TThe National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States is the largest funder for biomedical research in the world, and its subsidies create the basis of fundamental scientific knowledge on which the main progress of health is built. On February 7, the NIH announcement That this would reduce “indirect expenses” in the financing which it provides to the research subsidies of almost half.
“We were all amazed,” explains Dr. Richard Huganir, professor and president of the Department of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, which is based on NIH grants for his research on therapies for autism and deficiencies intellectuals. “I call it the apocalypse of American science. This will essentially change science as we know it in the United States ”
“We are going to see Knececapp health research,” said Dr. Otis Brawley, professor of oncology and epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Bloomberg School of Public Health. Brawley supervised subsidies at the National Cancer Institute (which is part of the NIH) and received them for his research on cancer.
The reduction in funding entered into force on February 9 and targets indirect costs, which include installations and administration costs.
In an immediate response, 22 states heard The NIH and the American Department of Health and Social Services (which oversees the NIH), calling “illegal” action and saying that it “would devastate critical public health research in universities and research institutions in states -Unis ”.
A few hours later, the Attorney General of Massachusetts made a temporary ban prescription Prevent the NIH from immediately reducing billions of scholarships in the subsidies it emits to scientists and their institutions.
Here is what you need to know about the current financing disorders at NIH.
What is a “indirect cost”?
The NIH grants around $ 30 to $ 35 billion in grants each year to a wide range of research projects related to diseases. He helped finance mRNA technology that finally led to recent COVVI-19 vaccines, for example.
In a February 7 PublishThe agency said that around $ 9 billion in its annual research grant budget were going to indirect costs, which are invoiced by university establishments that receive subsidies. Institutes that receive subsidies at NIH negotiate indirect cost rates, taking into account the quantity they need to pay things like heat, air conditioning and electricity in research facilities. Administrative costs include those required to comply with the legal and regulatory requirements to conduct research. Once a rate agreement is concluded, it applies to all NIH federal subsidies to this institution.
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Indirect costs can vary from almost 30% to 70% of a research grant, according to the institution. Certain non -academic institutes that have fewer resources than university universities tend to have higher indirect rates, from 90% to 100%, says Brawley. In its post X, the NIH says that Harvard billed 69%, Yale 67.5% and Johns Hopkins 63.7% in indirect costs. (The rate of Johns Hopkins recently increased to 55%, Say Brawley and Huganir.) Under its new policy, the NIH would limit indirect costs for all 15%institutions.
Huganir says that indirect costs are essential for modern research. In addition to keeping the lights on in the laboratories, they cover the maintenance and the staffing of scientific equipment and critical resources such as animal facilities, DNA sequencing and imagery.
“Right now, we are developing therapies that could really cure certain forms of intellectual disability for millions of children around the world,” he said. “We are terrified that research will stop.”
Why does NIH reduce the payments of indirect costs?
The NIH did not immediately respond to a request on what caused the change, leading journalists to the agency Accusation of the subsidy policy. However, Elon Musk – stretched by the Trump administration to treat the effectiveness of public spending –called The high percentage of indirect costs that the NIH had supported. “Can you believe that universities with dozens of billions of endowments have reh that was 60% of research as a reward for money for” general costs? ” He wrote on X on February 7.
The 15% ceiling grants subsidies to NIH in accordance with those of private philanthropic agencies that support research. The NIH says that these entities – such as the Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Chan Zuckerberg initiative – are maximum from 10% to 15% of a research grant for indirect costs. But philanthropic foundations and university institutes are not comparable to federal government with regard to science financing, Brawley and Huganir say, because foundations tend to support more targeted and more specific efforts, such as individual teachers or targeted projects.
Who will take over?
So far, it is not clear. In his article on X, Musk suggested that endowments should be part of the solution. But health experts claim that endowments are not a coherent or practical source of financing for general costs, because many objectives or close projects for funds which are legally allocated and cannot be redirected to cover things like Research expenses.
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“No one else can really afford to pay for it,” says Brawley. “What has worked well in the last 50 to 60 years is that the NIH does a lot of fundamental scientific research, asking questions from which people cannot earn money. And societies, including biotechnology, can plunge and take this basic scientific information and make engineering and transform it into things with which you can sell and treat disease. »»
How will the new NIH policy affect research?
Without funding to support indirect costs, a large part of the scientific work which has been a pillar in the American biomedical domain may not occur or take much more time. “The main thing is that we will have much less resources, which obviously means that we will have to deposit people, and research will be slowed down,” explains Hugnir.
Brawley is also concerned about the cancellation effect that these actions will have on young scientists to stay in the field and create new laboratories. “No one wins the Nobel Prize for what they did when they were 50,” he said. “I am concerned about the loss of creativity of young people; This is where all the very good ideas come. »»
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He also notes that although a lot of attention has been focused on major university universities with large grants and deeper financial resources, politics will probably have an even stronger impact on small community hospitals that provide many patients who participate at clinical trials. “People who are treated in clinical trials now for cancer will find many of these trials will close,” he said.
This will affect the pipeline of new treatments for diseases such as cancer. Brawley says drugs approved in the past six months have been tested in trials in the last decade, so funding for research today will slow down the pace of progress and will eventually cause less medication. “I foresee that the number of approved drugs will drop dramatically over the next five to 10 years,” he said.
What will happen to current NIH research grants?
“We have worked all weekend trying to calm the teachers and students and all those who care about future careers in science,” explains Huganir. “We have a lot of committees that approach different aspects of this, and we are trying to find ideas on how we can compensate for the losses we undergo.”
“This can mean putting people and maybe recruitment freezes on new teachers,” he said. “We will have to compensate for the difference thanks to the reduction of costs in one way or another.”
With the temporary ban prescription, NIH beneficiaries have a little time to develop a plan on how they will try to maintain the pace of scientific research with much less support from NIH.
“Perhaps we have to reinvent or restore our complete system for the way we finance science and the way people earn money on science,” says Brawley. “But the way of doing it is not to threaten Friday evening to reduce everyone’s (costs) to 15%.”
In the end, scientists say that the American public will pay a price for drastic financing reductions. “The American people should know that it will have an impact on the health of their families and their children,” said Huganir. “And the economies of communities around these institutions which obtain a lot of funding from NIHs will also be impacted.”