Sad Biohacker news: Trump has frozen all NIH activity. This includes a ban on communications, a freeze of the grant review process, travel freeze, etc. For those unaware the NIH funds huge numbers of scientific studies in health and nutrition every year.
To say the NIH is important in health and nutrition studies is a vast understement. HUGE numbers of studies over the years have been funded by the NIH. This ban could have a devastating effect on nutrition science going forward.
President Donald Trump’s return to the White House is already having a big impact at the $47.4 billion U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), with the new administration imposing a wide range of restrictions, including the abrupt cancellation of meetings including grant review panels. Officials have also ordered a communications pause, a freeze on hiring, and an indefinite ban on travel.
The moves have generated extensive confusion and uncertainty at the nation’s largest research agency, which has become a target for Trump’s political allies. “The impact of the collective executive orders and directives appears devastating,” one senior NIH employee says.
Today, for example, officials halted midstream a training workshop for junior scientists, called off a workshop on adolescent learning minutes before it was to begin, and canceled meetings of two advisory councils. Panels that were scheduled to review grant proposals also received eleventh-hour word that they wouldn’t be meeting.