations, such as the Gates Foundation, often agree.

Earlier, Mr. Lea repeated the governmental claim that the reduction of “intermediate funds” in the case of costs such as buildings, media and auxiliary staff in the amount of 15 percent was simply designed to snail-paced down more money that should be assigned directly to scientists.

“At the beginning I want to clearly determine one thing: this does not limit the financing of subsidies,” he said. “It’s about changing slices of cake, which falls straight at its own discretion.”

Lawyers posing that they stopped the cuts said that the reduction of indirect funds at 15 percent around the world was arbitrary, is a standard for the agency’s complex decisions. They argued that institutions of different sizes have naturally different needs during negotiations with the government, and forcing everyone to adapt to the 15 % maximum was unjustified.

“Many of them are driven by scale economy, right?” One of the lawyers said. “The larger the institution, the larger the building, the more you can accommodate many projects in this one building – which will change the indicator of direct costs or indirect costs,” she said.