White House Freezes NIH Grants, Putting Billions in Research at Risk

The White House Office of Management and Budget has ordered the National Institutes of Health to stop issuing all new research grants, research-and-development contracts and training awards, according to a memo circulated to NIH institute and center directors late Tuesday. The four-sentence directive—disclosed in an email obtained by STAT—covers the remaining two months of the federal fiscal year and may also affect some ongoing awards. The pause could hold up billions of dollars that normally flow to universities, academic medical centers and other research institutions, raising the prospect of laboratory furloughs and delayed projects across the country. The Department of Health and Human Services told NIH officials it interprets an OMB footnote in the latest funding apportionment as barring new outlays, though NIH said it is "working to make this limitation short-term and temporary." The decision sets up a confrontation with lawmakers who craft the agency’s budget and have historically supported robust biomedical funding. Neither OMB nor the NIH specified how long the freeze will last or whether existing grants will ultimately be shielded, leaving researchers uncertain as the new fiscal year approaches on 1 October.