Trump administration announces funding cuts

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued a written statement regarding the planned cuts.

The statement noted that the NIH provides numerous federal grants that supply significant funding to universities and medical centers for research purposes, and stated that cuts will be made to "indirect costs" defined as "facilities" and "administration" within the grant items.

Emphasizing that the U.S. should have the world's best medical research, the statement included the following: "Accordingly, it is vital that as much funding as possible be directed toward direct scientific research costs rather than administrative overhead."

The statement noted that these cuts would save more than 4 billion dollars per year and announced that the policy would take effect immediately.

In a post made on the NIH's social media platform, it was reported that of the 35 billion dollars the NIH allocated for research last year, 9 billion dollars was spent on administrative overhead described as "indirect costs."

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by billionaire businessman Elon Musk, stated in a social media post that the NIH's new policy would save billions of dollars from "excessive grant administrative costs," and praised the implementation as "great work by the NIH team."

In a post on his own account, Musk claimed that the NIH's former policy was "a heist," writing, "Can you believe that universities with tens of billions of dollars in endowments were embezzling 60% of research award money for 'overhead'?"

News Source: AA