Trump Wages War on Scientific Research

February 24th, 2025

Christina Yang

For the last eight decades, government officials on both sides of the political spectrum have agreed to invest in scientific research. Just one month into President Trump’s second term, this long-standing consensus has disintegrated. With unprecedented speed, the administration has already caused ripples throughout the scientific community by pulling the United States out of the 2015 Paris Climate Treaty, terminating the U.S.’s membership in the World Health Organization, and purging scientific journals that contain the word “gender” or “transgender.” However, one of the most significant measures taken by this administration is the drastic slash in research funding.

On January 27, 2025, Trump’s budget office froze all federal research grants and loans to “ensure that it aligns with executive orders.” Chaos ensued immediately, as the world’s largest biomedical library: the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) halted grant payments, meetings, and paused communications. Shortly thereafter, lawsuits challenging the legality were filed and a federal judge temporarily blocked the order. Despite this, disruption and confusion continued to erupt.

Since then, the Trump administration has attempted to circumvent the federal blockage by banning the NIH’s grant review meetings. These grant reviews were critical to driving scientific progress as they delivered over 47 billion dollars annually to research Alzeihmer’s disease, heart disease, and more. This freeze occurred because the Trump administration has blocked the NIH from updating the Federal Registrar, which is required before a meeting can be held. Thus, Trump has found a way to freeze research funds by a legal loophole. For many American labs, which mostly pay their employees with NIH grants, these funding halts can quickly push scientists to dismantle their workforce, and consequently affect generations of research to come.

These stoppages have touched virtually every sector of science. In this week alone, the NIH had 47 grant review meetings scheduled. But 42 of them were cancelled, stalling proposals to study pancreatic cancer, addiction, brain injuries and child health. Additionally, the meeting freeze has stalled about 16,000 grant applications vying for $1.5 billion in funding. Other upheaval has been caused in the NIH as Trump has also cut 1,200 people from its workforce. A process that has been funding scientific research for 80 years has now been completely dismantled in just 30 days.

As some suspect that the NIH Federal Registrar freeze was just an attempt to evade a federal ruling, others believe that a federal freeze is typical of a new administration and may even help the NIH increase its grant transparency. Despite this, it is evident that this action is going to cost our future. In fact, the NIH grants help drive pharmaceutical and biotech companies, generating tens of billions of dollars in economic activity each year and illustrating how the freeze puts this progress in peril.

On February 21, 2025, a federal judge extended the temporary blockage on Trump’s research funding cuts. However, the future still remains in a dire state. Trump and Musk have reported to continue to slash funding and want to dismantle agencies such as the US Agency for International Development, which funds global disease research and prevention. Moreover, many scientists fear that these moves could lead to the restructuring of the NIH. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who now leads the Department of Health and Human Services (which oversees the NIH), has publicly stated that it needs major reforms. What these reforms might be still remain uncertain, but they certainly will cause more ripples throughout the scientific community.