Trump's NIH axed research grants even after a judge blocked the cuts
81 comments
·May 8, 2025matthewdgreen
flax
>We should be reacting to this the same way we respond when someone shoots up a school or hospital.
We are: feeling horrible, knowing this is the only country where this happens, and also resigned to the fact that there's nothing we as individuals can do about it.
xyzal
Excuse me? Of course you can do a lot of things. Talk to your neigbor, share gov't f-ups on social media, learn to argue for democracy and against common MAGA narratives, join protests, donate to good causes, make your political preference visible, spark dialogues.
We (Eastern Europeans) could not do neither of those things without risking jail time and we still managed to topple dictatorships.
ty6853
Not being able to do those things probably nudged you towards revolution.
Voting feels like you've done something. Cast a vote between the lady rammed through without even a primary, or the other oh so fabulous option. Go home and pat yourself on the back, you did something, you tried, and hey it is democracy so you deserve what you get. Now you can relax and mission accomplished.
People under eastern europe 'communist' dictators didn't have any of that. Just whisper in the shadows, and then suddenly Ceaușescu is swiss cheese, because there was literally no other option than to reject the whole system dominating them rather than exhausting their energies squabbling on twitter.
CodeMage
> We (Eastern Europeans) could not do neither of those things without risking jail time and we still managed to topple dictatorships.
As someone who was born and grew up in post-Communist Yugoslavia, there are a few things I can offer as an observation here. Please don't take these as a disagreement or a criticism. It's just additional context I would like to offer to everyone who happens to read this.
One is that people are perfectly fine with a dictatorship as long as the life is good enough for the majority. That's why no one toppled Tito, but they got rid of Milošević in the end, after all the wars, sanctions, and bombings.
Another is that all those things that you said Americans can do without risking jail time aren't the things that toppled dictatorships. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they're worthless. On the contrary, things like talking to your neighbor, protesting, and sparking dialogues are all indispensable ingredients for overthrowing a dictator, but they're not the endgame. They're just the stepping stones.
Which brings me to my final observation: the only way to overthrow a dictatorship is through a revolution. It doesn't have to be a violent revolution, but it does have to be a revolution and not just a bunch of limited, scattered, uncoordinated protests.
Whether Trump's administration is a dictatorship or not is not something I'm interested in discussing on HN, but the fact remains that the sentiment GP expressed -- that they're "resigned to the fact that there's nothing we as individuals can do about it" -- indicates that the people who are trying to resist the erosion of democracy in the US lack organization and coordination. The things you listed could help them with that, but I don't think that will happen until there's a critical mass of people willing to take risks, and we're still not in the situation where things are bad enough for that to happen.
buggerme
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mnky9800n
Do you think the SNCC students who sat at the counter for the first time thought they would be completely safe? No they probably were afraid out of their minds that they would be lynched and their families would follow. But they had an integral part in the desegregation of the United States which led to a much freer and safer place for them and their children. They were individuals who made choices that they knew could lead to suffering because they thought it might make their world a slightly better place. There are plenty of ways to make the world a better place.
prox
As individuals: group up. Start figuring out your local, state and federal political people you need to support. Build community is probably your best bet as individuals. Even if you donate a few hours here and there, or a small donation here and there, it can make the difference.
This last election was mostly decided by the people who didn’t vote. The apathetic, the cynics and so on.
AnthonyMouse
An excellent option is to use federalism as it was intended. If you want funding for certain medical research, have your state issue grants. There is nothing that requires it to be the federal government.
decremental
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esafak
Thought it may be hard, you can do something as long as there are reasonably fair elections.
netsharc
To everyone who condemned Russians who "just sat and did nothing" as Putin invaded Ukraine...
(I'm not a saint, a friend of mine goes out to protest against the ongoing genocide every week, I sit around and do nothing...).
computerthings
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boben
> There's an excellent chance that you or a loved one will die from a potentially curable disease (cancer, dementia) because the research and clinical trials that should be bringing us those drugs are all being murdered.
Why do you believe that? They're not defunding research in these areas.
Retric
It looks like they are seeing exactly that:
> A friend who is a breast cancer survivor just had her trial moved from NIH funding
AnthonyMouse
They're withholding funding from certain institutions, but that doesn't change the amount of money Congress appropriated, so doesn't that just mean the grants go to some other institution and the research happens there?
misnome
Why do you believe that? Do you think that this isn’t research that Harvard or Cornell do? Or that other blanket funding cancellations at the NIH don’t affect biology research?
insane_dreamer
If that’s what you were told, you were lied to.
malcolmgreaves
They are. The dementia-riddled orange man has already had a few childish temper tantrums and is illegally withholding congressionally appropriated funds to entire university's research programs. The Republicans are the only ones supporting this criminal by the way. It's important to get your facts straight here.
ryandrake
> We should be reacting to this the same way we respond when someone shoots up a school or hospital.
