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Warren blasts NIH leaders amid funding disruptions
"Neither of you appear to have answers about what is going on at this agency," Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote to the acting director of the NIH and Trump's nominee to lead the agency.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren demanded answers from National Institutes of Health (NIH) leaders Wednesday, accusing them of not knowing basic information about the agency and saying that the Trump administration sidestepped a basic court order.
Warren excoriated NIH Acting Director Matthew Memoli and President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the agency, Jay Bhattacharya, in a new letter. She decried the “paralytic state” of the NIH amid Trump’s funding cuts. Massachusetts, a national leader in healthcare and scientific research, stands to be particularly affected.
More than a month ago, Warren and Sen. Ed Markey voiced their concerns to Memoli. But Warren said he failed to provide crucial information and that Bhattacharya failed to take a clear position on the impacts of grant freezes during a Senate confirmation hearing.
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“Neither of you appear to have answers about what is going on at this agency, nor a willingness to resolve these problems. But the situation at the NIH remains dire, and it is imperative that you provide clarity immediately,” Warren wrote.
Gov. Maura Healey voiced similar concerns at a press conference at Boston Children’s Hospital this week. The hospital is the leading recipient of pediatric research funding from the NIH, she said. It received $230 million last year, but the Trump administration’s proposed cuts would halve that.
“These cuts are going to cost jobs. They’re going to cost lives, young, vulnerable lives,” Healey said. “It’s not hyperbole. It’s a fact.”
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Warren highlighted some of the ways that the NIH has been reportedly thrown into chaos. The agency fired more than 1,000 workers shortly after Warren and Markey sent their February letter. While some of those employees have been reinstated, other reports indicate that the NIH is expecting to cut up to 5,000 workers, or about 25% of its workforce.
“Nobody feels like their job is safe. Everyone is on edge,” Kim Hasenkrug, an NIH scientist emeritus, recently told STAT. “They’re trying to hide these numbers. Even the top people can’t keep track because they’re hiring and firing so much. Direct supervisors of those who were terminated didn’t even know that it was happening.”
Research institutions are “in the dark” and “scrambling” to react, Warren wrote. She mentioned hiring freezes at Harvard and MIT and other efforts to pause or reduce graduate student admissions. Last week, UMass Chan Medical School rescinded offers to several dozen prospective graduate students, citing “uncertainties related to the funding of biomedical research in this country.”
Multiple judges have issued restraining orders blocking the federal government from freezing billions of dollars in funding to states and NIH grants. But scientists are saying that meetings to review their proposals are being indefinitely postponed, The Boston Globe reported.
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The Trump administration “appears to have managed to work around” one restraining order by ceasing to post meetings where scientists review grant applications to the Federal Register. This effectively blocks the funding pipeline, Warren wrote.
Warren listed a series of detailed questions for Memoli and Bhattacharya to answer by April 2.
“Your lack of transparency and action during this de facto funding freeze is unacceptable,” she wrote.
Read Warren’s full letter below:
Warren Follow-Up Letter to NIH on Funding Cuts and Freezes by Ross Cristantiello on Scribd
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