The Trump administration stops scientific research despite a court decision

The Trump administration has blocked key parts of the federal government apparatus to finance biomedical research, effectively stopping the progress of the country in the field of diseases such as cancer and addiction, despite the order of the federal judge to release money.

Blocking, presented in internal government notes, results from the order forbidding health officials of public notification of upcoming meetings of the subsidy review. These notifications are unclear, but the necessary COG in grant machines, which provides about $ 47 billion a year for research on Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease and other ailments.

Procedural arrest, which emails from NIH officials described as indefinite, had far-reaching consequences. This week, the results of the subsidy review panels have been canceled, creating a gap in financing from the National Institutes of Health. Together with other falls and proposed changes in NIH financing at the beginning of the Trump administration, delays deepened what scientists call the crisis in American biomedical research.

Columbia University Medical School has Stopped employment and expenses In response to financing shortages. Massachusetts Institute of Technology freeze unfaculty employees. Vanderbilt University is re -evaluation Admission of students. And the laboratory leaders said in interviews that they are considering, and in some cases they are decreasing to granting the applications for a subsidy.

In the case of Nih, the world’s largest public biomedical research funds in the world, a ban on announcement of meetings with a review of subsidies has successfully stopped checking and approving future research projects. Government advisers and scientists said that this was an effort to circumvent the fleeting order of the federal judge that the White House ceased to block the exemption of billions of dollars in federal subsidies and loans in the entire Trump administration.

“The fresh administration, both in wide strokes, and in a rather bureaucratic manner of facilities, stopped the processes in which Nih finances biomedical research in the country,” said Vaughn Cooper, a microbiologist at the University of Pittsburgh.

He planned to study urinary tract infections in people with long -term catheters, a project that expert reviewers gave a favorable result in the initial verification four months ago. But a higher -level review meeting in order to develop his research and other proposals has now been canceled, suspended his works.

An official Nih wrote We -Mail on February 7, reviewed by the Recent York Times that the ban on meeting meetings with the subsidy review was “for an indefinite period” and “comes from the level of HHS”, reference to the Health and Social Services Department, which is currently managed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The division in the subsidy review process seemed to reflect the broader strategy of the Trump administration consisting in the employ of gaps in order to effectively maintain huge restrictions of the president’s expenditure, despite court orders to keep taxpayers’ dollars.

Nih officials and the Department of Health and Social Welfare did not answer the requests for comment on Friday.

The fall of the subsidy can cause additional shocks in Nih, which helps to drive the pharmaceutical and biotechnological industry with expenses and generates tens of billions of dollars in an additional annual business activity each year.

In the internal e -Mail slow Friday morning, Dr. Matthew Memoli, who was the director of the agency, warned employees against “further changes” and said that “he would have many opportunities to demonstrate our value to secretary Kennedy in the coming weeks and months.”

In the case of American research laboratories, which in many cases pay their employees with NIH grants, funding falls can quickly force scientists to dismantle infrastructure and workforce, which support the lines of experiments.

Katie Witkiewicz, who studies the treatment of disorders related to the employ of substances at the University of Recent Mexico, said that the expected gaps in financing already meant that in the coming months she would have to abandon one employee.

“Nih seems to be frozen,” she said. “People in the field of work will be the first, and devastation can happen with a delay in financing.”

The detention has affected almost every area of ​​science. Only this week Nih has planned about 47 meetings for careful experts in various fields, to weigh applications for grants, the first stage of the long review process. But 42 of these meetings were canceled, stopping proposals for examining pancreatic cancer, addiction, brain injuries and children’s health.

Higher level review panels responsible for deciding whether to recommend projects have also been canceled in recent weeks. Under 1972 LawNo type of review of the review can take place without an announcement in the federal register, government publication. Such notifications that usually have to be published at least 15 days earlier, have has not been published In the register from January 21, the day after the inauguration of President Trump.

In news to scientists who serve in review panels, which were checked by The Times, Nih officials said that notifications about the federal register have ceased to be updated. All meetings not announced in the register, they said, were canceled. (It seems that some meetings went forward because they were announced in the federal register before the Trump Administration Office).

“It happens that they basically block the process, only with the support of an administrative, legal measure, and not ordering the staff not to grant a subsidy,” said Jeremy Berg, who directed the National Institute of General Medical Sciences in Nih for Nih for eight years and is working now and he works now as a scientist and data administrator at the University of Pittsburgh.

January 21, among the wider efforts of the Trump administration Communication clamp From the federal health agencies Dr. Dorothy Fink, then secretary HHS, sent employees not to send any advertisement to the federal register “until he was checked and approved by the appointment”, in accordance with the note checked by The Times.

Parts of the communication pause ultimately seemed to be raised. But notifications about the meeting for the federal register remained frozen.

In the internal guidelines for Nih employees published on February 10, which was checked by The Times, the agency management stated that the federal meetings “are still suspended”. For this reason, the guidelines said: “These meetings will be canceled on a daily basis until further guidelines are received.”

According to the tips raising the confusion of part of the meetings of the review panel, which were once open to the public in the interest of transparency. As a result, the review panels were massively canceled due to the lack of an announcement of their members of society, who could not attend.

“This is happening Kafkaesque,” said Dr. Berg.

Closing the review panel is only one element of seemingly broader withdrawal of biomedical research financing. Scientists also reported delays in providing money and reducing fresh grant awards.

The Trump administration tried to reduce tax dollars for general costs, such as maintenance of a laboratory, a plan that remains suspended in accordance with the fleeting ordinance of the federal judge.

By combining difficulties in Nih, about 1,200 employees were dismissed as part of Mr. Trump’s plan to reduce the federal labor force. The former agency officials said that these exemptions would especially harm the parts of the agency, such as subsidies management staff, which pay more often, and therefore rely on trial workers.

Scientists say that Nih is on the watch to spend his congress -allied financing: all money not published until the end of the tax year of the Federal Government.

And subsidies review panels usually meet only a few times a year, deteriorating the effect of recent delays. Researchers said that the proposals would remain frozen long enough, they could miss the next stage of verification and stay for half a year.

“This crisis – and I do not exaggerate, calling it a crisis – he already consumed one financing cycle,” said Carole Labonne, a biologist of stem cells at Northwestern University. “But if this block to publish in the register lasts much longer, it swallows two financial cycles, and this will cause that many business laboratories.”

Jeremy Singer-Vine reporting brought.