The White House's proposal to eliminate $5.8 billion from the 2018 budget for the National Institutes of Health — the largest provider of biomedical research funds in the nation — hinders the agency's ability to plan for the future, according to an article written by Ed Yong and published in The Atlantic.
President Donald Trump's proposal to cut the NIH's budget by 18 percent in 2018 was met with opposition across the political spectrum. Earlier this month, Congress ignored a separate proposal from President Trump to cut $1.2 billion from the agency's 2017 budget and instead awarded the agency $2 billion in additional funding.
While the proposed 2018 NIH cuts are far from political certainty, the possibility of such fiscal reduction looms large over the scientific community. "[I]n that atmosphere of uncertainty, it's hard for agencies like the NIH to work out how to effectively channel money into research," said Mr. Yong.
"Imagine that the NIH commits all of its extra $2 billion for 2017 to new three-year grants," he added. "If the agency is hit by a $5.8 billion cut in 2018 or 2019, those new grants would wither. Researchers would have to stop their work and fire newly-hired staff. That $2 billion would effectively have been thrown away."
In this uncertain environment, the NIH is more likely to favor safer projects conducted by well-established researchers. This inhibits the research aspirations of younger scientists, according to an anonymous NIH staffer cited in The Atlantic article.
"Although the President's budget may just be a suggestion to Congress, it's a moral document. It tells the world about America's priorities, and in this case, it says that science isn't one of them," wrote Mr. Yong.
To read Mr. Yong's article in full, click here.
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