When President Trump took office in January, he hit the Government Department of EffectivenessKnown as Doge, to reduce the federal government. THE National Health InstitutesThe largest biomedical research fund in the world has since dismissed 1,300 employees and canceled more than $ 2 billion in federal research grants.
Dr. Francis Collins, who directed the agency for 12 years under three administrations, says that Aggressive workforce reduction could have an impact on the health of Americans for future generations.
“When you talk about medical research, when you talk about people’s lives, when you talk about clinical trials for Alzheimer’s disease or cancer that can take three or four years, you can’t just enter and decide:” I will close them and maybe I will try something else. “These are the lives of people in danger,” said Collins.
According to NIH employees, work on children’s cancer therapies, dementia and strokes have slowed down or stopped because the critical laboratory and support staff have been released.
Nih the biggest supporter of biomedical research in the world
NIH is a massive agency with a budget of $ 47 billion. The agency is made up of 27 institutes and centers and is on a 300 acres campus in Bethesda, Maryland. As the largest funder for the world of biomedical research, the NIH has contributed to massive biomedical breakthroughs.
According to Dr. Collins, deaths by heart disease is down 75% in the past 40 years due to the NIH. The agency is also the source of antiretrovirals which treat HIV and AIDS and treatments for strokes.
“Each dollar that NIH gave in 2024 to a subsidy is estimated at $ 2.46 just in a year. It is a hell of a good return on investment,” said Collins.
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A study by 2023 Journal of the American Medical Association revealed that 99% of drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration between 2010 and 2019 had links with research or work funded by the NIH.
More than 80% of the NIH budget goes to universities and research institutes outside the NIH, said Collins.
“They are the ones who do the work, but they get the NIH funds by writing very convincing subsidy requests that go through the most rigorous peer exam system,” said Collins.
What happened at the NIH after President Trump’s return to the White House
In the weeks following the inauguration, the Trump administration quickly decided to reduce federal spending. In NIH, Dr. Collins said that workers had been invited not to start new projects and that the possibility of ordering supplies had been temporarily cut.
“But then they put a limit of $ 1 to what you could order. There is not much that you can order for $ 1,” said Collins.
The NIH initiates told 60 minutes that even after a freezing of six -week expenses at the agency, certain shelves and refrigerators that have held supplies for trials and patients remained empty because a large part of the staff who bought these supplies was dismissed.
Some agency workers, including a doctor who asked to remain anonymous, fear losing their jobs if they were talking.
“You cannot manage an organization as complicated as NIHs without a support system. Doctors and nurses and scientists cannot work without many other resources,” said the NIH initiate. “They need an entire support infrastructure. And this has now been decimated.”
Morale at NIH fell from February, when more than 1,000 probationary employees were on leave, said NIH employee. Immediately after that, workers started trying to assess the damage and determine if they could always take care of patients and research participants.
“It didn’t come from inside the NIH, he came from outside, they don’t know what these people do,” said the NIH worker.
Some of the licensed employees have been brought back. Others are still paid, but are not allowed to work.
Earlier this month, a Trump administration plan to reduce the NIH budget by more than 40% – or 20 billion dollars – was disclosed to the press. The preliminary budget has sent shock waves through NIH and the wider scientific community that is based on NIH to finance research.
This is the biggest budget proposed by an administration at NIH, but not the first. More recently, the presidents GW Bush and Obama have made small cuts to the agency.
Dr Jay BhattacharyaA former Stanford professor whose research focused on the economy of health care and who opposed large locking and mandates during the pandemic, was confirmed as the new director of the NIH at the end of last month. He refused a 60 -minute request for an interview, but during his confirmation hearing of the Senate, described his vision of the NIH.
Andrew Harnik / Getty images 
“If this is confirmed, I will put the agenda of President Trump and secretary Kennedy to commit the NIH to meet the country’s disastrous health needs of the country with a science and a innovation of Gold Standard,” he said during the hearing.
One way that the NIH will realize that the agenda, says Bhattacharya, is to create a complete new database to study chronic diseases. The NIH will also be, in response to a request from the United States Secretary of the Ministry of Health and Social Services, Robert F. Kennedy, invests $ 50 million to study autism, a subject that Kennedy has faced with scientists for years.
“Scientific progress on this subject has been slow because scientists are frankly afraid of asking the question,” said Bhattacharya at a press conference. “The objective of my leadership, the NIH will ensure that these questions are no longer taboo among scientists.”
He recently told agency advisers that he worked hard to cancel some of the recent “disturbances” at NIH. He described the proposal to reduce the agency’s budget by more than 40% “the start of a negotiation”.
The discharge budget project includes plans consolidate institutes and centers in eight and eliminate four others.
Potential “brain leak”
The doctoral candidate of the University of Washington, Kristin Weinstein, lives in Seattle with her husband and her 10 month old son. She has studied cancer and autoimmunity in the past 10 years and hoped to continue her research in the United States after obtaining the diploma. But now Weinstein and his family plan to leave the United States
“It is in some ways dark,” said Weinstein. “At the national level, there is a job freeze in almost all major academic universities.”
She is not alone; a nature investigation Out of 1,600 scientists have found that 75% plan to leave the United States to work internationally. Australia, Europe and China have already strengthened recruitment efforts in the hope of capitalizing on the potential brain flight.
Researchers have touched in the United States
Confusion to the NIH has paralyzed many of the 2,500 universities and institutes that count on the NIH to finance their research.
Scientists say that projects on HIV and AIDS, trans health and research linked to the COVID-19 have been interrupted after the researchers were informed that their work “no longer accompanies the agency’s priorities”.
Last week, the NIH pointed out that more cuts could arrive, announcing that any university that has a program for or boycott an Israeli company may not have new NIH grants and could finish existing subsidies.
Beth Humphrey, a 68-year-old grandmother, received a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s last year. She joined a study funded by the NIH led by Duke University and the University of North Carolina.
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“It made me feel a little more independent against the disease,” she said. “It is sort of my way of response.”
But now this study could be in danger. In an effort to reduce waste, the Trump administration wishes to limit the amount of higher education institutions of grant can use for “indirect costs” or general costs, which include elements such as administrative expenses and installations. Critics say that indirect costs are melting snow for universities. But universities say that funds are crucial, used to pay installations such as brains and workers who watch them.
Universities warn that the proposed reduction will cost them billions of dollars and will have a “terrible impact” on “vital” tests and research. Twenty-two states, including North Carolina, dispute the proposed policy in court. For the moment, the NIH reviews leave some patients like Humphrey concerned.
“When this hope of possible treatment is removed, you only find yourself the disease,” said Humphrey. “And there must really be hope.”
