{"id":2081630,"date":"2025-09-03T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/?post_type=article&#038;p=2081630"},"modified":"2025-09-03T05:05:55","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T09:05:55","slug":"nih-grants-trump-political-appointees-agenda-alignment-peer-review","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/news\/article\/nih-grants-trump-political-appointees-agenda-alignment-peer-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Changes at NIH Give Political Appointees Greater Power To Fund or Block Research"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Trump administration has given notice that political appointees, rather than scientists, will ultimately decide who gets grant money from the world&#8217;s largest biomedical research funder \u2014 the federal government\u2019s National Institutes of Health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<aside class=\"block--sidebar alignright \">\n\t\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-kaiser-health-news-partner block--partner\">\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"partner__header\">\n\t\t\tUse Our Content\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t<p class=\"partner__content\">\n\t\t  It can be <a href=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/news\/article\/nih-grants-trump-political-appointees-agenda-alignment-peer-review\/view\/republish\/\">republished for free.<\/a>\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/aside>\n\n\n\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/presidential-actions\/2025\/08\/improving-oversight-of-federal-grantmaking\/\">an Aug. 7 executive order<\/a>, President Donald Trump announced that political officers would have the power to summarily cancel any federal grant, including for scientific work, that is not \u201cconsistent with agency priorities.\u201d Senior officials should not \u201croutinely defer\u201d to recommendations from peer reviewers, who have provided the backbone of federal science funding for eight decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya reinforced the message in an <a href=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/09\/ICD_DRAFT_Leveraging-Funding-Strategies_081525.pdf\">Aug. 15 internal memorandum<\/a> stating that political priorities may override the scoring system provided by outside experts appointed to hundreds of review panels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhile the score and critiques an application receives in peer review are important factors in determining the scientific merit of a proposal,\u201d his memo stated, NIH institutes and centers should not rely on the scientific merit rankings \u201cin developing their final pay plans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Like ongoing conflicts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Federal Reserve, NIH scientists told KFF Health News, the disruption of the peer review process represents an attack on agency expertise that the country has relied on for decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although the priorities of top agency staffers have always influenced some NIH funding, those people were nearly always career scientists in the past. By downgrading its peer review process, the NIH could allow political appointees who now occupy key positions to stop grants that typically would be funded, and to fund grants they prefer that don\u2019t necessarily meet rigorous scientific standards, a dozen current and former NIH officials told KFF Health News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bhattacharya\u2019s guidelines \u201copen the door to the politicization of NIH research,\u201d said Jenna Norton, a program officer in the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cPeer review is fundamental and makes sure we\u2019re doing the best science,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you\u2019re going to ignore that, the political appointee gets to make the final call.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>NIH spokesperson Amanda Fine said that peer review would continue to be the cornerstone of the NIH\u2019s funding decisions but that funding would become less dependent on reviewers\u2019 rankings of grant proposals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This will \u201censure consistent, transparent, and strategic funding decisions that align with the agency\u2019s mission, maximize public health impact, and responsibly steward taxpayer dollars,\u201d she said. Trump\u2019s executive order said peer reviews would be \u201cadvisory\u201d only.<\/p>\n\n\n<div\n\tclass=\"wp-block block--newsletter  \"\n\tdata-type=\"kaiser-health-news\/newsletter\"\n\tdata-align=\"center\"\n\tstyle=\"\"\n>\n\t<h4 class=\"newsletter__title\">\n\t\t<a href=\"\/email\/\">\n\t\t\tEmail Sign-Up\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/h4>\n\t<p class=\"newsletter__description\">\n\t\tSubscribe to KFF Health News&#039; free Morning Briefing.\t<\/p>\n\t\n<form\n\taction=\"\/email-signup\/\"\n\tclass=\"kaiser-hubspot-mini-signup-form\"\n\tmethod=\"post\"\n>\n\t<input type=\"hidden\" id=\"kaiser_hubspot_nonce\" name=\"kaiser_hubspot_nonce\" value=\"00b79a3908\" \/><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"_wp_http_referer\" value=\"\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/2081630\" \/>\t\t\t\t<label\n\t\tclass=\"kaiser-hubspot-mini-signup-form__label--email\"\n\t\tfor=\"kaiser-hubspot-mini-signup-form-email\"\n\t>\n\t\t<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">\n\t\t\tYour Email Address\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<input\n\t\t\tautocomplete=\"email\"\n\t\t\tclass=\"kaiser-hubspot-mini-signup-form__input--email\"\n\t\t\tid=\"kaiser-hubspot-mini-signup-form-email\"\n\t\t\tname=\"kaiser_hubspot_email\"\n\t\t\ttype=\"email\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tplaceholder=\"Your email address\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\/>\n\t<\/label>\n\t<button class=\"kaiser-hubspot-mini-signup-form__submit\">\n\t\tSign