After the State Department placed all U.S. Agency for International Development employees on administrative leave, dozens of clinical trials around the world abruptly shuttered, The New York Times reported Feb. 6.
An executive order from President Donald Trump to freeze all foreign aid for at least 90 days resulted in the agency, USAID, pulling financial support and announcing a stop-work order.
Only 294 workers of the more than 10,000 USAID employees will keep their jobs, according to The Associated Press.
One of the studies was testing a new device, a silicone ring inserted into the vagina, to prevent pregnancy and HIV, according to the Times. In late January, the stop-work order went into effect and halted the South Africa-based study.
Removing the rings would mean a violation of the order, but the study's researchers did so anyway.
"My first thought when I saw this order was, 'There are rings in people's bodies and you cannot leave them,'" Leila Mansoor, PhD, one of the study's investigators, told the Times. "For me ethics and participants come first. There is a line."
The State Department did not respond to the Times' request for comment.