NIH Must Restore Terminated Research Funding
Grant terminations by the NIH have been called illegal.
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US district judge William Young has ruled that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) restore 800 of the several thousand research grants it cut earlier this year.
NIH funding cuts spark backlash from scientists and institutions
In February, the NIH began terminating research grants awarded to topics that it claimed failed to meet “agency priorities”. Cuts were made to research focused on mental health disparities, workforce diversity, sexual and gender minority populations and vaccines, among other topics.
A recent JAMA study characterized the scope of the grant terminations, revealing that ~$1.8 billion in funding was revoked in less than 40 days. The most heavily affected institutes included Columbia University (157 grants), Johns Hopkins University (19 grants; JHU) and Yale University (14 grants). The largest number of terminated grants was administered by the National Institute of Mental Health (128 grants) and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (77 grants).
What is the NIH and what does it fund?
The NIH is the United States’ medical research agency and the largest public funder of biomedical research. In 2023’s Fiscal Year, it spent over $35 billion on ~50,000 competitive grants awarded to over 300,000 researchers across 2,500 universities. The cuts announced in February led to layoffs.
Researchers and members of the public voiced significant concerns about the effects the cuts would have on the future of scientific research and human health in the US and beyond. At JHU, NIH funding was being used to support ~600 clinical trials. "These abrupt and sweeping cuts in NIH funding pose an extraordinary challenge to the important and lifesaving work of our faculty, staff, and students at Johns Hopkins," JHU President Ron Daniels and Hopkins Medicine CEO, Theodore L. DeWeese, said.
In April, two lawsuits were filed challenging the NIH’s grant cancellations and claiming the organization has violated the Administrative Procedure Act. The first lawsuit, “American Public Health Association vs National Institutes of Health”, was filed by researchers of the American Public Health Association, several individual researchers and institutes whose members have secured funding from the NIH. The second lawsuit, “Commonwealth of Massachusetts vs Kennedy” was filed by 16 attorney generals representing states whose institutions had NIH funding cut.
On Monday, June 16, lawyers and plaintiffs across the two lawsuits, as well as NIH representatives, were called to present their cases in front of Judge Young, who was tasked with determining whether the NIH’s grant termination actions had violated US law.
Just a few days prior, hundreds of NIH staff collectively published the “Bethesda Declaration”, a direct letter to NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya calling for NIH and Department of Health and Human Services leadership to “deliver on promises of academic freedom and scientific excellence”. Within said letter, NIH staff urged Bhattacharya to “restore grants delayed or terminated for political reasons so that life-saving science can continue”, and it estimated that the NIH has terminated approximately $9.5 billion dollars’ worth of grants since January 20, 2025.
Federal judge reinstates NIH grants, but questions loom over future cuts
After a two-hour hearing, Young determined that the grant terminations were “unlawful, arbitrary and capricious final agency actions.
The NIH has been ordered to restore 800 grants formerly held by the plaintiffs.
As for other NIH grants that were slashed for the same reasons as those presented in the case, Young is expected to publish a written opinion on the appropriate course of action this week.
A blueprint document for the 2026 federal budget suggests the NIH can anticipate cuts of approximately $17.97 billion next year. The same document provides the government's reasoning for such cuts, suggesting that the organization has “grown too big and unfocused”.
