The Trump administration’s efforts to curb analysis funding has put remedy for 9/11 first responders, research of high causes of dying in older girls, and different life-saving applications on school campuses in danger, the State College of New York warned.
On the finish of final week, the Nationwide Institutes of Well being introduced new limits on federal grants researchers use for tools, staffing and different overhead prices. The cuts had been slated to take impact Monday however paused by the federal courts.
If the caps can survive authorized challenges, the SUNY Analysis Basis estimated it may lose $79 million in present, multi-year grants — together with $21 million earlier than the tip of June.
“At SUNY, we are proud of our extraordinary researchers and the life-changing, groundbreaking medical discoveries you have dedicated your careers to advancing,” Chancellor John King informed SUNY researchers. “From working to cure Alzheimer’s disease to improving cancer outcomes, from supporting 9/11 first responders to detecting brain aneurysms, your research is essential to our national security and economic leadership.”
SUNY Chancellor John King. (AP Photograph/Susan Walsh, File)
“NIH’s cuts represent an existential threat to public health,” King, a former schooling secretary beneath President Obama, wrote in a memo Monday.
On the road at SUNY is $20 million slated for a analysis and remedy program at Stony Brook for 9/11 first responders, which opened inside months of the assault as a middle providing free medical screenings.
The middle has since grown into the Stony Brook World Commerce Heart Well being and Wellness Program, a consortium of clinics supported by federal funding that serves greater than 12,000 responders on Lengthy Island. Final month, a brand new mind imaging research utilizing NIH grants discovered a hyperlink between World Commerce Heart publicity period and indicators of early dementia.
Additionally in danger is $8 million for analysis on the College at Buffalo to check illness and dying in postmenopausal girls, in accordance with the SUNY truth sheet. Federal funding for the Girls’s Well being Initiative, a research of roughly 70,000 girls, has been prolonged a number of instances because it launched within the early Nineties, and expanded from heart problems and most cancers to incorporate dementia, stroke and diabetes, amongst others.
Stony Brook receives $3 million to check the prevention of future pandemics, whereas $1.7 million is being utilized by the College at Albany to think about how dietary habits have an effect on the event of breast most cancers, SUNY stated.
“I cannot predict how this will all unfold,” Chancellor King stated, stressing his dedication to continued “groundbreaking” analysis and well timed communication. “We will take every step possible to protect your vital work.”
The Trump administration’s deliberate cuts have been met with swift backlash in New York, which has $5 billion in open Nationwide Institutes of Well being grants.
President Donald Trump listens as Elon Musk, who’s spearheading the federal authorities’s “efficiency” cuts, speaks within the Oval Workplace on the White Home on Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photograph/Alex Brandon)
Letitia James is a part of a gaggle of attorneys common suing the Trump administration for exceeding its authority to chop current grants. In a separate authorized motion, Cornell College and the College of Rochester joined a number of different faculties nationwide in saying the sudden cuts would destabilize their skill to do analysis.
The New York Lawyer Basic’s Workplace estimated 250 establishments statewide stand to lose $850 million if the plan, which caps oblique prices at 15%, takes impact.
“My office will not stand idly by as this administration once again puts politics over science and endangers public health,” James stated in an announcement.
The White Home has continued to push for the coverage, which was ordered by Elon Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity, or DOGE, and comes amid a broader crackdown on federal spending on increased schooling. The plan to focus on overhead prices of analysis emerged from Challenge 2025, a conservative agenda proposed for Trump’s second time period that argued the grants must be reduce to “reduce federal taxpayer subsidization of leftist agendas.”
“Contrary to the hysteria, redirecting billions of allocated NIH spending away from administrative bloat means there will be more money and resources available for legitimate scientific research, not less,” White Home Deputy Press Secretary Kush Desai stated in an announcement to CNN.
“NIH is obligated to carefully steward grant awards to ensure taxpayer dollars are used in ways that benefit the American people and improve their quality of life,” learn the NIH memo saying the brand new coverage.
Initially Printed: February 12, 2025 at 5:55 PM EST
