Medical researchers say the Trump administration’s plan to reduce payments for indirect research costs will hamper the search for new cures. A visit to University of Maryland lab studying how viruses spread to illustrates the impact.
AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
A federal judge in Boston is mulling a decision that could have far-reaching implications for research across the United States. The judge could rule any day on whether the Trump administration can cut billions of dollars from the overhead cost of biomedical research at universities, medical schools and hospitals. Why do overhead costs matter? NPR health correspondent Rob Stein visited one lab to find out.
ROB STEIN, BYLINE: Dr. Donald Milton’s a federally funded scientist at the University of Maryland School of Public Health. He’s among thousands of scientists around the country funded by the National Institutes of Health who are bracing for dramatic cuts in their budgets.
Can you walk me back to your lab?
DONALD MILTON: Yeah. So across the hallway here is a lab where we do our breath collections.
STEIN: Milton and his colleagues collect breath from sick people to study how respiratory viruses like the flu and COVID spread from one person to another.
(SOUNDBITE OF BEEPING)
MILTON: We do our breath collections with the Gesundheit II, which is right behind you here.
STEIN: What’s it called?
MILTON: The Gesundheit II.
STEIN: The Gesundheit II looks like a booth with clear plastic windows. Inside, there’s a giant silver cone that resembles the horn of an old-fashioned gramophone.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLASTIC RUSTLING)
STEIN: A feverish student arrives to get his blood drawn, nose swabbed, spit collected and take a turn breathing into the big metal cone.
MILTON: I’ll have him loudly recite the alphabet.
STEIN: OK.
MILTON: And meanwhile, they should be counting any coughs or sneezes that he makes.
STEIN: To try to figure out how to protect people against the next epidemic or pandemic, like the bird flu that’s infecting poultry, dairy cows and some people.
MILTON: Is it airborne? Do masks work? Are there other things that we should be doing, like making sure we have good ventilation and filtration?
STEIN: The Gesundheit II is just one piece of equipment in just one of his labs.
MILTON: We are having to replace pieces of our Gesundheit II because it’s now going on 20 years old, you know, and stuff wears out.
STEIN: In fact, Milton says about one-third of the money he gets from the NIH is for indirect costs.
MILTON: The lights, the maintenance on the machinery, the heat, the air conditioning.
STEIN: The Trump administration wants to cap indirect cost payments at 15%. The University of Maryland has been getting about 56%. So Milton estimates he would lose about $1.1 million, forcing him to lay off as many as half his team.
MILTON: It would be really bad for our work because it would slow us down. It may prevent us from continuing the work in the longer run.
STEIN: And he worries about the future of biomedical research. Most of the agency’s 48 billion annual budget goes to scientists outside the agency, like Milton, including about 9 billion for indirect costs.
MILTON: Since World War II, the United States built up the world’s most effective and successful research enterprise anywhere in human history. And we did that because the federal government supported the infrastructure that makes research possible. And that’s what the indirect costs do. And without that, the whole thing crumbles.
STEIN: Now, the Trump administration says many institutions could cut bloat or use their endowments to cover those indirect costs. And the NIH could use the $4 billion in savings to pay for even more research, especially outside the usual elite academic enclaves. Some outside experts agree. Avik Roy is president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, a conservative think tank.
AVIK ROY: Rates should be reasonable for universities to cover their overhead and allow more of NIH’s budget to be directed towards actual scientific research.
STEIN: State attorneys general, medical schools, hospitals and others argued in federal court in Boston that the cap on indirect cost funding would be devastating and is illegal. The judge could rule any time.
Rob Stein, NPR News, College Park, Maryland.
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