Trump limits cancer, diabetes and pediatric examinations in Colombia

Cancer researchers examining the operate of artificial intelligence to detect early signs of breast cancer. Pediatricians follow the long -term health of children born for mothers infected with coronavirus during pregnancy. Scientists looking for connections between diabetes and dementia.

All these projects at Columbia University were paid for federal research grants, which were suddenly resolved after the Trump administration decision to limit the financing of $ 400 million in Colombia due to fears of treating Jewish students.

Dozens of medical and scientific research They end or endangered by ending, leaving scientists trying to find alternative financing. In some cases, scientists have already started to inform about the study that the research is suspended.

“To be forthright, I wanted to cry,” said Kathleen Graham, a 56-year-old nurse in Bronx, after finding out that the diabetes examination in which she participated for a quarter of a century ended.

At the Medical School in Colombia, doctors said they were shocked when they received a notification that their financing was resolved. Some expressed their resignation, while others were looking for Stopgap and asked if the university can finance some project employees in a miniature period, according to interviews with five doctors or professors who were affected.

“The most direct need is to fill in in a miniature period and determine what are long -term plans,” said Dr. Dawn Hershman, the short-lived head of Division of Hematology and Oncology at Columbia’s Medical School. “This is what is being developed.”

About $ 250 million from $ 400 million In the cuts imposed this month it included financing from the National Institutes of Health. Each year, Nih distributes billions of dollars to finance research into universities for biomedical and behavioral research. These subsidies are the main driving force of medical progress – and for many scientists and medical researchers, successful careers.

In the interviews of several Columbia researchers, who received notifications about the cancellation of the grant over the past one and a half of the week, stated that they assumed that their canceled subsidies were part of $ 400 million cuts, which were announced by the Trump administration. But they said that they were not able to know yet – the reflection of chaos and uncertainty is absorbed by laboratories and clinics throughout the country.

Last year, Columbia became the epicenter of the National Protesting Movement against the war in Gaza. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators founded a camps on a campus and occupied a university building. Some Jewish near the campus or they were stricled. The President of the University asked the Police Department to clarify the demonstrators, and later gave up the fury about its divided campus.

The Trump’s administration blamed Columbia University, saying that it did not do enough. Recalling the federal anti -discrimination law, it confined research funds to Columbia.

In addition to limiting research subsidies, the Trump administration removed funds for clinical scholarships for early career doctors who developed a specialty in oncology and several other fields. Dr. Hershman said that other subsidies eliminated money to employ research nurses and other support employees needed for clinical trials.

Sudden, deep cuts seem extremely occasional, If not unprecedented. Some legal students say that administration tactics may violate the first amendment and that the government seems to ignore the procedures and restrictions specified in the same anti -discrimination provision. Since the announcement of cuts, the Trump administration has demanded that Colombia make dramatic changes in the student discipline and put the academic department in the case of negotiations “regarding further financial relations of the University of Columbia with the United States government”, in accordance with the letter sent on Thursday by federal officials.

The cuts will be felt immediately by scientists and doctors, many of whom work mainly at Columbia’s Medical School and an associated hospital, Newyork-Presbyterian/Columbia, about 50 blocks north of the main campus of Colombia.

In interviews, they expressed shock and sadness that their research projects were so suddenly cut off. Dr. Olajide A. Williams, a neurologist and professor at Columbia’s Medical School, had two subsidies that were completed this month.

His research often focuses on health differences and their narrowing.

One of the subsidies was the study of factors that led to better recovery of stroke in patients with impoverished and socially adverse. Another subsidy examined how to escalate colorectal cancer tests – which is growing among younger adults – throughout Fresh York.

“Sitting here, trying to do this work, I really believe that it has committed evil with more inappropriate frays, fabric of justice,” said Dr. Williams. “The fight against the horrors of anti -Semitism by punishing the nobility of health differences creates a series of injustice that causes pain from all sides.”

He said he was stunned.

“At the moment I am sitting in this pain, trying to move around the reality of what just happened to my subsidy portfolio,” he said.

According to the National Institutes of Health, over 400 subsidies at Columbia University have been completed. Some subsidies cancellation will be felt far outside Colombia. Vast -scale research may include researchers at several universities, but for administrative ease the subsidy is associated with one university. As a result, the cutting threatened some research projects involving many universities.

Last week, Dr. David M. Nathan, Professor Harvard Medical School, learned that funds were confined for the Diabetes research project – after a group of 1700 people for over 25 years.

“Financing flows through Colombia, which is why we were defenseless,” said Dr. Nathan. “When Nih or anyone made this decision, they decided to direct Colombia’s funds, we were somewhat swept away.”

This research project has grown from a breakthrough study, which showed the effectiveness of lifestyle intervention and drug metformin with a reduction of type 2 diabetes. These discoveries were published in 2001. Dr Nathan and others followed the same participants in the next quarter of a century. The latest phase, which was financed by Colombia, searched the connections between diabetes and dementia.

Mrs. Graham, a nurse in Bronx, said that as part of this study she recently underwent tests and analyzed her gait in terms of early signs of all neurological problems. She said that for years she was proud of helping data emphasizing the advice she and other doctors give patients with diabetes.

Dr. Nathan said that the last phase is two years in a five -year study.

“It is also a colossal waste,” he said. “We haven’t collected all the data we were hoping to collect.”

Dr. Jordan Orange, who manages the pediatric department at Columbia’s Medical School, said one project that lost its financing, included the search for a spraying that would be Block the virus input and reduce infections.

“How wonderful would it be if we had a nose spray that could block viruses?” Dr. Orange said.

According to Lucky Tran, spokesman for the Columbia University Medical Center, other canceled studies include one focusing on the reduction of mothers’ mortality in Fresh York, and the other on the treatment of chronic diseases, including Long Covid.

Last week, scientists tried to catalog which research lost funds and which projects survived. “We are still trying to come up with all subsidies,” said Dr. Hershman.