- by Kevin Necessary
Out of the gate, the Trump administration waged a double-barreled assault on the NIH funding of biomedical research across the United States.
First, they froze the distribution of all federal grants, which included NIH grants.
Second, they imposed cuts on the indirect costs associated with those grants, an absolute back breaker to universities and other institutions across the country who’ve already budgeted (and spent) those obligated funds. I wrote about that impact here.
Courts may have ordered a temporary halt to both of those unilateral cuts, which has moved other topics to the front burner.
But don’t let that fool you.
Behind the scenes, the Trump administration has thrown a wrench in the NIH grant-making process in a way that carries enormous implications, near- and long-term.
I talked to an insider to this process to understand just how much damage is being done. Her summary:
“They are strangling scientific research.”
Right now.
Here is what I learned from our conversation, and what every American needs to know:
The Global Leader in Biomedical Research
Congress approves the annual NIH research budget, which has been in the $40B to $50B range in recent years. That immense scale of reliable funding from the public sector anchors one of the United States’ great strengths: “We are the best biomedical research enterprise, and the best funded biomedical research enterprise, in the world.”
That funding has also played a role in virtually every biomedical breakthrough of our lifetimes.
The Current Situation: Freeze by Inaction
To understand how the Trump Administration is currently kneecapping that unique American strength, you need to understand what happens after Congress approves the NIH budget.
NIH’s grantmaking process is a highly competitive one—only about 8% of proposals submitted from around the country are awarded funding. The selection process involves a thorough, multi-stage process where tens of thousands of proposals from across the country are reviewed, winnowed down to the “best and brightest,” and ultimately awarded as grants (typically two to five years in duration).
A key stage of the process involves a variety of large panels (30-50 people) of peers and experts from across their country, with different panels reviewing and rating different subject matters of research (cancer, mental health, etc.). These panels then advance their ratings of various proposals to NIH program officers for final approval. They typically meet every four months to review proposals.
As a matter of law, our expert explained, “in order for the review panels to meet and discuss the grants, the review panels have to be listed in the Federal Registry, fifteen days prior to the meeting. Nothing has been allowed to be put in the federal register since Inauguration Day.”
(In the same period of 2024, 150 such notices were listed in the Federal Registry).
And because “[n]one of the panels can meet, [NIH] can’t move forward on any grants.”
So basically, the Trump administration is circumventing the court order by not allowing review meetings to be conducted.
So the grant-making process is essentially frozen in place: “They can not meet. They can not review the grants. They cannot approve the grants. They can not disperse the money.”
“They are not funding science in the U.S. right now. They turned off the tap….”
You can already see the impact of this “strangling” on funds awarded in this chart by Nature:
So three threats are now threatening the NIH system at once.
New grants are being halted because these required meetings aren’t happening. And both the overall freeze, and the indirect cost cuts, are only not happening at the moment because of temporary court action.
I asked this expert to walk me through the consequences of these destructive actions. Every American needs to understand what she told me:
The impact on health care: “Giving Up”
Gutting scientific research in the United States renders huge damage to American health care, and halts progress we’ve been steadily making tackling diseases that ravage so many lives and families. Under the current approach:
“We are not going to do biomedical research in this country.”
“We are not going to invest in cutting edge care, or treatment, or new solutions to these health problems..[be it] cancers, mental health disorders, or Alzheimers.”
“It’s literally giving up….We are going to let all the health care issues do what they’re doing to do.”
“We’ve given up on trying to cure all health problems. We are giving up our lead and giving up completely.”
A Brain Drain to Other Countries
One immediate impact will be that talented American researchers are going to go elsewhere:
“I’m already hearing from Ireland, Germany, the UK, Canada—they’re getting flooded with American applications.”
Losing our best-on-the-globe status carries huge impacts for both the economy and national health:
“The one who comes up with the research is the one who controls its access. If the US company develops the patent then the US company determines who distributes it and how. [If it goes to other nations,] we lose our innovations.”
But the damage goes beyond our borders. Since the U.S. is the overwhelming leader in biomedical research, cuts here will never be offset by growth in research elsewhere: “It’s like asking a garden pale to hold a bathtub.”
It’s simply a net loss in overall research, and in progress—and a net loss to global health.
Stopping Progress in Its Tracks
There’s an immediate and dire price as well.
Ongoing clinical trials are happening now—investigating life-saving treatment for everything from childhood cancers and Alzheimers to pancreatic cancer and other ailments. Unless the NIH attack is reversed, these “[o]ngoing trials will be stopped.”
Patients across the country are part of these trials, while others who are sick are desperately waiting and hoping that they result in new cures they can gain access to.
“We are always counting on what’s going to be the next treatment, and if there’s no next treatment, that’s that.”
Wasting Investments from Past
Tens of millions in grants are spent on “long-term studies—10-20 year investments— following people [for long periods of their lives]. When that research money stops, you lose everything you’ve invested in those resources,” and those long-term studies.
If NIH investment is stopped, you “lose all the investment that you make.”
Cures “coming down the pike”—the result of years or decades of research—are put on the back burner.
