National Institutes of Health funding cuts alarm scientists at Long Island institutions

A federal judge Monday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump from imposing cuts to medical research that experts said would hobble work on Long Island and across the country intended to help 9/11 survivors and people living with cancer, Alzheimer's and other diseases.

A two-page order by Judge Angel Kelley of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts granted a request for a restraining order filed hours earlier by New York State Attorney General Letitia James and 21 other state attorneys general alleging the cuts violated Congressional appropriations law and asking that grant payments continue.

The order sets a Feb. 21 hearing.

In a video posted Monday on X, James said the Trump administration's funding cut "defies Congress, puts lifesaving medical and scientific research at risk and ignores the law." 

Derailing research

Bruce Stillman, a biochemist and cancer researcher who serves as president and CEO of the nonprofit Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, said in an interview the cuts would derail research at universities and at private institutes like his.

"It’s going to decimate science in the United States," he said. At his lab, "we will have to shut down probably about half our research if this persists," he said. The lab’s work has helped develop drugs for breast cancer and spinal muscular atrophy, a potentially lethal genetic disorder.

"It keeps children alive who would normally die," Stillman said.

The change announced Friday by the National Institutes of Health caps the maximum "indirect cost rate" research institutions charge the government at 15% of any given grant. The NIH, in a tweet Friday night, described indirect costs as "administrative overhead" but researchers say indirect costs also include scientific computing, medical waste management and lab maintenance. Institutions typically negotiate a rate for reimbursement from the government. Cold Spring Harbor Lab’s rate had been 48%, Stillman said.

NIH guidance said the change was intended to ensure "as many funds as possible go towards direct scientific research costs." Many organizations charge indirect costs of more than 50%, and for fiscal 2023, $9 billion of $35 billion the NIH granted nationally went toward "overhead," according to the agency. The new policy applies to current and future grants.

Long Island is a medical research hub, home to research institutions including Stony Brook, Northwell Health’s Feinstein Institutes, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory as well as biotech companies. The latest available job numbers for the region, from second quarter 2024, included 8,356 research and development jobs in biotechnology, physical engineering and life sciences, according to the state Department of Labor. It was not clear how many of those jobs were supported by NIH grants.

Long Island projects

The region's four congressional districts draw a combined $220 million in NIH funding for 462 research projects, according to the NIH. Across New York, NIH research grants support almost 30,000 jobs and $7.97 billion in economic activity, according to United for Medical Research, a coalition of research institutions and health advocates.

U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove), whose district includes Cold Spring Harbor Labs and the Feinstein Institutes, said the cuts would jeopardize the nation’s global standing as a top destination for scientific researchers.

"The Chinese Communist Party is cheering right now," Suozzi said. "This is going to slow the discovery of new treatments; it’s going to destroy the training of the next generation of scientific leaders ... Why would we want to hamstring one of our greatest strengths, especially when we’re facing competition from very dangerous adversaries?" Cutting waste in scientific research called for a "scalpel, not a sledgehammer," he added. "There’s a reason there’s a process outlined in the Constitution. There are drawn-out hearings and negotiations and detailed study."

U.S. Rep. Nick LaLota (R-Amityville), whose district is a major recipient of NIH funding and includes Stony Brook University, did not comment. U.S. Reps. Laura Gillen (D-Rockville Centre) and Andrew Garbarino (R-Bayport) said in statements that they were monitoring the situation. 

On Monday, SUNY Chancellor John King said in a statement that NIH cuts to work at Stony Brook and other institutions in the state university system represented an "existential threat to public health" and would cost the system $79 million for current grants.

John Rizzo, a Stony Brook health economist, said in an interview that the spending cuts, even though minuscule compared to total government spending, would devastate universities doing the most biomedical research.

"I’m all for spending money efficiently, but this is not the way to do it," Rizzo said. "It’s terrible policy."

The cuts come after a pledge by billionaire Elon Musk, in charge of Trump’s government efficiency program, to cut $2 trillion in federal spending. After the NIH announcement, Musk tweeted to followers: "universities with tens of billions in endowments were siphoning off 60% of research award money for ‘overhead.’ "

The $4 billion in savings promised by the NIH amounts to 0.2% of the total Musk has said he will save, and Long Island's universities do not have tens of billions of dollars in endowments.

Fewer breakthroughs

In interviews, Long Island researchers said they could not do research without paying indirect costs. Stillman said indirect costs for his lab include, for example, a bill for heating and cooling that may be multiples of what a typical home might pay. "We have to turn the air over more than once per hour" in laboratories so fumes don’t poison workers, he said.

The lab also pays for safe disposal of radioactive, chemical and medical waste. Computing is another indirect but major cost. "Imagine trying to do scientific research in this day and age without computers," he said.

At Adelphi University, Dominic Fareri, director of undergraduate psychology and neuroscience, said in a statement the cuts would undercut "the ability of universities to hire researchers and support staff or buy the necessary materials" to do research. "If this goes forward, we should expect to see fewer new treatments, cures, and other scientific breakthroughs."

Sean Clouston, a Stony Brook University epidemiologist whose work on the neurological health of World Trade Center first responders depends on a large support staff to recruit, track and ensure the safety of research participants, said the cuts would almost certainly lead to job cuts.

"Any project studying human health will be affected," he said. "How do you pay that whole team with a quarter of the budget? The answer is, you don’t."

Clouston said he and colleagues were "stunned" after word spread Friday night about the cuts.

"Everyone is looking at budgets, trying to figure out what’s our risk, how many people do we have to fire," he said. He said the cuts would likely make it harder to recruit top scientific talent in the future, especially those from overseas.

Some researchers who immigrated from abroad said they were already second-guessing decisions to work in the United States.

"We were attracted by the high technology, the innovative environment in the U.S., and that’s the reason we stayed here after graduation," said Donglan Zhang, an associate professor at NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine whose work focuses on population health. "But now it seems like it’s turning ... This might no longer be the better choice for us."