NIH cuts funding for vaccine-hesitancy research. mRNA research may 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.

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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.

NPR obtained information about the changes from two NIH staffers and one person familiar with NIH's activities who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. And, NPR reviewed emails and documents they provided.

"I want to underscore just how unprecedented — how abnormal all of this is," one longtime NIH official told NPR. "This is not how we operate."

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's unclear exactly how many grants have been cancelled in total under the Trump administration. Neither the NIH nor its parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, replied to NPR's request for comment.

"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

In what some at the agency view as an ominous sign, the NIH's acting director Dr. Matthew Memoli also requested information last week about the funding that supports mRNA vaccine research, technology that underpins the COVID-19 shots from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, according to an email reviewed by NPR. A similar call for data preceded the termination of the other vaccine grants.

"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."

NPR reviewed the NIH list of 130 of these awards issued by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, or NIAID, which funds the most mRNA research. This includes efforts to develop vaccines for a variety of diseases, including Lyme disease, dengue and a sometimes life-threatening gastrointestinal infection known as Clostridium difficile.

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.

Letters of termination reviewed by NPR state "no modification of the project could align the project with agency priorities," but a current NIH employee told NPR that the scientific staff at their institute who would be responsible for making that determination are not being consulted. "They're not checking with us," said the person, adding that these termination decisions are coming with virtually no notice.

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.

The guidance also has implications for hundreds of awards in the coming months, because many "Notices of Funding Opportunities" have been taken down, and grants that applied through those notices will not get their funding, either, the NIH staffer told NPR.

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."

Have information you want to share about the ongoing changes across the federal government? Reach out to these authors via encrypted communications: Will Stone @wstonereports.95 and Rob Stein @robstein.22.

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