The Trump administration has prevented a decisive step in the National Health Institutes of Health (NIH) to finance medical research, most likely to violate Federal judge A temporary restriction on federal financing freezes.
National Institutes of Health stopped submitting the sections of the study – the meetings in which scientists review the proposals for financing the National Institutes of Health – to Federal Register After the Trump administration stops Health Agency Communications. Under the law, The study departments should appear in the record 15 days before the meetings.
“The idea is that the public has the right to know who provides advice to the federal government and when they meet,” said Jeremy Berg, a vital chemical scientist. Who supervised the funding of the national health institutes in the past.
These meetings are an integral part of the funding process for scientists in institutions all over the country Almost all elements of the disease and medicineIncluding the development of drugs, cancer, heart disease and aging.
An email was sent to the National Institutes of Health via e -mail that the guardian obtained from the fact that the US Department of Health and Humanitarian Services (HHS) has issued instructions to the National Health Institutes to submit federal registry requests indefinitely.
“They suspend the external research program effectively,” said Carroll Labon, a biologist at the North West University who runs a stem cell laboratory and participated in the study departments.
This is a clear violation of the orders of federal judges, according to Samuel Bagnistos, a professor of law at the University of Michigan, who held the position of General Adviser to HHS until December 2024.
“Initially issued a temporary matter,” said Bagnstos, Judge John McConnell. He issued another wider order, Say this, first of all, the Trump administration must end any federal financing immediately. Second, this is the decisive language, including clearing any administrative, operational or technical obstacles for implementation. “
So, “this idea that we will spend on money, but we will only spend money after we have study departments, and – pardon – we cannot obtain the sections of the study because we do not allow the notices of the study departments and Bagenstos added that it is presented in the federal registry” that ignores in an unambiguous manner It has that language.
If the Trump administration continues to evade court orders, Bagenstos says judges have a number of tools available to them. They can issue more specific orders directed at individuals responsible for violations, or even keep them in civil contempt for the court, which can include prison time, and which of them It is not possible to decline with the presidential pardon.
Berg said that the study departments gathered scientists from institutions throughout the country to the proposals of the pendant review of the peer. Each section collects 20 or more reviewers of the peers to review up to 100 proposals.
“It is basically about two weeks of work,” says Berg.
A source familiar with the operation estimated that every three days of late study departments, $ 1 billion from the financing of the National Institutes of Health is suspended. Although the study departments are required to appear in the federal registry 15 days ago, the meetings scheduled to start on February 20 were postponed the previous day.
“This week, without warning, as we were checking our flights to the capital, my study department was canceled for no reason,” said one of the scholars who was supposed to review the grant proposal. The cancellation of the world and its colleagues led to a group assembly that the problem was related to the Federal Registry – a relatively mysterious step in this process.
Two scholars said that February 20 is scheduled to attend from the sections of study, where the auditors said they had never heard of these requirements until this week. One of those doubtful that the maneuver is an “another smart way to launch war on medical sciences” because few people, even those who work in the national health institutes, completely understand how it works. “It is a logistical thing that a gay person will never have to interact with him, or it is likely that he never hears it,” he said.
None of the scientists who spoke to the guardian have received an explanation about the reason for not canceling the sections of the study until the last minute, although they are asked to appear in the federal registry 15 days ago, but they never did so. Labon is suspected that this is because the employees of the National Institutes of Health are still hoping that the meetings will be able to move somehow.
“They are trying to keep this possible until the last minute, hoping that someone will be to leave and allow the study departments to continue, and he may give up the requirements of 15 days,” explained Labon.
Stewart Back, Harvard’s law graduate and CEO of the company Good science project, She says these moves make it very difficult to read tea leaves “about what will happen next.
Pak said that Jay Bhatera, who nominated Trump to direct the National Health Institutes, “has not yet had a confirmation session so far.” “Why are policies that are largely radical without the participation of people who are supposed to be experts who run the agency?”
Pak continued: “All public discourse revolves around reducing deficit or limiting organization. But the things they do so far are not aimed at deficit or organization at all. They abolish contracts that are trivial compared to impotence … shooting people, canceling things and creating Chaos everywhere.
The scientist who was supposed to attend the study department as a reference was also a problem in understanding these procedures. If the meetings are rescheduled at all, the auditors are either details of either the details of the proposals they have reviewed or they must spend additional time in reviewing them again, which will take time away from their medical research.
“This is everything that has no meaning for me. They do not provide any money by doing this. In the end, what they do will cost more money than anything else, by delaying everything and a kind of people’s lives.”
Another reference said that the waste of time was “annoying”, but “the real annoying thing here is that there is a lot of great knowledge in those grants that must be truly funded in a sensitive time. If not, the laboratories will be closed.”
The National Press Institutes Office did not respond to the time to comment in a timely manner to be included in the story.