SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
national institutes of health
Trump’s Attack on Science Will Leave Us All Sicker
Budget cuts and layoffs at major U.S. public health agencies threaten our health and well-being and will hobble scientific progress and innovation.
Jun 22, 2025
The Trump administration’s evisceration of the federal agencies that protect our health and environment is a full-throttled attack on science that will set our nation back for years, if not decades to come.
The illegal firings of thousands of employees across Health and Human Services’ (HHS) 13 divisions, the freezing of government contracts, attacks on universities, and cuts to billions in research dollars will have profound effects on our health and well-being, economic competitiveness, and standing as a world leader in science.
And the wrecking ball has just begun swinging. HHS is slated to shed 20,000 employees, or one-quarter of its dedicated workforce, and see its budget cut by 26%.
At its worst, the dismantling of federal agencies like the CDC, the NIH, and the Food and Drug Administration is cruelly calculated to hurt those most vulnerable in our society—the poor, the disabled, and the elderly.
A disdain for independent science and expertise is seemingly a root cause of the actions. As Sudip Parikh, chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and executive publisher, Science journals said at this year’s annual meeting in Boston, “Science and engineering and medicine are searches for truth, facts, and objectivity. We live in a time when that seems under threat, and we need to be able to say that.”
To his point, a May 23 Executive Order puts science under the control of politicians by giving presidential appointees broad latitude to police scientific research and conduct and punish alleged violations of its Orwellian “Gold Standard Science.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of HHS, has already acted on the EO by firing the entire advisery committee that helps guide vaccine policy for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Seventeen highly qualified, evidence-based physicians and researchers, many with decades of expertise, are to be replaced with individuals aligned with Kennedy’s anti-vaccination ideology.
The president’s appointment of Kennedy, a lawyer with no scientific training, to lead the HHS is itself an attack on expertise and truth. In four short months, Kennedy has made ill-informed decisions from announcing a change in Covid-19 vaccine policy without notifying the CDC, to offering a Florida sanctuary for Canadian ostriches exposed to bird flu, to ending the development of a vaccine for the H5N1 virus, even as researchers demonstrate its ability to rapidly spread through airborne transmission.
Science is clearly taking a backseat to grandstanding, and the consequences could be deadly.
At its best, the demolition of our public health and research institutions shows an indifference to the pain and suffering that may fall on Americans when the agencies that keep our food safe, water clean, and protect us from deadly diseases are kneecapped. At its worst, the dismantling of federal agencies like the CDC, the NIH, and the Food and Drug Administration is cruelly calculated to hurt those most vulnerable in our society—the poor, the disabled, and the elderly.
Americans are already sicker and die younger in comparison with other wealthy nations, according to a 2024 report by the Commonwealth Fund. Life expectancy is 4.1 years shorter in the U.S. compared with our peer nations, and maternal mortality, for instance, is more than three times higher than in Europe. The Trump administration’s attacks on science and medicine will only worsen these gaps.
Lawsuits challenging the legality of the administration’s executive orders are moving through the court system, but we do not yet know how all of this will play out.
Already the damages are taking a toll, with NIH being especially hard hit. With an annual budget of $47 billion, the NIH is the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research and development. It’s no coincidence that the world’s leading medical labs are located in the U.S., or that our research benefits people across the globe.
The Trump administration plans to cut NIH’s budget by $18 billion, or about 40%, and to consolidate its 27 institutes and centers into just eight. At least 2,100 NIH research grants have been terminated thus far, totaling $9.5 billion.
With at least 1,200 staff laid off all at once, and thousands more voluntarily resigning, the loss of institutional knowledge and medical expertise is staggering. The full extent of the brain drain is unknown because NIH Director Jayanta Bhattacharya has yet to report the total number of staff losses.
One of NIH’s critical roles is to fund the basic science research that underpins development of drugs and therapeutics, long before the private sector takes an interest. Companies take that basic science and further develop and commercialize vaccines, drugs, and therapies that save lives. Funding for the grants that the NIH provides these labs, universities, and institutions has largely been frozen for the past month, as part of the administration’s war on universities, even though a federal judge ordered a release of the money. Billions of biomedical research dollars allocated to Harvard, Cornell, Northwestern, Brown, Columbia, and Princeton are being withheld.
The agency has reportedly stopped vetting future studies on cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and other illnesses and slashed the programs for cancer and Alzheimer’s research.
The Trump administration also cut the overhead rate that NIH pays to research universities to keep the lights on, computers running, and lab equipment maintained from between 40% and 70% to 15%. Such deep cuts will lead to even more layoffs, and research could grind to a halt.
While a U.S. District Court ruled the change was “arbitrary and capricious,” it’s unclear whether the Trump administration will reverse the policy.
Halting research will have profound impacts on the American health system and on our health.
It will disrupt local economies and hurt our overall competitiveness. Every dollar that NIH spends on research generates more than two dollars in economic activity, not to mention the patents and biomedical startups that ensue.
Some U.S. universities are reducing or halting their PhD admissions as a consequence. Doctoral students—our scientific future—are watching their dreams die.
“Many are right now questioning the viability of being a scientist in the U.S. going forward,” Carole Labonne, developmental and stem cell biologist at Northwestern University, said in a PBS interview. We could see a brain drain in the U.S., as young scientists choose a different career path or choose another country in which to build their career.
And NIH is but one federal agency that the Trump administration is taking a chain saw to. Cuts at the Food and Drug Administration could have immediate impacts on our food safety, at a time when food contamination outbreaks are on the rise. Staff with technical expertise in nutrition, infant formula, and food safety response have been cut.
