The Trump administration’s planned cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) not only threaten essential biomedical research in the US, but the livelihoods of researchers – and some are seriously considering leaving the country.
A 27 January memo from the Office of Management and Budget instructed federal agencies to pause funding allocations to ensure they serve Donald Trump’s goals, including “ending ‘wokeness’ and the weaponization of government, promoting efficiency in government, and Making America Healthy Again”.
On 7 February, the administration implemented a policy that would cut NIH funding to research institutions by over two-thirds. A federal judge has since blocked the cuts – for now.
Biomedical scientists depend on the NIH to fund their employment. Many are expected to cover a large proportion of their own salaries with NIH grants. Scientists studying neuroscience, diabetes, autism and bird flu became emotional as they spoke to the Guardian about the possibility of losing their life’s work.
“For the last 50 to 75 years, the NIH has been the biggest funder of biomedical research in the world. Most advances in medicine, at some point, were seeded by NIH funding. And when we became scientists, we just bought into this system. This is how it works. There is this long term support,” said John Tuthill, who runs a neuroscience lab at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Tuthill was scheduled to give a seminar to the NIH on 3 February, and had already travelled to Washington DC when he was informed the talk was cancelled due to a Trump administration directive banning communication between federal health agencies and the public. The ban was supposed to be lifted on 1 February. It wasn’t.
“This is the pain that the people are feeling within NIH trickling outside to affect the rest of us,” he said.
Tuthill is now re-evaluating plans, as cuts threaten the entirety of his specialized field. His parents were planning to move to Seattle to be closer to their granddaughter. Now, they are not sure it makes sense. Tuthill is considering jobs abroad.
“If science in the US collapses, it would be very hard for people to leave the country and get work, because a significant fraction of the top scientists in the world are here, and there’s not a lot of room for the rest of the world to absorb that,” he said.
Haroon Popal, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Maryland, says the cuts mean his academic career is likely over.
“I’m not [a] professor yet. I’m not a full fledged independent scientist yet. So, us losing these grants is like an entire generation of scientists not being able to continue,” he said.
Popal won an NIH grant that allowed him to continue his research on brain development and autism while staying close to his ailing father.
“Getting the grant was extremely hard. I failed two other times,” he said.
The award was part of an initiative to strengthen DEI in neuroscience. The grant’s webpage has since been purged as part of the Trump administration’s attack on DEI.
Popal has always prioritized making an impact over making money and is now applying for data science jobs, but is not thrilled with the available options, such as helping a bank with HR. He’s considering moving to Canada, where he has family, but he is his father’s caregiver and doesn’t want to leave him.
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July Pilowsky, who studies bird flu with the Cary Institute, is already applying for visas to work remotely in Spain.
“In my personal case, to be frank, I’m concerned that as a transgender scientist, I will be discriminated against because of who I am,” they said.
Pilowksy hopes they will be able to continue researching bird flu abroad, but cuts to NIH funding could threaten the future of their research as well. Advances in bird flu research are vital.
“I don’t want to induce panic. I want to be very clear that there is a lot of uncertainty about bird flu,” Pilowsky said, before admitting that if it starts transmitting from human to human, it could be more dangerous than Covid. The novel strain is more fatal, and lingers in the environment for longer, they added.
The administration’s decision to leave WHO is already hurting bird flu research.
“Viruses don’t care about countries and borders. They don’t know they exist. We need to coordinate globally in order to stay on top of what’s happening with the virus and to learn from one another,” Pilowsky explained.
Luke Norton, an assistant professor researching diabetes at the University of Texas, is already looking for ways to return to the UK, his country of origin, but is unsure he will be able to continue his research there.
“The US is ground zero for type 2 diabetes [research],” he says. While he feels “lucky” to have a country to return to, he says going back would feel like a failure”.
“I don’t really want to go back,” Norton said. “I’ve worked so hard to establish myself here … Now I’m a citizen. I have my family here. I have kids that were born here.”
