The National Institutes of Health (NIH) terminated $1.8 billion in grants in fewer than 40 days as part of a whirlwind of cuts early in the Trump administration, according to research published in JAMA.
It became clear early in President Donald Trump’s second term that the administration was overseeing extensive changes to the financial support that the NIH provides to researchers. Yet, news emerged piecemeal, making it hard to quantify the cuts and understand the impact of the terminations on health research in the U.S. The authors of the JAMA paper tried to characterize and quantify the cuts.
The analysis found the NIH terminated 694 grants between Feb. 28 and April 8. Almost all institutes and centers terminated grants. The National Institute of Mental Health administered 128 terminated grants, Reuters reported.
At nearly $506 million, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases accounted for the highest amount of terminated funding. Vaccines are part of the institute’s remit. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has a long history of anti-vaccine activism.
The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) administered 77 of the grants and took a disproportionately large hit. The NIMHD appropriation for 2023 was $525 million, around 1% of the NIH total. The NIMHD terminations totaled nearly $224 million, around one-third of its previously active funding.
The administration has targeted research involving health disparities, workforce diversity, and sexual and gender minorities. The next step, as set out in Trump’s proposed federal budget for 2026, is to eliminate all $534 million in NIMHD funding as part of an almost $18 billion reduction in support for the NIH.
Columbia University, which the Trump administration has targeted over alleged antisemitic harassment, had the most grants terminated, 157. The university said it is laying off almost 180 researchers because of funding cuts this week.