The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has drastically reduced its health research funding activities due to pressure from the Trump administration, despite federal judges ordering the restoration of these funds. HHS officials have been instructing NIH staff to disregard these court orders, and an acting director has ignored legal guidance to resume funding. As a result, many NIH institutes have stalled grant approvals as employees fear retribution from following the legal orders, highlighting a conflict between scientific integrity and political pressure in funding operations.
The agency has been doing very little of that, despite multiple separate orders from multiple federal judges blocking the Trump administration's freeze on federal funding.
Even advice from NIH lawyers to resume business as usual was dismissed by the agency's acting director, those officials said.
Grant-management officers, who sign their name to awards, are too afraid, the official said, that violating the president's wishes will mean losing their livelihood.
The lights at the NIH are on; staff are at their desks. But...the agency has issued only a fraction of its usual awards.
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