The Federal Funding Freeze Will Cause Lasting Damage to Medical Research
1 min read
Summary
US President Donald Trump’s administration has paused federal grants and loans to academic institutions, to those complying with the president’s recent executive orders.
The freeze, which has now been partially reversed, has been detrimental for American scientific research, amid fears that lessons learned and in-progress could be lost.
Clinical trials are unable to pay subjects or researchers and university employees may leave their roles as a result of the stoppage.
America’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) funds nearly $48bn of grants per year, the abdication of which could be substantially damaging for US medical research’s future.
The disruption has also caused a brain drain and many who have left research roles are unlikely to return when funding resumes.
International scientific communities are holding online support groups to provide a forum for discussion and support for one another.