Judge orders block on Trump's NIH funding cuts
US District Judge Angel Kelley, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden.
A US judge has imposed a temporary injunction in 22 US states on the Trump administration's sweeping cuts to indirect funding for medical research delivered by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
US District Judge Angel Kelley agreed to impose the restraining order after lawsuits were brought by Democrat attorneys general in the states in a federal court in Boston. The government will have to deliver its reply by Friday of this week, with a new hearing on the matter scheduled for Monday 21st February – a week after the new funding rules were due to come into effect. The reductions remain in place for all 28 other states in the US.
A notice posted by the NIH on 7th February said the agency would slash its funding of indirect costs borne by research teams at universities, hospitals and other scientific institutions – such as maintaining buildings and equipment and paying for administrative personnel – from 30% to 15% in an attempt to slash $4 billion off the current $9 billion spend on this type of support.
The NIH said that brings the rate closer into line with what other funding organisations allow, such as the Gates Foundation, which operates a ceiling of 10% funding of indirect costs.
It's not the first time Trump has attempted to slash the indirect disbursement rate. In his first term, he proposed a flat 10% ceiling on all indirect costs for research organisations, but that was shot down by Congress and in 2018 an appropriations rider was enacted that prevents the NIH or the Health and Human Services (HHS) department from unilaterally changing the negotiated rate.
The 22 states – which include biopharma R&D hotpots California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York – argue in their complaint that high-level research requires funds not just for the costs that can be directly attributed to a particular project, but also the indirect costs that support multiple projects.
Administrative costs support the university as a whole, and help make research possible without being attributable to any specific grant or project, they contend. The funding cuts will halt important research projects and that – in turn – will impact the health and wellbeing of US citizens.
"This agency action will result in layoffs, suspension of clinical trials, disruption of ongoing research programs, and laboratory closures," according to the plaintiffs. "NIH's extraordinary attempt to disrupt all existing and future grants not only poses an immediate threat to the nation's research infrastructure, but will also have a long-lasting impact on its research capabilities and its ability to provide life-saving breakthroughs in scientific research."
The lawsuit also states that, given the appropriations rider, the NIH is acting beyond its statutory authority, particularly as it has not implemented the usual "notice and comment rulemaking" procedures.
In fiscal 2023, the NIH provided around $35 billion in funding overall, providing almost 50,000 grants to more than 300,000 researchers.
