Congress pushes back against Trump's NIH cuts
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Republicans and Democrats are using the latest government funding package to push back against President Trump's proposed cuts to the National Institutes of Health — and limit the administration's influence over biomedical research grants.
Why it matters: The bipartisan sentiment shows that medical research and efforts to find new cures still have strong support on Capitol Hill after a turbulent year for NIH.
Driving the news: The health care portion of the spending package released early Tuesday includes $48.7 billion for NIH — an increase of $415 million, and a far cry from the roughly 40% cut in President Trump's budget request.
- There's also language aimed at limiting a Trump administration policy that funded multiple years of a grant all at once. Critics say the policy reduced the number of awards made.
- The spending bill would also keep language blocking NIH from imposing a 15% cap on overhead and administrative costs that critics say would slow breakthroughs and penalize research universities.
- Beyond NIH, it would additionally revive a program that prioritizes reviews of treatments for rare pediatric diseases that expired in part at the end of 2024 and was left out of subsequent funding packages.
What they're saying: "The message to President Trump is: America will continue to fund cancer research," said Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, adding the measure would "utterly reject" his proposed cuts.
- House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told reporters last week he has always been a "big supporter of NIH."
- "I'm not going to be against finding cures for cancer or Alzheimer's," he said.
Yes, but: NIH has still been shaken by controversy over canceled grants, program cuts and other unilateral moves by the administration that are unlikely to stop.
