Eight Ways U.S. Science Was Harmed in 2025

Why NIH matters, what’s happened and some ways you can help

Imagine you or someone you love volunteering for a clinical research study for cancer. You’re participating because you want hope for yourself, but you also want to build knowledge that others can use to improve future lives. So you take on risk. You show up for all your appointments. You’re doing all the things you said you’d do. In turn, you expect that the clinical trial system will also keep its promises.

Now imagine being told that the study is suddenly ending, not because the trial is failing, but because funding was abruptly pulled. Suddenly you’re out of the trial without any careful or ethical wrap-up. The hope you had for yourself and future patients is gone.

This has happened to patients this year. It’s one of the many consequences of recent changes that are undermining the National Institutes of Health.

What is the NIH and why does it matter?

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the leading funder of biomedical research in the world. They help fuel the US economy and fund discoveries that can lead to new treatments, cures and technologies.

This helps the US be the world leader in science and medical research - at least for now. Most of this research happens at US universities. This science will never be supported by the private sector because it’s too high-risk, and it doesn’t often lead to drugs or treatments quickly that can be brought to market and return profit to the company. But the government, through NIH, can make those kinds of long-term investments. After World War II, the US decided to support science with public dollars, and to do that primarily by sending money to universities and research labs. The result is that the US has the strongest university system in the world — seven out of the top ten world universities are in the US — and is the world center of biomedical research.

Here are some more examples of the benefits of NIH and US science:

• Every $1 of NIH funded research generates $2.46 in economic activity.

• In 2024, NIH funding also supported over 400,000 jobs.

• NIH funding contributed in some way to more than 99% of drug products approved by FDA between 2010 and 2019.

• Ozempic exists because of basic NIH research on the saliva from gila monsters. No drug company would ever have invested in this exploratory research at those early stages. Without NIH investment we wouldn’t have Ozempic.

• Immunotherapies for cancer, biologic drugs for multiple sclerosis, cystic fibrosis, ulcerative colitis, and many other new therapies are the result of research publicly funded through NIH.

• More examples of new treatments due to NIH funding can be found here.

Photo by Ousa Chea on Unsplash

NIH is being dismantled

Unfortunately, 2025 has brought a lot of damage to NIH. These changes are impacting the way science in the US gets done, who does it, and who can reap its benefits.

It is true that no institution is perfect, and employees within NIH have been working hard to improve it over time. However, this administration didn’t seek their advice for things they could do to actually improve NIH. Instead, the administration is taking a hammer to the NIH that is destroying many areas of science. This isn’t the way to improve our scientific capacity, progress or ability to compete on a global stage. Instead, it harms all of us.

Many of these changes have gone unnoticed, so here are eight examples of things that have happened this year. Keep scrolling to the end to see ideas of how you can help going into 2026.

Top 8 Harms to the NIH in 2025

1. Funding instability. Research grants have been canceled and some were then reinstated again. This is devastating for science because of the long timelines for research projects. Imagine a highway construction project, or a new aircraft carrier, that takes years to build, and halfway through funding is stopped, then months later restarted: people take new jobs, expertise is lost, the project is harmed. That’s what is happening here. Also, this cycle has created more work for NIH employees that has taken time from other important work. The NIH has also dramatically reduced the number of labs it funded this year, because it’s been forced to change its accounting to commit all the funds upfront instead of year-by-year to grants. Combined, these policies are resulting in labs needing to delay hiring or shutting down projects. Early-career scientists were hit especially hard. Even if this policy is eventually reversed, the damage to momentum and careers is already done and will get worse if this continues.

2. Harm to research participants and public trust. Many clinical research trials have been terminated or disrupted without sufficient funding to safely and ethically disenroll participants and end the trials. Normally there is a careful process to end studies to ensure patients are kept safe. Abrupt endings like this are bad science, harms the patient’s safety and their trust. Research depends on volunteers believing that the system will work as they were told. Once that trust is broken, it’s hard to rebuild. The money already invested in these trials was also wasted if the trial was not able to be completed.

