The news: It has been a chaotic few weeks for federal health agencies under the Trump administration, with communications pauses, funding freezes, and investigations for fraud all taking place.
1. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) suffered an external communications blackout and travel bans. It had to cancel meetings that will delay decision-making about what medical research to fund next. The blackout started lifting earlier this week, but hiring freezes, a prohibition on new research projects on NIH’s campus, and a recruiting freeze for new patients for clinical studies all remain in place, per NPR.
Why it matters: The NIH is the world’s leading public funder of biomedical research with an annual budget of nearly $48 billion. Any cuts to the agency’s funding could seriously hamper its ability to make medical breakthroughs, while further blackouts could silence medical researchers who don’t toe the party line.