Hundreds of scientists and staffers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are publicly protesting Trump administration policies that they say politicize science, threaten their work and “harm the health of Americans and people across the globe.”
In a letter to Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the NIH director, the employees lay out a series of concerns. They allege that they continue to face pressure “to implement harmful measures” and that the administration is making politicized, indiscriminate decisions on grants and contracts. They say that since Trump was inaugurated on January 20, NIH has terminated 2,100 research grants totaling about $9.5 billion and $2.6 billion in contracts — and that those decisions throw away years of work and waste millions of dollars.
“Ending a $5 million research study when it is 80% complete does not save $1 million, it wastes $4 million,” they write. They add that the decisions risk people’s health: “NIH trials are being halted without regard to participant safety, abruptly stopping medications or leaving participants with unmonitored device implants.”
The letter warns that the “unprecedented reduction in NIH spending” is not a move toward greater efficiency “but rather a dramatic reduction in life-saving research” and a violation of Bhattacharya’s duty to spend congressionally appropriated funds for NIH research.
The letter was also sent to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and members of Congress who oversee the NIH. Kennedy has led a reorganization of U.S. government health agencies that has reportedly cut some 5,000 NIH employees and contractors.
The NIH employees titled their letter the "Bethesda Declaration," modeled after the “Great Barrington Declaration,” an open letter that Bhattacharya and others published in October 2020 that criticized pandemic lockdowns and other aspects of the Covid-19 response.
Bhattacharya is set to testify tomorrow before a Senate Appropriations panel about the Trump administration’s fiscal 2026 budget request. The White House proposal would slash NIH funding by $18 billion, or about 40%.
In a statement, Bhattacharya said that “dissent in science is productive” but added that the protest letter includes “some fundamental misconceptions about the policy directions the NIH has taken in recent months.” He said that the NIH is “working to remove ideological influence from science,” strengthen transparency and accountability and “responsibly manage taxpayer dollars.”