President Trump in medical research

The Trump administration attacked the office, loudly shooting at employees and closing diversity programs. But behind the scenes also brought biomedical research on the edge of the crisis, maintaining a significant part of $ 47 billion, which the United States spends on the pitch each year.

The world’s leading medical laboratories can be found in the United States and rely on subsidies from the National Institutes of Health. The agency stopped checking future cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease and other ailments. Trump’s helpers said that they need time to review the expenses of their predecessors, but it is not clear what they are looking for in Nih or when scholars can expect to receive money again.

In today’s newsletter I will lead you through what happened – and why it matters.

Sophisticated machine

At the end of last month, when Trump’s administration froze government subsidies, the federal judge said that he couldn’t just stop the money that Congress agreed. But spending money on NIH, which awards over 60,000 subsidies a year, is not so straightforward.

This is because recent grants bear a tortured bureaucratic process. The agency must inform the society about meetings of the subsidy review in the federal register, government publication. Then scientists and officials of NIH meet to discuss the suggestions. The problem is that the Trump administration banned these ads “indefinitely”. So recent research projects cannot be approved.

As a result, scientists say that Trump’s administration celebrates the court’s decision. Health officials did not block the research, but by closing the process, they still do not spend a lot of money congress assigned for various research purposes.

The administration also proposed other enormous changes, saying that universities should bear more “indirect costs” of research: maintaining laboratory space, paying support staff. Trump’s helpers say that changes cut administrative bloating and will ponderous down more government money for research.

Laboratories hit the pause

Scientists are panicked, and hundreds of studies are able to, including pancreatic cancer, brain injuries and children’s health. Only last week, Nih canceled 42 of 47 planned meetings to evaluate recent subsidies. Some examples of detained projects:

• Over the years, Steffanie Strathdee from the University of California San Diego has followed drug users to examine overdose, which kill about 100,000 people in the United States each year. Her investigation into HIV infections in this group was ready to start – but suddenly stopped when Nih canceled the meeting of the review panel this month. “Everything is absolutely frozen,” she told me. “He’ll just sit there, hanging into the abyss.”

• Anthony Richardson from the University of Pittsburgh expected the audit panel to weigh a subsidy on his staphylococcal infections in people with diabetes, a disease that affects over one -tenth Americans. It never happened. “I’m not 100 percent sure what their motives are,” he said.

In response to all uncertainty, universities give up. The University of Pittsburgh froze a doctorate in the party. The Columbia University Medical School stopped employment and expenses. Massachusetts Institute of Technology has froze employing employees.

Some laboratory leaders told me that they are planning emergency plans for the fire brigade. Graduates are looking for recent sources of financing.

What next?

It is challenging to say how long the stop will last. The Trump administration did not submit one recent grant meeting to the federal register from the day after taking the office. And even if it has started to add recent, the agency traditionally informs several weeks.

The risk is not only tens of thousands of subsidies of NIH awards each year, but also the American dominance of biomedical research. Nih said that every dollar that the agency spends on research generates more than two dollars of business activity. Dozens of patents follow. According to some means, the United States produces more influential health research than 10 subsequent leading countries together.

Science is developing throughout the country, including in the Red states, in which legislators complained about the proposed changes in indirect costs.

These discoveries often smoked the progress in pharmaceuticals, putting the foundation of drugs and vaccines long before private sponsors see such work that is worth investing.

Even ozempic follows his roots partially to work in Nih on animals. Scientists have found that the toxin from Monster Gila lizards seemed to have special physiological effects, helping to ultimately lead to one of the most profitable and promising drugs in the world.

Scientists say that recent progress, such as these, are at risk.

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