And So It Begins: Trump shuts down ALL NIH funding & research

via Stat:

A flurry of scientific gatherings and panels across federal science agencies were canceled on Wednesday, at a time of heightened sensitivity about how the Trump administration will shift the agencies’ policies and day-to-day affairs. 

Several meetings of National Institutes of Health study sections, which review applications for fellowships and grants, were canceled without being rescheduled, according to agency notices reviewed by STAT. A Feb. 20-21 meeting of the National Vaccine Advisory Committee, a panel that advises the leadership of the Department of Health and Human Services on vaccine policy, was also canceled. So was a meeting of the Presidential Advisory Council for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria that was scheduled for Jan. 28 and 29.

The scope of the cancellations was unclear. It was also unclear whether they were related to the Trump administration’s freeze on external communications until Feb. 1.

“Peer review via study sections is required by law in order for the NIH to disburse most of the $40 billion annual extramural budget,” said Norman E. Sharpless, a former director of the National Cancer Institute, part of the NIH. “If study sections and advisory council meetings are postponed for more than even a brief period, this will likely lead to interruptions in grant funding, which is bad for U.S. biomedical research.”

Via Cynthia Cox, KFF Vice President of Health Policy Research:

And this applies to all federal grants and contracts, not just NIH.

“The head of each agency shall include in every contract or grant award a term requiring such counterparty …to certify that it does not operate any programs promoting DEI that violate any applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws”

So this could mean universities, consulting firms, defense contractors, tech companies, etc, have to review their DEI policies to keep federal government grants and contracts

Via Sam Wang, Professor of Neuroscience at Princeton University:

NIH funding supports the vast majority of all biomedical research in the United States. Virtually every advance in American medicine and biological science comes from NIH. This is a blow against American science.

Call Congress, 202-224-3121.

Almost every American university and college that does substantial biology research is able to do so because of federal support. Hundreds of faculty, postdocs, and students at my university alone. I cannot stress enough the damage this will do to people, and to US supremacy in research.

Via Katie Mack, Hawking chair in Cosmology & Science Communication at the Perimeter Institute:

Devastating for scientists and their research, and everyone who benefits from that research.

I’m not sure if everyone outside academia is aware that a delay or “pause” in grant funding often means the researchers themselves are lost from the field, along with their expertise.

Grim times.