NIH cuts target vaccine hesitancy research and mRNA technology could be next
The Trump administration is slashing long-standing areas of research funded by the National Institutes of Health, claiming they no longer align with the agency’s priorities.
The latest target?
Millions of dollars in NIH grants for studying vaccine hesitancy and how to improve immunization levels. It’s work that’s particularly relevant as a measles outbreak grips the Southwest amidst diminishing vaccination rates.
In recent weeks, scientists around the country have begun receiving letters stating their existing grants — money already awarded to them in a competitive process — were being cut.
At first, the cuts appeared to primarily target research on LGBTQ+ health and other areas that were deemed in conflict with President Trump’s executive orders on gender and “diversity, equity and inclusion.”
Now, more than 40 grants related to vaccine hesitancy have been cancelled, and there are mounting concerns that research on mRNA vaccines could be on the chopping block next.
An email circulated among NIH leadership this week included a list of grants that were to be terminated and details on the specific language to use in those notices. “It is the policy of NIH not to prioritize research activities that focuses gaining scientific knowledge on why individuals are hesitant to be vaccinated and/or explore ways to improve vaccine interest and commitment,” the email states.
“It appears that there are forces intent on destroying our existing vaccine enterprise,” says Dr. Jonathan Temte, a professor of family medicine at the University of Wisconsin who studies vaccine hesitancy. “Defunding research on vaccine hesitancy is the latest example of this effort.”
mRNA research may be at risk
“NIH staff internally are very worried that the mRNA grants will follow the outcome of the vaccine hesitancy grants and be terminated,” according to one of the NIH employees who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. “There are widespread concerns that this will limit the ability to combat pandemics and halt promising lifesaving cancer treatments.”
Other parts of the NIH like the National Cancer Institute also fund this work, because mRNA technology holds promise for targeted cancer treatment.
“I am on pins and needles constantly,” says Justin Richner, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Illinois, Chicago. “I’m really kind of waiting for the shoe to drop in terms of looking for the email saying the grant has been canceled.”
Richner’s $1 million, 4-year NIH grant is on the agency’s internal list. His lab is working to develop an mRNA vaccine to protect against dengue, a mosquito-borne viral disease that affects millions of people worldwide and is spreading in the U.S.
“It’s an outrageous incursion on the way in which the NIH is managing the money that’s been appropriated by Congress,” says Dr. Harold Varmus, a Nobel Prize winning professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College who ran the NIH from 1993 to 1999. “The idea that we’re going to turn one of the most prestigious aspects of federally supported activities into a graveyard is very troubling to everybody.”
Aaron Scherer, a researcher at the University of Iowa who studies vaccine hesitancy, says his grants are not canceled as far as he knows, but given what’s happening, he assumes that NIH will not be funding his future proposal “regardless of its scientific and health merits.”
Health disparities and LGBTQ+ research loses ground
Vaccine research is just the latest target in the Trump administration’s expanding effort to cut off NIH-funded researchers.
A first wave of letters went out last month to researchers notifying them their grants were being canceled because they did not fit with President Trump’s executive orders.
According to an internal memo, NIH staff were directed to separate awards into different categories depending, for example, on whether the “sole purpose of the project is DEI related” or could still be viable if modified.
Brittany Charlton, who directs the LGBTQ Health Center of Excellence at Harvard University, says she’s tallied two dozen awards that have been terminated among her colleagues for work that touches on issues like HIV prevention and Alzheimer’s.
The cuts are not only affecting research on the LGBTQ+ population but also other vulnerable communities, she says.
“We’re not studying fringe issues, and they’re not at all ideological either,” Charlton says, “The research that’s being abruptly terminated by the federal government right now is really meant to identify what underlies some of these disparities and help to address them.”