Losing the Future: “Cutting off scientific careers at the source.”
She also explained another type of long-run damage being done.
To imagine it, our expert asked: “If I told you that this administration was saying that there could be no medical students next year, and every thereafter, how would you feel about that?” (ie. that the only people who would be doctors in the future are the current doctors. There would be no new ones in the pipeline).
“Developing every doctor is a multi-year process. It’s the same thing with scientists. It’s a very long-term investment.”
An end of NIH funding this year means there “are no graduate students and researchers this year.” Every year that follows means you are not building that pipeline of researchers for the future.
The Long-Term Cascade
All of this has a short-, medium- and long-term cascading effect:
“You are mortgaging our futures with our NIH cuts. The effects are long term.
In six months, you see the firings and lab closings.
In two to three years, you see a drop in PhDs.
In five years, you see the noticeable loss in innovation and new patents.
In ten years, you see the mortality rate go up.
If you turn all that off, you don’t turn that back on very easily.”
The Economic Impact
Not only do these cuts impact the nation’s health care, and overall innovation economy, they have a devastating impact on regional and state economies.
In both blue and red states.
For example, “NIH funding is part of what keeps the University of Alabama afloat.”
I looked it up, and she’s right. The University of Alabama system received $325 million in research funds in 2024 alone. Those dollars support thousands of good jobs across the state.
She pointed out the irony that governors and other state leaders “get all excited about new data centers that are going to employ 100s or 1000s of people, bringing jobs to the state. NIH money funds thousands and tens of thousands in each of these states.”
I looked that up too. She’s right again.
Here’s the data on how much NIH funding creates and supports jobs and businesses in Ohio, with an overall economic impact of more than $2.5 billion in the state:
Governors like Mike DeWine and now-Senator Husted hand out millions in state dollars for projects that generate far fewer jobs than this. They hold press conference after press conference touting this job creation or retention. Thus far, I’ve heard neither say a word about these cuts, which would devastate numerous crown-jewel institutions across Ohio while costing countless jobs and risking sending Ohio-based experts elsewhere.
To frame it differently, Ohio is proud to have a number of biomedical hubs in our state, led by Cleveland-Akron, Columbus, and Cincinnati. For example, in 2021,DeWine and Husted touted the “Cleveland Innovation District” as a center of “world-class healthcare providers and education institutions with the goal of creating a pathogen center with global reach to improve the lives of millions of people and to generate more than 20,000 jobs in Ohio over 10 years.”
Wonderful, gentlemen.
But as our expert said, “biomedical hubs need biomedical infrastructure.” NIH funding currently undergirds a huge share of the infrastructure and research DeWine and Husted were bragging about.
And that funding creates a “snowball effect. If you’re the first place to discover [something], that makes people invest more in what you do. And [you benefit] from all the downstream impacts.”
The end of NIH funding spells the end of all that.
It would devastate Ohio’s biomedical hubs. And those in every state in the country.
What You Can Do
As with so much else, the silence of those who represent Ohio and many of the other impacted states is appalling.
So they need to hear from you.
Please call your House and Senate members and let them know directly. These are leaders who are more than happy to celebrate when their states’ colleges and universities win sporting events. So why won’t they fight for them when billions of dollars and thousands of good jobs are at stake?
Call your Senator HERE.
Call your House member HERE.
Then please share this email so others you know understand the risk, and also take action.
Day 85 — February 24, 2025
On the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukraine advanced a motion at the United Nations condemning Russian “aggression” and calling for Russia to unconditionally withdraw from Ukraine.
93 nations voted for the resolution, including our traditional allies in Europe. 65 voted to abstain, including China and Iran.
Only 17 nations voted against Ukraine’s motion, including North Korea, Belarus, Syria, Cuba and Sudan. The United States joined this group.
Now, onto Kevin’s Commentary:
Welcome back friends, to another behind the scenes look at my cartooning process. Grab your shovel and let's dig into last week's rough sketches.
In what should not be shocking to anyone, convicted felon Donald Trump fully embraced the Supreme Court ruling that states he has total immunity from any crimes he may commit while in office. Trump posted to social media that nothing (he does) is illegal if he's doing it for the good of the country. Of course we know that Donny does nothing for anyone or anything other than himself. He couldn't give a damn about America or any other American. He craves power and money, and is stopping at nothing to amass both. Trump knows nothing other than to be a petty, self-absorbed dictator who thinks he can do anything he wants. Unfortunately, John Roberts and the — ahem! — conservative justices on the Supreme Court are more than happy to oblige.
My first sketch has Trump brandishing a pistol, about to shoot the Statue of Liberty.
I've previously gone into how I use Lady Liberty as a symbol for American values such as democracy and diversity. Those two values are currently being destroyed, or at the very least suppressed, by Trump, and I felt the imagery of the Statue of Liberty was apt for this sketch. I drew upon Trump's own claim that he could shoot someone in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and he'd only become more popular, which is why I gave him a gun in the sketch rather than some other weapon. As a compositional reference, I based the image off of the infamous Vietnam War photo Saigon Execution, where a South Vietnamese general shoots a Viet Cong captain.
