More than 74,000 patients enrolled in experimental treatment studies have been affected by the National Institutes of Health’s funding cuts, according to a new report.
Between the end of February and mid-August, funding ceased for 383 studies that were testing treatments for conditions including cancer, heart disease and brain disease. The cuts disproportionately impacted efforts to tackle infectious diseases like the flu, pneumonia and COVID-19, researchers found.
The funding cuts likely disrupted patients’ lives in different ways.
Some may have signed up for trials that never began or got delayed as institutions scrambled for alternate funding. Others could have lost access to medication or been left with an unmonitored device implant.
More still could have participated in trials only for the results to never get published.
“The disruption to the research enterprise was profound and substantial,” says Heather Pierce, who has followed NIH grant cuts for the Association of American Medical Colleges.
