NIH Cancels $40 Million in Grants Directed Chiefly at LGBTQ Health Research
The federal government is canceling the renewal 68 grants sent to 46 research institutions. These grants amount to a total of $40 million at the time of their bestowment. Most of the grants, sent by the National Institute of Health (NIH), were directed toward LGBTQ health programs. Other canceled grants were spent on programs researching cancer, youth suicide and bone health.
Chair of the HIV Medicine Association Colleen Kelly – who had two canceled grants for HIV projects she was working on lately – claims the cuts are “pure chaos and insanity.”
“It’s just a massive, massive bloodbath,” Kelly told CNN.
According to The Associated Press, one of the canceled grants went to a program at Vanderbilt University. The program followed “the overall health of more than 1,200 LGBTQ people age 50 and older.” Most of the grant money has been spent by the university; however its renewal will be cut.
US Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon said the agency is “dedicated to restoring our agencies to their tradition of upholding gold-standard, evidence-based science.”
Moreover, the NIH told CNN that the grant cancellations were made in accordance with an executive order signed by President Donald Trump titled Radical Transparency about Wasteful Spending.
The order, signed in February, calls to “direct the heads of executive departments and agencies to take all appropriate actions to make public, to the maximum extent permitted by law and as the heads of agencies deem appropriate to promote the policies of my Administration, the complete details of every terminated program, cancelled contract, terminated grant, or any other discontinued obligation of Federal funds.”
The Associated Press reports that some of the grant money has already been used by recipients. However, $1.36 million in future funding for these programs has been cut since the NIH made this decision.
