Cuts to health research could impact clinical studies and trials at the NIH
The Trump administration wants to cut health spending in the coming year, and plans to cut the budget at the National Institutes of Health by $18 billion.
- The Trump administration has cut or frozen $2.3 billion in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding.
- These cuts have impacted thousands of clinical trial participants and led to layoffs at medical research centers.
- The cuts politicize science and will harm America’s leadership in research and development.
The Trump administration’s drastic cuts to the National Institutes of Health represent a strategic mistake that will cost lives, harm our economy and curtail America’s leadership in the world.
It seems that Trump is now at war with both scientific research and our research universities.
According to White House Deputy Press Secretary Kush Desai, our health care research apparatus “has been obsessed with DEI and COVID, which the majority of Americans moved on from years ago. And the Trump administration will now restore the gold standard of Science – not ideological activism … to finally address our chronic disease epidemic.”
But the enormity of the cuts and their targeted nature, claiming to be focused on DEI and COVID research, instead seem to be implementing a politicized agenda at the expense of science.
Cuts reshaping government support of health sciences
The actual impacts of these NIH cuts, the largest to any single government agency, will be to set back the entire U.S. health care system. As of November 2025, NIH has seen about $2.3 billion in unspent funds across nearly 2,500 grants frozen or terminated.
The cuts impact Tennessee medical research centers. Vanderbilt Medical Center, one of the most respected in the country, has already announced 650 employees will be laid off and a $300 million reduction in operating costs. Vanderbilt’s Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, C. Cybele Raver, stated that the cuts would either end or seriously jeopardize research projects funded by NIH.
The University of Tennessee system reported losing $37.7 million in funding for 42 grants, the majority of which came from grants for the UT Institute of Agriculture. Studies impacted included infectious disease research and vaccine education, a rural mental health program and a project developing evacuation route technology for active shooter scenarios.
And according to a report in JAMA Internal Medicine, the NIH cuts have already affected more than 74,000 people who were in clinical trials and impacted research into infectious diseases, respiratory diseases and cancer. Obviously, clinical trials cannot simply be turned on and off at will.
Research universities have been the key to our world dominance
America’s research universities have been the key to our world dominance. And while the U.S. still led the world overall in research and development in 2023, China was closing the gap. What will Trump’s cuts do to our competitive edge on China? And are we preparing for the next pandemic?
At the University of Texas, Scott Weave, director of science research for Galveston National Laboratory, works on viral threats.
Weave says the loss of grant funding puts in jeopardy their World Reference Center, a collection of thousands of viruses preserved since the 1950s to help scientists conduct emergency research into new viral threats, such as Zika or West Nile virus.
Isn’t this the kind of research the world needs now to avoid the next pandemic?
The University of North Carolina received a DEI flag for their study of the maternal health of black mothers. Black mothers are three times more likely to die during childbirth than white mothers.
Discovering how to save the lives of both mothers and infants is certainly an important research project, regardless of race.
Deep cuts to federal research funding will reduce the discovery process that leads to cures for disease and the development of treatments for Alzheimer’s, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and diabetes.
Trump’s NIH cuts are actually politicizing science
Over 40,000 medical researchers and professionals and supporters have signed the Bethesda Declaration letter warning that current political interference is undermining scientific integrity ‒ the very opposite of what the White House is promising.
In August, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the administration’s freeze of $780 million in grants; however, lower court challenges may still be possible. But the current situation is leaving our leading research institutions to fend for themselves, looking for funding from foundations and industry in their efforts to maintain their ongoing research initiatives and to avoid shuttering their laboratories.
Needless to say, there is no way that these universities can secure the level of private funding needed to sustain their important work.
NIH grants must be restored ‒ tell your representatives
So, what is at stake is human lives that are free from disease, a qualified network of medical scientists seeking cures, and our nation’s leadership in the world. Of the top 30 universities in the world, the U.S. has 20 and is the leader in scientific research. How shortsighted and foolish it would be to abandon that role.
As we approach the 2026 election season, we need to be mindful that the candidates we choose will support the important role our research universities are performing to improve our quality of life.
It is not too early to let your current representatives know where you stand on this crucial question.
Malcolm Mcavoy is retired as Associate Professor and Head, Department of Communication, Walters State Community College, after 52 years of service.
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