CFordUNC
Inconceivable Member
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Under Trump, Laws Are Just Vibes
The administration’s dangerous attack on scientific funding is part of a pattern of illegality and abuse.
www.thebulwark.com
This is a really insightful explainer of how devastating massive budget cuts will be for academic medical centers.
"We can debate about how NIH funds the infrastructure costs for doing research—including the buildings, scientific labs and materials, training of scientists, maintenance, support staff, clinical care, and ever-rising costs of ensuring compliance with federal rules about how funds are spent. We can also debate how the overhead rate is determined. Those are all fair subjects for discussion. But let’s be clear about what this NIH cap on overhead means in terms of practical politics: It is the Trump administration taking a swing at two favorite targets: science and higher education.
If you want to take a whack at the American scientific enterprise and higher education in general, it’s a smart way to do it. The issue is wonky and difficult for the public to understand—who knows anything about indirect rates? And university administrators don’t make the most attractive faces for public appeals for support.
But the effects will be felt well beyond universities, medical schools, and medical centers.
First, the cuts will especially damage medical research, care, and training. Medical schools and centers are among the largest recipients of these funds. Americans rely on these schools for their health care, with teaching hospitals providing the highest quality of care. Medical centers and schools are also where the vast majority of clinical trials for new medical treatments happen. Notably, private health care entities, including the pharmaceutical industry, are deeply reliant on the biomedical and health research produced at universities across the country. Isabella Eckerle, the Director of the Geneva Centre for Emerging Viral Diseases, said on Bluesky: “I feel so, so sorry for my colleagues in the US. How can someone destroy the decades-long lighthouse of science in less than 2 weeks? The US used to be the place to go to do great science and/or learn state-of-the-art medicine. It’s just pure madness.”
Second, it will cripple a world-beating American industry. American higher education generates lots of stable middle class jobs, and not just in blue states. It generates large positive economic externalities. This handy tool lets you estimate the economic impact of these funds in your state. Universities in places like Michigan, Texas, Wisconsin, Texas, and Georgia can, in no small part because of the quality of their research programs, attract international students who generate about $40 billion per year, subsidizing American students. “Red states have universities too,” observed one unnamed Trump official after the announcement. Although these cuts are presented as budget “savings,” their real effect will be to deeply damage a successful industry, many state economies, and ultimately medical care and our health.
So, yes, the effects of this change will be harmful, maybe dire. But there’s another reason the Trump administration shouldn’t be capping the NIH overhead rate, a simpler reason: It’s illegal."
