A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to refrain from planning to cut $4 billion in federal funds for research at countries' universities, cancer centers and hospitals.
Funds paid by the National Institutes of Health cover the vast range of administrative and overhead costs of biomedical research. Part of it is directed at tackling diseases such as cardiovascular symptoms, cancer and diabetes.
The order Monday night in response to a lawsuit filed by a university association and a lawsuit filed by a major research center that claimed that “unlawful misconduct” by US health authorities “destroy medical research.” It was published late for the US District Court in Boston by Judge Angel Kelly. At an American university. ”
The temporary restraining order by Biden's appointee Judge Kelly was expanded in a similar order granted earlier Monday after nearly 20 lawyers pleaded to stop the state's cuts.
The Trump administration's plan to curb the agreed payments universities and healthcare systems receive to support research shook the world of academic healthcare when it was suddenly announced Friday.
Academic researchers and university officials predicted that the plan would shut down valuable research, cost thousands of jobs and kneel down in the US in competitive efforts to achieve medical breakthroughs.
The plan was applied to $9 billion in $35 billion grants issued to the research institution. The quarter of total research funding supports so-called indirect costs that apply to administrative overhead costs, such as staff and lab operations and maintenance.
The Trump administration said it wanted to cut such funds in almost half for about $4 billion.
Overhead cost funding has been criticized in the past. And opposition to funding appears in the Project for Conservative Policy 2025 blueprint, suggesting that NIH research funding has given too much support to “left” universities.
On Friday, Katie Miller, a member of Elon Musk's efforts to significantly reduce the size of the federal government, posted on social media.
The university has a completely different view. The funding supports scientific breakthroughs that are “more often, more consequential,” Harvard University President Dr. Alan M. Gerber said in a statement Sunday.
“In a period of rapid advances in quantum computing, artificial intelligence, brain science, biological imaging, and regenerative biology, and when other countries are expanding their investment in science, America is on an endless frontier. “We should not be willingly and willing to drop her from her primary position,” Dr. Gerber said.
Plaintiffs, including the American Association of Medical Colleges and the American Pharmacy Association, “fails” to research where sudden cuts in funding are important, and the university ends up shutting down staff, closure labs and certain research programs completely. He insisted that he would force him to do so. .
Legal memos related to the lawsuit show that universities are crucial to the research, including facilities where lab animals undergo clinical testing, computer systems that analyze large amounts of data, blood banks, and other costs that cannot be directly used. I insisted there was. It is tied to a single project.
If funding cuts were to withstand legal challenges, the plaintiff wrote, “The lab would literally dark due to a lack of electricity.”
They argued that small institutions were unable to maintain their research and “can be completely closed.”
Congress thwarted early efforts during President Trump's first term in order to cut indirect research funding. Lawmakers added measures to their budget invoices to ensure that funds remain at levels agreed by researchers and federal officials.
In the lawsuit, the University Association alleged that the current proposal violated the will of Congress and also rejected standard administrative procedures.
In granting a temporary suspension of cuts, Judge Kelly ruled that the plaintiffs will “maintain immediate and irreparable injuries.”
A hearing date has been set for February 21st.