I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic, but we, as in the USA, don't do anything (besides offering the standard Thoughts And Prayers™) when someone shoots up a school.
ty6853
Nah we do something. We threaten to break the probation of anyone going in to save their children, beat up parents trying to get in, then scroll on our cell phones and furiously maintain hand hygiene with sanitizer while standing outside the door.
The lesson is clear. Fight your way in to get your kids or die trying. No one is coming to help.
ARandomerDude
Not sure why this comment is being downvoted. This is a literal description of the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, TX.
danans
You are confusing a specific situation (a particular school shooting) for the general problem (the cultural and legal circumstances that give rose to school shootings).
chasing
> A more serious political observation is that this administration operates on the theory that possession is 9/10ths of the law.
It's just wild to me that people aren't simply arrested when this kind of thing occurs. It's not Trump's money. It's not Republican money. He has a narrowly defined role and anything outside of that is illegal.
It's not exactly surprising, though, given half the government is run by the weakest and most deranged major political party in American history. The simple fact that the GOP has been steamrolled by this guy is the best evidence of the fact that since the 1970s they've been on a steep downward slide to become a party completely devoid of political talent, governing philosophy, or spine.
Even if this gang of dipshits were trying to do good, they don't have the capacity to be able to understand complex situations and make accurate and nuanced choices. An example of this situation being RFK Jr.
Normal people need to be screaming this from the hills. A healthy country in a competitive world cannot be run by grifters and morons. There's no "both sides" here.
justanotheratom
This is a little too much fear mongering:
"excellent chance that you or a loved one will die from a potentially curable disease (cancer, dementia) because the research and clinical trials that should be bringing us those drugs are all being murdered."
Why is this an excellent chance?
daveguy
Because it was already an excellent chance, and now the most successful biomedical research program in the world is being decimated?
Seems like the bare minimum fear to me.
Havoc
Is the US still a democracy?
Leader is democratically elected so I guess yes.
…but the three branches of government system has clearly collapsed
nickff
The US seems to be behaving more like a parliamentary system than the Republic intended by the founders. Prime ministers in parliaments usually have control of the (effectively single) legislative branch, as well as the executive branch, so they can operate almost like short-term dictatorships (albeit they can be toppled on most given Fridays).
sillyfluke
Not sure what you mean for parliaments. Coalition governments are possible and sometimes almost the default in a lot of countries in recent history. If an opposition party in the coaltion withdraws its support, the government can collapse.
Strongmen in (initially) parlimentary systems did the same thing Trump is doing. Expand executive power, reduce the legislative branch to a rubberstamping function and stack the courts with yesmen.
nickff
Many parliamentary governments tend only to be stable when there is a majority, see Canada and the UK (arguably) for examples of this. There are definitely counter-examples, but they're generally less similar to the US (culturally and legally).
When there are majority governments, there is essentially no difference between executive and legislative power.
voidUpdate
What is the administration's reason for cutting transgender research? Is it just "trans bad"?
alabastervlog
What's peculiar was that a bunch of the research was about whether things like hormonal transition are safe, what kind of side-effects or lasting harm there may be, et c.
You know, the stuff they claim to be really worried about.
pjc50
They're not interested in facts or outcomes, they just want to ban transness and gender non-conformity in general.
Similar to the abortion policy; see the Pulitzer winning article https://www.propublica.org/article/propublica-wins-pulitzer-... . Sure, it might kill some women, but they're never going to pay attention to that.
thisisnotauser
It's not peculiar at all because obviously those things are harmless, and that conclusion is harmful to the administration's political agenda, so why even research it when a foregone conclusion is readily available?
marcellus23
> obviously those things are harmless
I am not a transphobe but how in the world is that obvious?
lazide
Nothing about those doses of hormones are harmless. If someone is transitioning, either they or their doctors considered it worth the risk - but the risks are serious.
Zaheer
It's not just transgender research it's also if an organization boycotts a certain foreign country (note: boycotting any other country is still OK): https://www.pulmonologyadvisor.com/news/nih-prohibits-dei-pr...
shrubble
Someone in the administration read the Cass Report from Britain, would be my guess.
