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Former Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is concerned about the Trump administration’s recent cuts to research grants through the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
“I’m worried on a lot of fronts,” Sebelius said during The Hill’s Health Next Summit. “The kinds of cuts that were just announced are devastating and will set science back and set research back.”
The Trump administration and their billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have eliminated whole agencies and made sweeping cuts to others over the past two months, including to NIH.
Recently, the Trump administration announced it would cancel all NIH grants on equity issues, which includes work studying HIV and black maternal health.
The administration also recently issued a 15 percent cap on indirect cost cap on NIH grants. Indirect funding in NIH grants is used to cover overhead and administrative costs at universities and other research institutions.
A federal judge recently ordered the NIH to stop its plans to cut its grant funding amount to universities, hospitals and other institutions following a number of lawsuits from state Democratic attorneys general and the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Still, many in the scientific community are concerned.
Academics, health care workers and scientists have all opposed the cuts, arguing that they will harm Americans in many ways including by pausing lifesaving and life-sustaining research on diseases like cancer.
Sebelius said that in her home state of Kansas, both Kansas State University and the University of Kansas have started losing millions of dollars “on the health side” and in research.
“That has a decades-long impact,” she said.
Sebelius said the cuts also threaten to erase the U.S.’s standing as the leader and gold standard of research.
She noted that China is “eager” to take the U.S.’s place as the world’s leader of scientific research if given the opportunity.
“They will gladly step into any vacuum we create,” she said.
