Throwing a Wrench in the National Cancer Institute
It is very easy to disrupt a complex system and very hard to get it going again. Trump, Musk, and the Muskateers decided to limit overhead on NIH grants to 15% fearing that some of the overhead might get money to DEI deans. They also limited communication of government health agencies with the public. The first order has been temporarily suspended by a judge. Part of the second as well. However, there is enough of a restriction on public communication to block National Institute of Health (NIH) grants. Public announcements are a required stage of the granting process (transparency and all that). I fair use Josh Marshall’s explanation for subscribers to TalkingPointsMemo (to ease my conscience I advertise — well worth the modest cost of subscription).
“NIH and Its Agencies Are Being Smothered
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The broad picture is bad. It’s nothing less than a very concerted attempt to shut down medical research across the United States.
It starts with what we know about — “freezes” of grant spending which in some cases have been blocked by the courts but in many of those cases have not yet restarted. Some of that seems to be intentional non-compliance, but a non-trivial amount of it is that when multiple things are intentionally broken at once, things simply don’t snap back. In other cases, communication freezes have halted the grant-making and disbursement process because that process requires, by statute, various reviews and communications that are themselves frozen.”
For example, clinical trials must be announced (with a selection of the “principal outcome” so no post trial data dredging is possible” on one of my favorite sites ClinicalTrials.gov (which really happened to be open when I began typing this post). It must be announced that one can apply for a grant (transparency and all that). The restriction on public communication by Federal Governemnt health agencies. The restriction was insane, but I suspect that the people who announced it knew it would block all new NIH grants.
Similarly, they (in particular Marco Rubio) have decided there should be waivers of the 90-day aid pause for urgent lifesaving aid. The process of applying for a waiver is complicated (and not publicly explained). More importantly the USAID money transfer system is still blocked. NGOs which were receiving grant money can’t pay their bills with an announcement of a waiver.
It is easier to make fish soup out of fish than to make a fish out of fish soup.
It is not at all clear to me how much of this is malice and how much is incompetence. There is plenty of both,
“Given the arbitrary nature [of the cuts] and the act by Congress, I don’t think it’s likely that they will be sustained by a court,” said Nicole Huberfeld, a professor of health law, ethics, and human rights at the Boston University School of Public Health. “What we’re seeing is the same kind of ‘act first and ask questions later’ approach that we saw in the first Trump administration. It’s just bolder this time.”
Five legal experts told the Globe that NIH attorneys face a steep hurdle proving to the courts that the agency should be allowed to override a law passed by Congress, even if it can make the case that the policy itself was reasonable and not capricious.
“This is as clear a case of illegality as there is,” said Samuel Bagenstos, a law professor at the University of Michigan. “They tried to do this in the first Trump administration, and Congress responded by saying, ‘We will adopt our own statute.’ That is something that NIH has to comply with, and the Trump administration has to comply with.”
As clear a case of illegality as there is’: Mass. judge to hear arguments today over Trump NIH cut