Looking at this sketch, it feels more like an editorial illustration than an editorial cartoon. The dialog balloon, referencing Trump's own words about doing whatever he wants in the name of saving the country, feels out of place. I wonder if the concept would be more effective if it was drawn in a more realistic style. I also found drawing this particular rendition of the Statue of Liberty oddly challenging, as we're so used to her iconic silhouette with her torch held high. Having her arms bound behind her back, as were the arms of the Viet Cong captain in the photo, took away some of what makes the Statue of Liberty look like herself. I'm sure that would have been resolved had I tightened up the drawing, but it feels very apparent to me in the rough sketch.
While most Republicans seem giddy about Trump destroying America, one who is — surprisingly — upset is former Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell. Mitch has, over the years, come out against Trump, including blaming him for the January 6 insurrection. More recently, McConnell has opposed several of Trump's more outlandish Cabinet picks and Trump's attempts to consolidate power and destroy our institutions.
If only Mitch hadn't set the stage from Trump's takeover of the United States.
McConnell, in his role as leader of the Senate Republicans, did everything he could to sabotage Democratic presidents. It was McConnell who led the effort to deny Barack Obama a chance to nominate a Supreme Court justice during Obama's last term. That directly resulted in Roe v. Wade being struck down and for the Roberts Court to rule that presidents — specifically Trump — were immune to prosecution. And McConnell's repeated stonewalling of Democrats helped contribute to the hyperpartisan politics that have torn our country apart.
I drew Mitch as Elmer Fudd, smoking shotgun in hand, standing over the carcass of a bald eagle meant to represent American democracy. While it's clear that Mitch killed the eagle, I have him acting surprised and saying that whomever did kill the eagle (democracy) should be ashamed of themselves.
I don't think this is a bad sketch. I wonder if people would get the context were I to take away the "democracy" label on the eagle. I do like Mitch as Elmer Fudd. I've drawn McConnell so many times over the years that I didn't even have to look up a reference photo.
Perhaps the biggest news out of last week was that Vice President JD Vance and his drinking buddy, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, went to Europe and all but declared that the Western alliance was dead. Vance and Hegseth trashed European democracy, schmoozed with the German far-right, and set the stage for Trump to throw Ukraine under the bus while cozying up to Vladimir Putin.
Eighty years ago the United States and other Western powers defeated Adolph Hitler and the Nazis. While the extreme right never fully died, there was a pleasant fantasy that European fascism was, for all practical purposes, killed and buried in 1945. But now Trump, along with Vance, Hegseth, Elon Musk and the MAGA movement have ghoulishly dug up the corpse of authoritarianism and are unleashing it against Western democracy.
I first drew Vance and Hegseth as grave robbers, hoisting the coffin and corpse of European fascism out of the grave on a moonlit night. I took visual inspiration from my favorite comedy, Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein. Gene Wilder's hapless Fredrick Frankenstein ("Frankensteen.") and Marty Feldman's Igor dig up a corpse for their experiments, only for the corpse's arm to inconveniently pop out of the coffin. While Vance and Hegseth are much more dangerous than the fictional Frankenstein and Igor, they are, in their own ways, just as cartoonish.
I always find it difficult to convey a night setting in a rough sketch. So much of the mood of a night setting depends on the lighting and shadows. I did the best I could in the 20 or so minutes I took to sketch this out. Had this become the final cartoon, I could have made the background much more dynamic and created a spookier ambiance with color and shading.
That sketch led to the final cartoon, which still had Vance and Hegseth digging up the corpse of European fascism. But here I wanted to draw a parallel to the United States' contribution to burying fascism in 1945, as opposed to the current administration's promotion of authoritarianism in 2025. This cartoon has two panels, with Uncle Sam and a World War II G.I. looking over the fresh grave of European fascism in the first panel, naively thinking that it was buried forever, while Vance and Hegseth dig through the dirt in the second panel.
In the final cartoon, I made sure to make the soldier resemble Willy and Joe, two characters created by legendary editorial cartoonist Bill Mauldin. Mauldin's cartoons about the lives of U.S. infantrymen were drawn while Mauldin himself was serving in the war. They became a touchstone for many of Mauldin's fellow soldiers, and earned him the Pulitzer Prize. I felt it was only right to honor Mauldin here. One further element in the final cartoon not seen in the rough sketch was the addition of shadow president Elon Musk overseeing Vance and Hegseth. Not content with only trashing American democracy, Musk has come out in support of the German far-right, and favors Putin over Ukraine.
One thing I would change if I had the chance is I'd delete the labels on Vance, Hegseth, and Elon. I don't think they're needed, and I should have trusted my caricatures to give people context. Labels on cartoons are one of those often necessary evils that most cartoonists, including myself, loathe. I received numerous comments about the cartoon where readers said they liked the drawing and the concept, but the labels felt distracting.
And that about does it for me this week. As always, thank you for subscribing to Pepperspectives. I'll be back next week with more rough sketches and insight into my cartooning process. Until then, take care and be safe.
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