‘Completely Miserable’: The Trump Administration Has Ground NIH and the National Cancer Institute to a Halt

Though the details remain difficult to confirm given the communications blackout imposed by the Trump administration, Splinter has now viewed multiple emails and directives from within NIH and NCI that confirm much of what we and others have previously reported. To wit: all travel is suspended immediately, through April; there is a full hiring freeze; all contracting and purchasing is on hold pending further instruction, all advisory committee meetings, which include the NIH study groups that make decisions on the billions in research spending, are canceled through at least February 1; and essentially anything that needs to be done, including “publicly issuing any document or participating in any communication,” needs to be run by “Presidential appointees” before it happens.

“Everyone is scrambling to figure out how we’re supposed to work to serve the public when we can’t engage at all,” said another source within the NCI. It has been widely reported that the communications gag order might be lifted on February 1, but another source said there has been “no real word. I don’t think we actually expect it to lift.”

Aside from the obviously dire implications if clinical trials and the immediate care needs at NCI-designated Cancer Centers and NIH clinical centers are affected, the new bosses are making things difficult in other ways. A system within the NCI that allows for pre-publication review of scientific manuscripts, basically a first step before researchers can publish their work in peer-reviewed journals, is still accepting papers — but none will actually be reviewed until the gag is lifted, according to an email explaining the situation viewed by Splinter. Submitting abstracts to upcoming major research conferences is also now off the table. Some directives are apparently coming down directly from the Office of Personnel Management to all staff at NIH, rather than the usual practice of going through agency-specific leadership.

Splinter also received two independent confirmations that NIH is apparently ending its diversity supplement funding; these were modest amounts of money added to grantees to support students from disadvantaged backgrounds. One source pointed out these will hit lesser resourced universities and centers the most, including those in rural areas and some HBCUs; a source with knowledge told Splinter that even supplements that were already awarded but were pending the actual disbursement are being revoked.

Meanwhile, not everything has stopped moving. Some NIH employees apparently received email invitations to an internal seminar a few days ago (it may have been planned earlier); it is titled “Ethics Training Extravaganza.”