Research & Developments is a blog for brief updates that provide context for the flurry of news regarding law and policy changes that impact science and scientists today.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world’s largest funder of biomedical research, announced a policy on 1 May banning scientists from directing its funding to international research partners, according to Nature.
A statement from NIH said the agency would not halt foreign subawards—funding that U.S. researchers direct to international research partners—from existing grants “at this time,” but that by October, it will not renew or issue foreign subawards. Last year, the NIH issued about 3,700 subawards to foreign institutions.
The new policy may affect critical international health research and research with humanitarian applications, such as projects investigating HIV prevention, malaria treatments, maternal health, and cancer.
“If you can’t clearly justify why you are doing something overseas, as in it can’t possibly be done anywhere else and it benefits the American people, then the project should be closed down,” wrote Matthew J. Memoli, the principal deputy director of the NIH, in an email obtained by Nature.
Coordinated international research on disease outbreaks keeps U.S. residents safe, Francis Collins, former director of the NIH, told Nature: “Disease outbreaks that start anywhere in the world can reach our shores in hours.” Halting international investigations into infectious diseases is “short-sighted and self-defeating,” he said.
The move could also delay clinical trials for new medical therapies, which rely on the participation of many subjects with particular illnesses. For a childhood cancer therapy, for example, “it could take decades to complete a trial if you only enroll children in the U.S.,” E. Anders Kolb, chief executive of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, told the New York Times. “When we collaborate with our international partners, we can finish these trials much more quickly and get the therapies to children as soon as possible.”
The Trump administration has already terminated hundreds of grants from NIH, targeting projects having to do with Covid-19, misinformation, transgender health, and climate change. One prominent environmental health journal, Environmental Health Perspectives, announced last week it would pause accepting new studies for publication amid uncertainty surrounding its NIH funding. The Trump administration’s proposed budget would cut NIH funding by about 40%, or about $18 billion.
“These decisions will have tragic consequences,” Collins told Nature. “More children and adults in low-income countries will now lose their lives because of research that didn’t get done.”
—Grace van Deelen (@gvd.bsky.social), Staff Writer
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