A week later Donald J. Trump, a senior scientist at the National Institutes of Health, was inaugurated to give an invited discussion to a scientific meeting when an urgent call came from an administrative assistant.
There is a comprehensive ban on communications, the scientist said and you can’t give speech.
As soon as the scientist returned to the office, another ban has come into force – the one that forbade researchers from submitting documents to magazines for publication.
Seven senior researchers working in various parts of the National Institutes of Health describe the rules implemented by the commands of the Department of Government Efficiency that are at risk of blocking and undermining American medical science. Everyone talked about the condition of anonymity because they were afraid of their work to speak publicly.
Someone said that Doge had begun a kingdom of “chaos and confusion”. Scientists warned that it was able to seriously weaken NIH – the jewelry of American science, with a huge network of thousands of researchers in 27 centers dedicated to the treatment of diseases, improving health and funding medical research.
The rules are seemingly changing from day to day.
Can scientists order the necessary commissions to do their research? Yes. No.
Can they travel? The 30 -day ban was implemented on 26 February. What will happen next? No one knows.
“It’s really pretty cold,” one of the scientists said. “They check information, causing chaos, disturbing everyone, keeping us out of balance.”
“Whatever people read in newspapers is 10 times worse,” the scientist added.
Scientists recognize that NIH, like any institution, is not perfect. It has long been criticized that he is very careful, for example, failing to take the opportunity in high -risk, high reward research proposals.
“I would like to make the front of the line to help with a rational process to improve this place,” another scientists said.
A NIH spokesman said the Agency complied with an executive mandate, but that they continued certain activities, including supplies for clinical research studies or continuing research experiments. And, he added, “a journey for the purposes of human safety, health care or health care of animals, safety, bio -safety, bio -security or IT safety may continue.”
The spokesman did not face the purpose of changing so many policies and practices. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who is awaiting confirmation from the Senate to lead NIH, did not address these issues in his confirmation hearing this month. But he said in his opening statement that “the American biomedical sciences are at a crossroads”, citing Pew Survey’s data that found almost a quarter of Americans had little or no confidence that scientists were acting in the interest of the American people.
The NIH towers above the medical research of the world.
There, the human genetic code was discovered, where hepatitis C was discovered, where the AIDS virus was isolated, where the first drug was discovered for the treatment of AIDS and where a basic study was done to help lead to Covid vaccines. He funded the project decades ago that led to the creation of Ozempic and other new drugs that cause weight loss.
“It is very difficult to mention the impressive discoveries that had not been taken in some way by NIH,” said Dr. Rudolph Leibel, a professor of medicine at Columbia University, who, like most medical researchers in the United States, received funding.
Dr. Francis Collins, a former NIH director, said: “If you are taking an approved FDA drug that improves the quality or length of your life, there is a 99 % chance that NIH was involved in the way to discovery.”
Part of the Ministry of Health and Human Services now led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., NIH has a main campus with more than 75 buildings spreading over 300 acres on Bethesda, MD, working about 6,000 scientists. There are five smaller research centers in other states.
NIH pays for large clinical trials in areas such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes that have changed medical practice and save lives.
His researchers are forbidden to pay for industry consultants. Many say that they are driven by a love of science and a thirst for better humanity through their discoveries.
Dr. Monica Bertagnolli, who resigned in January as NIH’s director, said the scientists “are so dedicated to the mission”.
The Agency also supports research by an additional 300,000 scientists in more than 2,500 universities and medical centers – also threatened research.
Hundreds of highly competitive grants have been reduced that support research at universities and medical schools across the country. Many of the eliminated grants had descriptions that included terms such as “minorities”, “transgender”, “AIDS” and “Vaccine hesitation”. But cuts have also affected research on the chronic diseases that Mr Kennedy has prioritized. For example, funding has been reduced for a subsidy at the University of Columbia for a study that followed people who have diabetes or are in danger of developing it for more than a quarter of a century. (These funds can be restored, however, as Columbia agreed last week on a list of claims by Trump’s administration.)
A program that supported training scientists from minority groups, those who had disabilities and those of a disadvantaged backgrounds has also disappeared.
