JOCELYN KAISER, Science; NIH staff and biomedical community sound alarm about agency politicization, funding slowdown

"In an unusual act of public protest, more than 340 scientists and staff at the National Institutes of Health today released a statement charging NIH officials and their superiors with politicizing science. The employees implore their new director to reverse cuts and freezes to external grants touching on topics such as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) that President Donald Trump has targeted with executive orders...

The declaration signers make up a relatively small portion of NIH’s employees, who numbered about 20,000 in January before the layoffs, early retirement offers, and other departures thinned the agency’s ranks by several thousand people. A second letter backing the Bethesda Declaration has so far been signed by 19 Nobel Prize winners and two former NIH leaders, among others. The two statements come as new data suggest NIH funding disbursements for ongoing grants ground to a halt in May, fueling fears that much of NIH’s 2025 budget will go unspent."