Similarly, at the CDC, staff cuts and contract freezes are coming at a time when the nation is experiencing an H5N1 outbreak in poultry and dairy cattle that may well lead to another pandemic, an unprecedented spread of measles in 33 states, and a tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas. The CDC plays a vital role, working with states and communities to understand where disease is, how to prevent it, and how to react. Simply put, we are losing people on the front lines of keeping people healthy.
Keep ReadingShow Less
6,000+ Health Professionals Warn Trump Attacks 'Will Cost Lives'
"We cannot fill the void that is being created by these reckless and deep cuts, which are tearing apart crucial systems for protecting and promoting Americans' health," states an open letter.
Jun 09, 2025
In a open letter released Monday, over 6,000 doctors, researchers, nurses, and other health professionals issued a rebuke of the Trump administration's cuts to agencies and programs that focus on medical care and public health, as well as efforts by congressional Republicans to cut the health insurance program Medicaid.
"As health professionals on the frontlines, we have dedicated our careers to protecting the health of our patients and improving health in our communities and states," the letter states. "However, we cannot fill the void that is being created by these reckless and deep cuts, which are tearing apart crucial systems for protecting and promoting Americans' health. We are certain this will cost lives."
The U.S. Senate is currently reviewing a sweeping, House-passed reconciliation package that includes deep cuts to Medicaid, tax cuts tilted toward the wealthy, and other items.
"If Medicaid funding decreases, many Americans may go without care and most of the clinics and hospitals across the country will suffer financially. Some will have to close their doors, especially in rural areas," according to the letter.
The group also highlighted Trump administration efforts to carry out cuts at federal agencies tasked with ensuring the country's food, drugs, and environment are safe.
The Trump administration "is slashing funding for medical research and is slowing the approval of new drugs, jeopardizing our ability to provide the best care that science recommends," according to the letter. "Access to lifesaving treatments may be delayed."
The watchdog group Public Citizen published a statement on Monday which included a link to the letter, as well as a quote from Dr. Robert Steinbrook, the Health Research Group director at Public Citizen, who also signed the letter.
"We must continue to sound the alarm about the Trump administration's attacks and threats against our healthcare system," said Steinbrook.
The letter concludes with a plug for readers to challenge these actions by the Trump administration. The letter includes a way for readers to contact their federal lawmakers, and urges them to attend town halls, among other actions.
Also Monday, dozens of scientists, researchers, and other employees at the U.S. National Institutes of Health sent a separate letter addressed to NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya criticizing funding cuts.
"We dissent to administration policies that undermine the NIH mission, waste public resources, and harm the health of Americans and people across the globe," that letter states. It says that NIH has terminated 2,100 research grants tallying some $9.5 billion and $2.6 billion in contracts since January 20.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Disability Advocates, Civil Rights Groups Sound Alarm on RFK's Reported Autism 'Registry'
Advocates still have concerns about Trump administration officials' efforts to study autism, even after the Health and Human Services Department said there will be no autism registry.
May 13, 2025
Dozens of public health, disability rights, and civil rights groups on Monday raised "significant concerns" about a walked-back proposal from the National Institutes of Health—an entity within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services—to create a national autism registry.
Their concern stems from April comments first reported by CBS News from NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, who said during a meeting that NIH intends to create national disease registries, including one for autism. However, HHS later said it is not creating a national registry for people with autism, walking back Bhattacharya's comments.
However, NIH is moving forward with creating a "real-world data platform," which Bhattacharya also discussed during that meeting. The platform will partner with federal health insurance programs and use information from Medicare and Medicaid in order to determine the "root causes" of autism, according to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Kennedy has drawn pushback for his comments about autism in the past, including when he recently cast autism as a "tragedy" and an epidemic that "destroys families."
In a Monday letter addressed to Kennedy, the groups argue that even though HHS has said it is not creating such a registry, "the larger platform's unclear purpose and potential for abuse necessitates that HHS and NIH engage with disability and civil rights advocates and implement fundamental safeguards."
According to New York Times reporting on the database, it "is not clear precisely what kind of research will be conducted."
David Mandell, a professor of psychiatry and longtime autism researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, told the Times it's "the registry without the word 'registry' in it."
"We are creating a tool, and tools can be used for good and for evil," he also said. "I know a lot of researchers—and I like to think of myself as one—who have used this kind of tool for good. And I'm really concerned that that's not what happens."
According to the letter, lack of clarity around what NIH specifically plans to do has led to "immense concern" among autistic people, their families, researchers, and privacy advocates.
"HHS and NIH's failure to engage with autistic people and autistic advocates has exacerbated this lack of clarity," the letter alleges.
Letter signatories include the American Civil Liberties Union, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN), and the Autism Society of America.
The groups outline three steps they say NIH and HHS can take to help establish trust around its proposed platform: "Meaningful communication with autistic people and advocates; fundamental privacy safeguards to prevent misuse and abuse; and ensuring the data platform advances the well-being of autistic people, people with disabilities, and the public health while minimizing potential harms."
The groups wrote that some data collection can enable better understanding of how to meet the needs of people with disabilities, but "disabled people in the United States have a long and troubled history with governmental efforts to find and track disability for the purpose of eliminating it."
"It's no secret that this proposal has created a lot of fear and confusion in the autistic community," said Colin Killick, executive director of ASAN, in a statement on Monday. "We continue to advocate and support research into autism that autistic people want conducted, but it is critical that autistic people's private data not be shared without our consent. We hope the administration answers our questions to shine light on how autistic people and our rights will be protected."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular