The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have begun canceling billions of dollars in research funding related to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an internal NIH document.
The document states that COVID-19 research funds “were issued for a limited purpose: to ameliorate the effects of the pandemic,” and with the pandemic now over, “the grant funds are no longer necessary.” It remains unclear how many grants will be terminated. A search of NIH RePORTER, a directory of NIH grants, shows that 2,500 projects mention “COVID” in their title or abstract, amounting to $3.8 billion in funding.
COVID-19 research joins five other areas flagged for defunding: diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, certain collaborations with “countries of concern” like China and South Africa, transgender issues, vaccine hesitancy, and climate change.
Additionally, the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed Tuesday that up to $11 billion in funding for COVID public health programs could be cut. The Office of Long COVID Research and Practice is also expected to close. It remains uncertain how the directive will impact emerging research into COVID-19 vaccine injuries or “post-vaccine syndrome,” a term recently introduced by researchers at Yale School of Medicine and the Mount Sinai Health System.
NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, who was confirmed to the role Tuesday evening, had previously pledged to end gain-of-function research—experiments that enhance a pathogen’s deadliness or transmissibility. However, the new directive, which appears to have been issued under then-Acting Director Matthew Memoli before Bhattacharya’s confirmation, goes far beyond that promise.
Another major program facing cuts is the Antiviral Drug Discovery Centers for Pathogens of Pandemic Concern (AViDD), a $577 million initiative funding nine projects aimed at developing new antiviral drugs. Among them is a project led by University of North Carolina virologist Ralph Baric, whose past collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology has been a source of concern since 2020.