3. Increased political appointments. Normally those within NIH are chosen for their experience and scientific expertise. Since January 2025 NIH leadership has increasingly included political appointees that don’t have the appropriate training and experience. This erodes independence and replaces evidence-based decision-making with political agendas. Science agencies work when expertise, not ideology, drives decisions.

4. Politicization of what research is “allowed”. Entire areas of science are being targeted and sidelined through grant cancellations and policy changes. This includes research areas like:

   1. Health equity and disparity research

   2. Vaccine confidence and uptake

   3. LGBTQ+ health

   4. Community-based public health work

   When research questions are constrained by politics, the people harmed are the communities already at highest risk. It’s also critical to remember that research benefits all of us through boosting the economy, creating jobs, and the knowledge gained can often benefit all of us in different ways.

5. Disruption of international collaboration. Science thrives on collaboration. Work is better when people can combine resources and minds. For example, many diseases are rare. Studying them requires global partnerships and shared data. Other topics, like infectious disease, are global in nature. Pathogens don’t stop spreading or impacting humans at country borders. Making it harder to collaborate with scientists internationally reduces our ability to:

   1. Enroll enough participants.

   2. Access specialized expertise.

   3. Stay at the cutting edge of biomedical discovery.

   4. Help prevent the next pandemic.

6. Damage to the current and future scientific workforce. Cuts to training programs, workforce development initiatives, and training pathways that help increase a range of perspectives in science don’t just affect us today. They erode the pipeline of future scientists, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds. You can’t rebuild expertise overnight once it’s gone. More insight into the feelings of students currently can be found here.

7. Brain drain inside NIH itself. People hold a lot of the knowledge that help organizations run. Staff cuts, early retirement pressures, and hiring freezes have left the agency barely functioning. Examples of cuts includes things like:

   1. Reduced nursing staff to run clinical trials at the Clinical Center and provide high-quality patient care.

   2. Outdated databases and public-facing information due to halted updates.

   3. Gutted communication channels with the public and Congress.

   4. Overworked and burned-out staff stretched beyond capacity.

   5. Longer review timelines that delay scientific progress.

8. Challenges recruiting research participants: Fear around immigration enforcement is keeping some people from enrolling in clinical trials at all, even if they are in the country legally. Parents are scared about bringing kids into trials, fearing any data on their child may be used against them, after RFK Jr’s belittling of those with autism. That affects everyone: it means clinical data is less representative and so studies are less powerful. We are getting fewer cures because of this.

We all benefit from NIH

There are many ways that US healthcare fails the public. And it’s easy to take that out on NIH. Scientists themselves often complain about NIH: about the arduous competition for NIH grants, about issues with funding early career investigators and other challenges. But while we should take the concerns seriously, we shouldn’t lose sight of the big picture: NIH has been an important asset to American health and the US economy. Without trained people, stable systems, and scientific independence, science in the US can’t function effectively.

NIH helps shape the treatments we’ll have, the diseases we can prevent. It also fuels our economy and helps create jobs. We can work to improve the way science is done without destroying and making us worse off in the process.

How can you help?

1. Contact your members of congress. Let them know you care about these issues. It gets exhausting, but it does make a difference. Politicians want to get re-elected. If enough of their constituents care about an issue, they will often respond.

2. Talk to your friends and community about these events. Many people aren’t aware these things are happening, or why and how they benefit from scientific research. If they’re not aware then they can’t contact their representatives or spread the word.

3. Share science with your communities: Science is also often invisible and overlooked. You can help change this by sharing science on social media, talking to family about the science you think is interesting, discussing your experience with science, hosting a science storytelling event, or even doing fun experiments at your kids’ school. Things like this can help improve people’s perception of science and help them care more about what’s happening.

4. Take breaks when you need it. We are in a long game. Take time to rest, find joys in small and big ways. We are in this together.

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Note: The opinions of the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions of any organization they’re affiliated with or work for. This piece was written in their personal capacities.

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