Research & Developments is a blog for brief updates that provide context for the flurry of news regarding law and policy changes that impact science and scientists today.
The Trump administration’s intentions toward addressing climate change are clear: Federal agencies purged mentions of the climate crisis from their websites and slashed funding for mitigation tools such as the Future Risk Index. Now, those intentions are extending to health research: The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has begun to cancel funding for investigations into the health effects of climate change, and will not financially support new research on the subject, according to ProPublica and Nature.
NIH is the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world. Every year, the agency is responsible for awarding nearly $48 billion in grants for investigations into everything from cancer cures to avian flu, as well as climate change.
Documents sent to Nature on 25 March direct grants management staff at NIH to halt funding, including issuing future, already-awarded grant dollars, to any projects that are “no longer an NIH/HHS priority,” including research related to climate change. The documents also direct the NIH to halt grants for research related to COVID-19, “now that the pandemic is over.” The cuts to COVID-19 research—including cuts to projects meant to develop antiviral drugs—come as the administration also plans to end its funding for Gavi, an international program that purchases vaccines for children in developing countries. Gavi estimates that the loss of U.S. support may cause the deaths of more than 1 million children who will not receive routine vaccinations.
Climate change is a major threat to public health, according to international agencies such as the World Health Organization. A warming world increases risks of heat-related illness, disease, malnutrition, and injury, which often disproportionately affect already-vulnerable populations. Funding cuts to research on climate and health hinders scientists’ ability to understand these threats.
COVID-19, environmental health, and climate change are linked—studies show that those living in air pollution hotspots face an increased likelihood of death from COVID-19, as do those living near fossil fuel production facilities.
Halting funding for climate and health research “is an agenda item for the fossil fuel industry, and this administration is doing what the fossil fuel industry wants,” Lisa Patel, executive director of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate & Health, told ProPublica.
A now-offline NIH report from 2024 detailed some of the NIH-funded climate projects that may now be under threat, such as research to understand the health impacts of the Maui wildfires, a project meant to expand the capacity of public health systems to respond to climate disasters in Appalachia, and an initiative to promote public health in Alaska Native communities facing climate health concerns.
—Grace van Deelen (@gvd.bsky.social), Staff Writer
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