The WH is Stopping Science, Discovery & Innovation, One Panel at a Time
Today, a collaborative grant we submitted to NIH won't be reviewed. No one's will. Yes, I am mad. But Americans should be even madder.
Today I learned that the NIH will not hold a scientific review panel in which our collaborative grant, along with dozens of others had been submitted for consideration. I discussed the administrative mechanism last week:
Here, I get personal. Yes I am mad. But Americans should be even madder.
Grant reviews have been halted for study section after study section. The efforts of expert panelists to decide on what to fund will be wasted. This is not efficiency, this is DOGE and the White House *wasting taxpayer money now and dismantling our ability to build an innovation-driven economy*.
Without new grant reviews, there is no way for NIH to deliver Congressionally apportioned funds to labs across the US. Without funds, these labs will no longer be able to support employees and basic operations. These grants are needs, not wants. Halts on review mean, soon, a halt to science.
Day after day, the administration continues to stop NIH (and other agencies) from fulfilling its mission. Not only has it capriciously fired employees who work on basic & translational research that enables life-saving cures, it has also shut down the pipeline for new innovation. How much time has been wasted?
One panelist estimated on X that 35 members x 45 hrs/member ~1575 hrs of wasted effort. Nearly a whole person-year of effort gone. Like that. Panelists are paid a nominal amount; this is near-voluntary effort. The people who work in these fields do so out of a sense of service and purpose.
Perhaps our grant would have gotten a fundable score. Perhaps not. That is beside the point. These projects matter, not just to the scientists who perform them but to local economies and communities in which the work is done, and to the broader US that has benefited from the translation of ideas into devices, products, therapeutics, vaccines, and more.
This is not a game.
It's not harm to a narrow sector.
What is happening represents an existential threat to an innovation-driven economy & to the health and well-being of us all.