And the research grants that have helped to pay for the training of doctoral and postdoctoral students have been reduced. Now universities are flooding offers to young scientists.
Senior scientists in NIH say their work is facing daily disorders.
Some disorders are small: each NIH employee, no matter how superior, should send a weekly email to a human resources address with five sphere points stating what was completed last week. Employees never hear anything back, a senior scientist in NIH for decades, he said. But the scientist said that he and other scientists feel a high degree of paranoia for messages.
Other consequences are more serious: a senior scientist studying a rare and destructive disorder that affects young children and studying a treatment that could help invite doctors who care for such children. At the last moment they were told that he could not go.
“This is completely unacceptable,” the scientist said.
The researchers have also struggled to buy basic and specialized supplies required to carry out their work.
One of the senior scientists said that when Doge recently put a $ 1 spending limit on government credit cards, he obviously didn’t know how essentially the cards were for basic businesses. There was no mechanism, for example, to pay for natural gas for vehicles used for the transfer of patients’ blood samples.
“We had to fight and beg” to get chapters, the scientist said. A few days ago, non -emergency supplies reiterated. But the scientist said, “Now there is a huge delay.” Και το προσωπικό που χειρίστηκε τις παραγγελίες έχει αποδεκατιστεί από πυρκαγιές, πρόσθεσε.
“We were told that you should think of the weeks ahead of supplies and reagents,” he said.
Other scientists said they had been influenced by inconsistent guidelines for the market.
“They continue to change the rules,” said the senior scientist who has spent decades in NIH “policies change so quickly and often that he knows.”
A different NIH scientist said that a program he used to order supplies for his workshop was closed for a month. Then opened for about a day. “A few days later it was closed again,” he said. And it is closed.
He needs mice with special genetic characteristics for his studies.
“We can’t order mice,” he said. As a result, he said, many years of work value is in danger.
Scientists were frozen by disorganizing firing and repetition of workers.
On Friday before the weekend of Presidents’ Day in February, a senior doctor scientist learned that about 20 technicians had been fired at a NIH blood bank where patient samples were analyzed, part of a command that eliminated their two -year -old test workers. The mandate also led to the firing of test workers preparing the transfusions there.
Also, in the list that had to be fired because they were trial, the fellowships taking care of sick patients at the Clinical Center – NIH Hospital was dedicated to clinical research on Bethesda campus. They included the staff of the Intensive Care Unit and the members of the Blue Code group that responds when a patient has cardiac arrest.
The supervisors were impressed. These patients were sick. Who will take care of them?
“We should literally get out of patients with aircraft,” said the senior doctor.
The clinical center received one last minute after the panicked and protest of the researchers. Doge stopped firing intensive care doctors and allowed NIH to repeat laboratories and blood bank workers.
“It was just incredibly stressful,” said the senior doctor.
Other scientists learn that no job is safe, even those held by people in antiquity.
NIH staff members can no longer consider the automatic renewal of their contracts, said a senior scientist. Now some scientists are on leave without pay when their contracts are exhausted and then wait anxiously to find out if they still have a job.
The results are waving beyond NIH, affecting decisions on the type of research projects by academic scientists to even be considered funding.
The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes on the NIH Bethesda campus was planning to publish grants to academic scientists to study indicators of dementia and amyotrophic sclerosis of the bloody and brain. The aim of the project was to diagnose patients earlier and to find out if they helped experimental drugs.
But evaluating these grant proposals requires a specialized review of the Institute of Neurological Disorders. Doge’s commands shifted reviews to another office where reviewers would not have a specific experience.
The result, a senior scientist said, is that “we will not be able to perform this type of program”. Instead, he said, “We have to do simpler things.”
NIH employees are anxious that they will soon face a massive firing or reduction.
No one seems to know who will be fired, what criteria will be used or when it will happen, said the senior scientist who spoke about the problem ordering supplies.
“It is the not knowing, the chaos” that torments people, he said.
“If they said,” we will go to the RIF administrative senior scientists or to anyone over 65 or any score was poor “, it would be much less stressful,” he said, using the acronym to reduce power.
“But that’s like Russian roulette,” he added. “You don’t know what is coming.”
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