On his first day in office, President Trump signed executive orders freezing federal government hiring and regulatory actions. Agencies may not fill empty positions or promulgate new rules.
The next day, the Acting Secretary of Health and Human Services authored a memo that froze the publication of documents and public communications. The freeze, effective through Feb. 1, prevents meetings with the public, or grant review meetings with potential grantees. An indefinite ban on travel was also imposed.
These actions affect agencies overseen through the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Scientists and researchers expressed confusion and concern as to what the long-term effects that such a pause could have on the nation’s responsiveness to new disease outbreaks and ongoing research. “[On January 22] for example, officials halted midstream a training workshop for junior scientists, called off a workshop on adolescent learning minutes before it was to begin, and canceled meetings of two advisory councils. Panels that were scheduled to review grant proposals also received eleventh-hour word that they wouldn’t be meeting,” reported Science.
“This kind of disruption could have long ripple effects,” said researcher Jane Liebschutz. “Even short delays will put the United States behind in research.”
“Peer review via study sections is required by law in order for the NIH to disburse most of the $40 billion annual extramural budget,” explained former National Cancer Institute Director Norman E. Sharpless. “If study sections and advisory council meetings are postponed for more than even a brief period, this will likely lead to interruptions in grant funding, which is bad for U.S. biomedical research,” he was quoted as saying by Stat.
Although there is serious concern about disruptions in research and health notifications (such as updates regarding the spread of the H5N1 bird flu), several media also acknowledged that such a pause or freeze in operations of key agencies was not unexpected, and similar suspension of activities were enacted in the past by the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, to allow new teams to set up processes for review and prioritization.
Rebecca Pompano, a chemist and biomedical engineer at the University of Virginia, whose training session for a study section on Jan. 22 was canceled 20 minutes before it was scheduled to start, was quoted by Stat as saying, “With [government] shutdowns, we all know eventually it will reopen, and so it’s always seen as temporary. But this one is more stressful because there’s been a lot of talk from [Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.] about overhauling the NIH extensively.”