'Never seen anything like this' – NIH meetings and travel halted abruptly

My partner works in a cancer clinic at a major university hospital. The staff is terrified of what is to come and this looks like the first domino. Without research grants a critical stepping stone in medicals careers will go missing, along with research into new medicine and treatments. Relying on pharmaceutical companies to take on this research doesn't make sense - a lot of research isn't even about treatment but managing side affects, improving quality of life, testing existing medicines, etc. Very concerned for what will happen here.

My partner is trying to start a career in intensive care research and submitted for a major NIH grant a few months ago that was given a high score (= would probably be funded). Because of the “pause” we’re now unsure if it will get funded at all. These things take months of prep (years if you consider all of the prior publication work) and if you miss your window it could just sink your career before it gets started.

Anyone doing medical research can easily make more money as a clinician in private practice. If we force these people out, it’s the taxpayers loss. Unless you believe medical research as a whole is a waste of money, which… I would disagree on. If it’s simply a matter of changing research priorities, there are already mechanisms to influence that without shutting down the whole system. This is just ham-handed incompetence as a show of force.

Unfortunately, this is happening at a lot of agencies. Stop work orders have been issued from the state department for pretty much anything relating to international aid at my partner's large USAID-focused contractor. It's so severe the contractor is sending out emails that, to me, look like they're strongly considering shuttering the company ("prioritizing meeting payroll" was one of the things mentioned, and I can't imagine they're going to find new revenue streams in time).

A lot of people are reliant on this aid. A lot of people are going to die within weeks.

This is a clear moment for a European or Chinese research program to announce a major new initiative to hire researchers into stable jobs.

Given trends in media (social and otherwise) will have to take a wait and see approach. But sudden cancellations with limited communication is definitely not a strong indicator of a well thought out or executed plan.

Feel sorry for the young PIs and postdocs.

For full-article access: <https://archive.is/H3BE9>

I don't know anything about the specifics, but a thought that came to mind is:

If you're trying to thin down agencies to reduce costs so the government can significantly reverse or slow its financial trends to buy more time, shaking things a little and seeing who complains could certainly get quick feedback about what to prioritize or what to cut.

If your job is so unimportant that you aren't willing to reach out and make a case to the relevant people for why it is important, maybe the mission won't be deemed strong enough to justify spending tax payer dollars on.

For work that does produce actual value, assistance could be provided in converting that mission to a private company if the entities that depended on it existing will realistically pay for its services. If it's important and nobody would pay, maybe keep or test viability for converting to a non-profit organization that relies on donations. If it's both unimportant and nobody would pay, probably cut.

Existing employees working on it can then be given time/finances to help deal with any transition deemed necessary.

The existing government URLs or resources for it could then redirect to the privatized group, which can carry on its legacy.

It wouldn't surprise me if we see some more agencies facing various kinds of disruption just to see who gets noisy to gather data.

It's worth keeping in mind that government shutdowns are probably far more disruptive and have lasted from 16-35 days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_shutdowns_in_the_Un...

Sure, but as long as he's giving the crypto industry exactly what they want, it's all worth it, right?

Anyway, he's kicking over sand castles. Not because it's going to improve anything, but because he can. Purest expression of power. The cruelty is the point. Etc.

It's wild the number of people who think this behavior a good thing...

Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42798960

This is how you accelerate the end of the US empire. It's bad for us, but tbh, good for the world. The pulling out of America from international institutions and disrupting the scientific pipeline will erode America's ability to perniciously influence world institutions and reduces our ability to brain drain the rest of the globe for the benefit of 4% of the world population (and really, the major benefits go to the top 20% of that 4% and the bulk of that goes to the 1%... 0.1%....).

Does the NIH have any obligations or made any guarantees to hold these meetings and travel?

I'm consfused. Is this an indefinite or a very temporary thing?

The article says the move is part of a roughly 11 day pause in communication (till the first of Feb) but also describes the reviews as "suspended indefinitely"

Unpopular opinion - grants have gone wild in the past decade and these need to be realigned. Now the way is done is variable and may not be ideal - but the work is necessary.

Infrastructure week!

Sorry, cancer research is woke now. We can't have that. This is idiocy.

fun to just suicide the country for literally no reason

or rather, for the reason of speedrunning 1990s Russian oligarchic plundering of the state

"Adding to the worry: the Trump team appears to have deleted entire webpages about diversity programmes and diversity-related grants from the agency’s site."

Don’t worry guys AI will solve all the healthcare! /s

https://youtu.be/fkT4bPEQCjc?t=563&feature=shared

Y’ain’t seen nothin yet.

Isn’t as simple as ok NIH spends $47B/year so must be some low hanging fruit for cuts. Let’s freeze it all.