Why do you believe that? They're not defunding research in these areas.
> A friend who is a breast cancer survivor just had her trial moved from NIH funding
The administration's argument is that the Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional, i.e. Congress has the power to prevent the executive from doing something by not funding it, but not the power to force the executive to do something just by appropriating money for it.
But the administration objects to USAID, not cancer research, so what's stopping them from issuing the cancer research grants to other institutions? Nothing, right?
Are you sure about that?
This administration's HHS Secretary has deep doubts about the efficacy of the scientific method, which underpins all of medical research in general and cancer research in particular. It seem more likely to me that the money impounded from cancer research will instead be redirected to organizations that use non-scientific methods to study the effects of nutritional supplements, water flouridation, and non-ionizing 5G radiation.
https://www.stopbreastcancer.org/national-breast-cancer-coal...
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/13/abortions-cancer-in...
https://www.propublica.org/article/national-cancer-institute...
https://www.yahoo.com/news/rfk-jr-spreading-misinformation-a...
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a63559859/rfk-jr-cance...
They’re ignoring the law. What the Congress appropriated, what contracts the U.S. has signed, what courts say is irrelevant to these folks.
But none of that is really relevant to the question: If there is money for cancer research, and the administration objects to Harvard but not to cancer research, then they still issue the grants just not to Harvard, right?
No. USAID funding for AIDS research wasn’t given to another organisation. Similarly, right now, actual research is being halted [1].
[1] https://www.aamc.org/news/whats-stake-when-clinical-trials-r...
USAID isn't clinical trials, it's treatment subsidies in foreign countries and studies on the administrative efficiency of foreign healthcare bureaucracies.
> Similarly, right now, actual research is being halted
Obviously if you reallocate funding from trial A to trial B, trial A loses its funding. Whether this is a net cost or benefit depends on how they compare with each other.
It also depends on how institutions respond. If Harvard is doing trials A and C and that funding moves to trials B and D somewhere else, and as a result trial A gets canceled but Harvard chooses to continue to fund trial C out of its endowment, you now have three trials going instead of two. Maybe that's better. I doubt they were doing that on purpose, but if that's the result, it isn't necessarily bad.
That’s not completely accurate.
https://www.clinicaltrialsarena.com/interviews/usaid-sponsor...
Established in 1961, USAID is used to fund various projects including clinical trials for vaccines and therapeutics in lower-middle-income countries, as well as elsewhere worldwide. The organisation has been used to find research into human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), tuberculosis (TB) and malaria, among other diseases and research efforts. The sudden pull of funding has meant trials have been suspended until trial sponsors seek alternative methods of funding to restart studies.
If this is happening, what organization are they relocating funding to?
Presumably the motivation is some combination of “slash funding so we can give tax cuts” and “kill the Universities as an independent center of smart people who oppose us” but the actual effect is someone you love will die when they could have lived. It’s fucked.
they cut tons of money that Congress had appropriated; USAID is just one example of many
so yes, it's illegal and Congress could call them on it, but the GOP won't.
the Admin is also counting on the allocation changing with the next budget, coming up, at which point it is "no longer allocated"
If you mean that the administration is not defunding cancer research more than it is defunding other medical research, then you might be right. If you mean that the administration is keeping cancer funding the same while defunding other medical research areas, then you are probably wrong [1]:
> Separately, on Feb. 7, 2025, the NIH issued new guidance on indirect costs for grants. Published late on a Friday, the guidance capped such costs to 15% of the amount of the grants. According to a congressional research paper, "indirect costs represent expenses that are not specific to a research project and that maintain the infrastructure and administrative support for federally funded research." Effective the following Monday, Feb. 10, 2025, this cost cap would apply to all new grants, and also to all existing grants.
Tangentially, the administration is cutting employees at the National Cancer Institute [2]:
> Among the cuts on Friday were around 50 employees at the NIH's National Cancer Institute, or NCI. They had worked in the institute's Office of Communications and Public Liaison overseeing programs like the Cancer Information Service, which provides answers to doctors and patients about cancer, and updates to databases summarizing cancer information for healthcare providers.
...
> While several communications offices at the NIH's institutes had been gutted during an initial round of layoffs on April 1, NCI's team was spared. Around 150 staff at NCI had been laid off last month, two people said. The institute's contracting and training staff were eliminated, and there were deep cuts to its human resources team.
[1] https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/01/28/trump-nih-cancer-rese...
[2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nih-lays-off-hundreds-more-staf...