In defiance of federal orders, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is still terminating grants to researchers across the country, The Boston Globe reports.
The agency is pulling funding for science that doesn’t comply with President Donald Trump’s executive orders, according to the Globe. That includes research related to LGBTQ+ health issues and other matters of diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, plus work that could potentially benefit researchers in China.
If true, the action would violate recent federal court rulings that temporarily blocked the administration from freezing or cutting government spending.
The NIH had not responded to Fierce Biotech’s request for comment by the time of publication.
On Wednesday, Judge Angel Kelley in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts ordered a preliminary injunction to stop NIH funding changes from occurring amid ongoing litigation.
Shortly after President Donald Trump took office in January, the White House rolled out an initiative designed to slash about $4 billion from NIH grants. The cuts center around "indirect costs,” such as funds for facilities, equipment and administrative expenses.
Three federal lawsuits were swiftly filed against the NIH: one with 22 states as the plaintiffs, another from numerous universities across the country and a third filed by national advocacy groups. The plaintiffs argued that the NIH’s actions were unlawful and would result in irreparable harm.
After ordering a temporary halt on the action in February, Judge Kelley later prohibited efforts to slash grant payments amid the ongoing lawsuits.
In a similar move, Judge John McConnell Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island granted a preliminary injunction against the Trump administration's efforts to broadly freeze domestic federal funds.
"Federal agencies and departments can spend, award or suspend money based only on the power Congress has given to them—they have no other spending power," the judge wrote on March 6. "The Executive has not pointed to any constitutional or statutory authority that would allow them to impose this type of categorical freeze."
Despite the temporary and now more long-term stays, some scientists say they have received notices that their funding is being canceled because their research includes subjects that are “unscientific,” do “nothing to enhance the health of many Americans,” or don’t “enhance health, lengthen life or reduce illness,” according to the Globe.
Administrators overseeing the federal funds were given an hour’s notice about the cuts before the notifications were sent to researchers last Friday, an unidentified NIH official told the Globe. The government worker said they were aware of 24 notices delivered from four NIH centers, but suggested that there are likely hundreds more, according to the Globe.
Nancy Krieger, Ph.D., professor of social epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, is one of the researchers who received a letter about funding cuts, according to the Globe. The notice said she wouldn’t be receiving the last payment installment—about $650,000—of a five-year, $4 million NIH award for a 700-patient study in Boston.
Her work is designed to produce more effective methods of asking about discrimination that patients experience, per the Globe.
The letter she received reportedly said researchers have 30 days to appeal the decision to the NIH, which Krieger said she plans on doing.
“This is an assault not on just one little group of researchers. This is saying certain knowledge is not to be supported by the government,” Krieger told the Globe. “It’s the proverbial, ‘If there’s no data, there’s no problem.’ It means one can’t document the harms.”
Previously, the NIH had a yearly budget of nearly $48 billion, making the agency the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research.
A 2024 analysis found that every $1 of NIH-funded research generated $2.46 in economic activity in 2023, according to an annual report from biomedical research advocacy organization United for Medical Research. The grant funds helped support hundreds of thousands of jobs in the country, according to the report.