Researchers Call Trump’s Proposed NIH Cuts ‘Shocking’

An estimated $5.8 billion in cuts to the National Institutes of Health in President Donald Trump’s proposed budget has universities and medical institutions sounding the alarm. Trump’s spending plan — running into opposition from Republicans and Democrats alike — would cut about 20 percent of the roughly $30 billion budget of the nation’s medical research agency that supports research on cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, Zika and other conditions. Research institutions nationwide decried the cuts as potentially devastating to their work. Based in Bethesda, Md., the NIH spends most of its annual budget — about 85 percent — on grants to thousands of researchers and medical institutions across the country.Traditionally, biomedical research has enjoyed strong bipartisan support, surviving ideologically driven cutbacks from one administration to the next. Grant increases to major NIH recipients had been averaging about 3 percent per year during the Obama administration.