Up\t<\/button>\n<\/form>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Grants to scientists at universities and other research centers make up about 80% of the NIH\u2019s $48 billion budget, with the rest funding internal NIH research. Since 1946, the NIH has doled out funds based mainly on merits established by a scientific review process that ranks each proposal based on innovation, importance, and feasibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The peer review process, in which grant proposals scoring above a certain percentile generally receive funding, has always had its critics. Many a Nobel Prize speech has described failures by reviewers to recognize work that would end up leading to pathfinding discoveries, said Carrie Wolinetz, a former NIH chief of staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>About half of the NIH\u2019s 27 centers and institutes provide leeway to raise or drop grants on the priority list because of factors like institute-wide research goals, Fine said. But these exceptions apply to fewer than 5% of grants, according to Richard Nakamura, who led the NIH\u2019s Center for Scientific Review from 2011 to 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nakamura\u2019s successor, Noni Byrnes, retired last week after overseeing changes aimed at reducing one frequent target of peer review critics: the awarding of multiple grants to well-placed scientists from top-tier universities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Bhattacharya document \u201citself is not so disturbing in the light of usual practice,\u201d said Harold Varmus, who led the NIH under President Bill Clinton and was the chief of the National Cancer Institute under Barack Obama. \u201cWhat is disturbing is what it might mean in the context of the current administration.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The expansion of the Trump administration\u2019s political power at the NIH comes as it has strangled the release of thousands of grants with sometimes ambiguous policy statements and new layers of bureaucracy, including requirements that both the White House and the NIH director <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fiercebiotech.com\/research\/nih-chief-calls-immediate-research-review-dangling-threat-project-termination\">clear all new funding<\/a> opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/grants.nih.gov\/grants\/guide\/WeeklyIndexMobile.cfm?WeekEnding=2025-08-22\"><\/a>Career scientists, who have long run the NIH, have in some instances been replaced by political appointees playing critical roles in scientific decisions, staff scientists say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>New political appointees under Bhattacharya include chief of staff Seana Cranston, a former aide to conservative Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), and former Department of Government Efficiency manager James McElroy, Cranston\u2019s deputy. The position of chief operations officer was created and filled by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.executivegov.com\/articles\/eric-schnabel-coo-senior-executive-service-nih\">Eric Schnabel<\/a>, a political appointee \u2014 since fired \u2014 who previously had been in charge of business development for a company that sold fitness programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bhattacharya\u2019s deputy, meanwhile, is Matthew Memoli, an infectious disease scientist who emerged as a sharp critic of covid-19 vaccine mandates. The Department of Health and Human Services <a href=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/news\/article\/trump-hhs-rfk-flu-vaccine-nih-grant-taubenberger\/\">stunned vaccine experts<\/a> in May when it awarded Memoli and colleagues a $500 million grant to develop an influenza vaccine using older technology, with no explanation other than a superlative-filled news release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The mood at the agency is morbid, said Sylvia Chou, a program officer at the National Cancer Institute. While a minority of workers speak out in protest through documents <a href=\"https:\/\/www.standupforscience.net\/bethesda-declaration\">like the &#8220;Bethesda Declaration<\/a>,&#8221; others keep their heads down and their mouths shut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most grants must undergo new levels of review by senior NIH employees and the White House, program officers say. Staff members painstakingly police all grant applications for language \u2014 such as \u201cdiversity\u201d or \u201cclimate change\u201d \u2014 that might trigger scrutiny by higher-ups, according to four program officers, two of whom KFF Health News agreed not to name because they feared retaliation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBhattacharya has been saying that program officers are making up <a href=\"https:\/\/cen.acs.org\/policy\/research-funding\/NIH-director-Bhattacharya-denies-banned\/103\/web\/2025\/07\">banned-words lists<\/a>,\u201d Norton said. \u201cIt\u2019s true, we haven\u2019t gotten a list from him saying, \u2018Don\u2019t use these words.\u2019 But we do notice that when a grant says \u2018health equity,\u2019 it gets terminated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe review them and screen them for all these words as we\u2019re supposedly not doing \u2014 but we are doing,\u201d said a program officer who has been at the NIH for six years. \u201cAfter we approve them, they go to the grant management office and sit there. Then they send them back and say, \u2018What about this word?\u2019\u201d This leads to self-censorship, the officer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The officer cited a recent proposal involving the effects of hotter weather on kidney disease. It contained the phrase \u201cclimate change\u201d as background information, but \u201cI had them remove it,\u201d the officer said. \u201cIt\u2019s a level of absurdity, but I wanted to avoid more delays.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The peer review process itself is \u201cstarting to break down\u201d because highly scored grants haven\u2019t been funded for sometimes obscure reasons, Chou said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The NIH picks hundreds of deeply experienced external scientists to serve on its review panels. While screened to avoid conflicts of interest, many reviewers are themselves NIH grant recipients. They accept pay of about $200 for 100 hours of work as a kind of social contract with the NIH, said Mollie Manier, a scientist at the Center for Scientific Review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re finding that people are more likely to decline to serve on review panels because their own grants are frozen, or out of protest at what\u2019s happening at NIH,\u201d Manier said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another review officer described approaching a Brown University scientist with a request to serve on a panel recently: \u201cThey said normally they would do it, but they\u2019ve lost three grants and need to figure out how to keep their lab running.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As grants crawl through the system, \u201creviewers are starting to feel they aren\u2019t being convened for anything real,\u201d Manier said. \u201cIf the government cancels your grant for no good reason, you can\u2019t expect a good-faith effort anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s death by a thousand paper cuts, anything they can do to gum up payments, to gum up the decision-making, to wrest control of grant decisions from the career scientists,\u201d said Elizabeth Ginexi, an NIH program officer for 22 years who took early retirement in April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fine, the NIH spokesperson, said the agency had \u201cno evidence that recruiting peer reviewers has become more difficult than in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The administration\u2019s skepticism of peer review feeds doubts NIH scientists already had because of what they saw as irrational villainizing of mRNA vaccines and other matters \u2014 including Memoli\u2019s vaccine award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although in-house NIH research isn\u2019t subject to the same review process as external grants, Memoli\u2019s grant left officials aghast. \u201cI\u2019m not aware of a process that awards $500 million for a project using antiquated technology to develop vaccines,\u201d one seasoned reviewer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Trump\u2019s executive order says the grant review process \u201cundermines the interests of American taxpayers,\u201d leaving many good proposals unfunded while supporting \u201ctoo much unfocused research of marginal social utility.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe opposite is true,\u201d the seasoned reviewer said. \u201cWe make sure taxpayer money goes to the most high-impact research.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAlignment\u201d is a word the Trump administration frequently uses to explain why an official got fired or research was rejected. Chou finds it appalling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe Chinese Communists call it \u2018harmonization,\u2019\u201d she said, and now her colleagues speak routinely about grants that are \u201cclean\u201d because they\u2019ve \u201cgone through alignment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re saying this in plain English,\u201d she said. \u201cNot Russian, not Beijing Chinese.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The National Institutes of Health\u2019s long-held standard of peer review for grantmaking has been subverted by President Donald Trump and NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, who gave unprecedented power to politicos, NIH workers say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2081796,"template":"","meta":{"_cr_original_post":"","_cr_replace_post_id":"","_cr_replacing_post_id":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"kff_featured_video":0,"kff_show_featured_video":false,"kff_show_mute_audio_button":false,"custom_shortlink":"\/MjA4MTYzMA","kaiser_health_news_byline_override":"","kaiser_health_news_can_republish":true,"kaiser_health_news_featured_image_caption":"","kaiser_health_news_header_overlay_color":"","kaiser_health_news_header_theme_slug":"","kaiser_health_news_hero_image":0,"kaiser_health_news_backdrop_padding":115,"kaiser_health_news_hide_partner":false,"kaiser_health_news_kicker":"","kaiser_health_news_kicker_background_color":"","kaiser_health_news_kicker_text_color":"","kaiser_health_news_kicker_url":"","kaiser_health_news_nav_theme_slug":"compact","kaiser_health_news_nav_transparency":false,"kaiser_health_news_sharing_title":"","kaiser_health_news_show_featured_image":true,"kaiser_health_news_subheadline":"","kaiser_health_news_suppress_kicker":false,"kaiser_health_news_suppress_subheadline":false,"kaiser_health_news_update_time":"","kaiser_health_news_vertical_image":0,"kaiser_health_news_title_align_left":false,"kaiser_health_news_custom_header_image":0,"photo_byline":[],"story_update":"","update_position":"bottom","kaiser_syndication_sites":[],"apple_news_api_created_at":"2025-09-03T09:06:05Z","apple_news_api_id":"dd74876c-f62a-4a00-a3f3-53f9f966ec83","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2025-09-03T09:06:05Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A3XSHbPYqSgCj81P5-Wbsgw","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":["https:\/\/news-api.apple.com\/sections\/20265c01-23d7-4d15-96e0-0691b89c3772"],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[178379,36835],"tags":[439530183,303277465,303201989,439524171,84540],"primary-topic":[],"partners":[],"funder":[],"coauthors":[439527100],"class_list":["post-2081630","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-industry","category-syndicate","tag-agency-watch","tag-hhs","tag-nih","tag-trump-administration","tag-vaccines"],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.9 - 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