Federal judge extends block on Trump administration’s funding cuts to medical research

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the Trump administration from drastically cutting medical research funding that many scientists say will endanger patients and cost jobs.

The new National Institutes of Health policy would strip research groups of hundreds of millions of dollars to cover so-called indirect expenses of studying Alzheimer’s, cancer, heart disease and a host of other illnesses — anything from clinical trials of new treatments to basic lab research that is the foundation for discoveries.

Separate lawsuits filed by a group of 22 states plus organizations representing universities, hospitals and research institutions nationwide sued to stop the cuts, saying they would cause “irreparable harm.”

U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley in Boston had temporarily blocked the cuts last month. Wednesday, she filed a preliminary injunction that puts the cuts on hold for longer while the suits proceed.

The NIH, the main funder of biomedical research, awarded about $35 billion in grants to research groups last year. The total is divided into “direct” costs – covering researchers’ salaries and laboratory supplies – and “indirect” costs, the administrative and facility costs needed to support that work.

The Trump administration had dismissed those expenses as “overhead,” but universities and hospitals argue they’re far more critical. They can include such things as electricity to operate sophisticated machinery, hazardous waste disposal, staff who ensure researchers follow safety rules and janitorial workers.

Under prior policy, the government negotiated those rates with institutions. As an example, an institution with a 50% indirect cost rate would get another $50,000 to cover indirect expenses for a $100,000 project. The NIH’s new policy would cap indirect costs at a flat rate of 15% instead, calculated to save the agency $4 billion a year.

Current and former health officials previously told CBS News they were shocked by the change, and stressed federal authorities already carefully scrutinize and negotiate down how much funding goes to indirect costs.

“We fight like hell trying to keep the rates down,” one former federal health official, who had worked with the team responsible for auditing indirect costs on NIH’s behalf for years, said last month.

Negotiations over requests to cover those costs are often contentious and involve inspections of the facilities and interrogations of the researchers working out of the buildings looking to “poke holes” in their submissions.

“We do not give away the farm. Whoever said that has never gone out on a site visit with us,” said the former official.

Dr. David J. Skorton of the Association of American Medical Colleges, one of the plaintiffs, applauded the ruling. “These unlawful cuts would slow medical progress and cost lives,” he wrote in a statement, saying the NIH-funded research “benefits every person and community in America.”

The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees NIH, did not immediately reply to a request for comment.