CyberDildonics
Reason? The reason is it is an issue that tested well with focus groups and they are an easy target that makes people uncomfortable.
They can demonize them as an enemy while doing horrible but harder to understand things like hollowing out election oversight.
pstuart
Yes.
PKop
[flagged]
AzzyHN
Pretty much.
Terr_
American medicine is also going to suffer from the brain-drain due to other crimes by the administration, as it goes after foreign students and would-be citizens. (Both capriciously, and also in First-Amendment-breaking retaliation.)
jmclnx
To me, ignoring the courts means impeachment and conviction. But the US Gov is full of cowards who are only there to extort money from their campaign donors.
malcolmgreaves
Republicans are cowards. It’s not the US government. Democrats would impeach. They did already twice.
lotsofpulp
It’s kind of tough when you see 70M of your countrymen vote for a traitor and another 70M implicitly allowing it by not voting.
He proved he could shoot someone on 5th Ave and get away with it, so that someone could be whatever government employee tries to go after him (already evidenced using the purse strings and lawyers of the government rather than a bullet).
And congressional reps have seen others lose elections for going after Trump. The root problem is the voters, and that’s a tough one to fix.
sillystuff
> 70M implicitly allowing it by not voting.
> The root problem is the voters
The root problem is that we do not have an actual opposition party. The so-called Democrats are a right-wing, corporate/oligarch controlled party that engages in activities like enabling genocide. The Republicans are a right-wing, corporate/oligarch controlled party that engages in activities like enabling genocide.
I hope the so-called Democratic party completely implodes so we can, possibly, get a left-of-center party that will actually do things that the so-called Democrats only provide lip-service to, and that, only when the so-called Democrats are guaranteed to be unable to enact such legislation due to not having majorities needed.
I'd prefer that people withholding their votes from either lesser or greater evil right-wing corporate/oligarch, genocidal monster parties would instead vote 3rd party/independent, but I would not fault anyone for not voting for the so-called Democrats or Republicans.
As to blame for the current situation, remember, it was the so-called Democrats who did everything they could to make Trump the Republican presidential candidate, as they thought they would have a better chance against him with their extremely unpopular candidate, Clinton. And, that the so-called Democrats would rather lose elections than allow a non-corporate/oligarch controlled genocidal monster to be elected-- see how they treated Sanders.
* 'so-called' Democrats because they repeatedly engage in voter suppression during primaries to ensure their chosen right-wing pro-corporate/oligarch candidate will win. And, they repeatedly sue to remove from state ballots any candidates running on the left whether Greens, Peace and Freedom, or independent. In the last election, the Greens spent half of their campaign funds fighting these lawsuits so they could maintain ballot access. It was also the so-called Democrats with the Republicans who barred access to presidential debates of candidates who would challenge their right-wing, pro-corporate/oligarch, genocidal positions.
TOGoS
The controlled opposition party makes dang sure that the only other option in major elections is "more of the same". (i.e. Democrats generally fail to clean up whatever mess the last Republican administration made, continue funneling money to Israel, yaddah yaddah, and don't to a whole lot to help the working class.)
A lot of people are completely fed up with "more of the same", so they voted for the clown or didn't bother to show up.
Don't blame the voters when they were never given a real choice.
chrchr
"More of the same" would have been infinitely preferable.
tough
Divide et impera.
There's no two parties.
philosopher1234
Are we sure they’re not giving the donors exactly what they want?
krapp
They are. And that should be a bigger problem to more Americans than it seems to be.
hn_acker
The full title is:
> Trump's NIH Axed Research Grants Even After a Judge Blocked the Cuts, Internal Records Show
A more serious political observation is that this administration operates on the theory that possession is 9/10ths of the law. If they control a pot of funding that you need to maintain normal business operations, they’ll block its payment until you’re out of business. What are the courts going to do about it? The law is not something they respect.
The flip side is that in other areas their powers are much more limited. Revoke Harvard’s tax exempt status? That’ll filter through the courts and years from now Harvard might actually have to make a tax payment (I expect they won’t.)
From a societal perspective, however, we’re in deep shit. There’s an excellent chance that you or a loved one will die from a potentially curable disease (cancer, dementia) because the research and clinical trials that should be bringing us those drugs are all being murdered. We should be reacting to this the same way we respond when someone shoots up a school or hospital. A friend who is a breast cancer survivor just had her trial moved from NIH funding to industry funding, but she is one of the lucky ones.