The National Institute of Health, or NIH, is the largest public biomedical funding agency in the world. It supports universities and research groups seeking cures for currently incurable or deadly diseases and infections. Its main goal as an organization is to increase the health and safety of American citizens and to save as many lives as possible.

In 2017, during Trump’s first term in office, his administration proposed cutting the NIH’s funding by around $6 billion, or upwards of 20% of their funding of $32 billion at the time. At the time he was blocked by Congress. Now, in 2025, he wants to do it again.

 The proposed plan would cut NIH funding by around $4 billion, a sizable dent in the agency’s funding, which currently stands at around $48 billion. The cut would be to the reimbursement rates on indirect facilities and administrative costs, such as support staff, maintenance, and buildings.

The Trump Administration’s goal is to cap that type of funding at a rate of 15%, when in the past the rates would be negotiated between the NIH and the group that it would be funding, sometimes being as high as 70%. Private companies will increase their donations for the time being, but they won’t be able to match the payments forever. This will affect all ongoing and future research projects in the medical world in America, as they will have to make compromises in order to fit within their decreased budget. This will result in potentially life-saving research on cancer being put to the side. 

As David J. Skorton, president of the Association of American Medical Colleges, told The New York Times on Feb. 7, “These are real consequences, longer waits for cures and for diagnosis, slower scientific progress, losing out to competitors around the world, and fewer jobs.” He added, “Those who are facing any health challenges will suffer from less biomedical research.”

Cutting the agency’s budget ignores those who are suffering from under-researched diseases, as most developments in the medical world will be hampered if not stopped completely due to the cut in funding. 

As reported by the National Cancer Institute, around 40% of people get cancer in their lifetimes. Luckily, the average person will probably only get a benign tumor on their skin, something easily removed and nonlethal. 

But say, for example, they get pancreatic cancer, which is currently underfunded and under-researched, but there’s been a recent uptick in research regarding treatment.  Pancreatic cancer has a mortality rate of about 87% after five years and occurs in about one in 58 people, according to the American Cancer Society. The combined population of Oak Park and River Forest is more than 62,000. Of the people who live in Oak Park and River Forest today, approximately 1,100 of them will contract pancreatic cancer. Every single one of those people has friends and family who will be impacted by their diagnosis and, should they die of the disease, feel their loss. 

And that’s just one type of cancer, which is one type of health hazard that the NIH funds research towards. There is no financial way to justify the death these cuts are going to cost. 

Even outside of this decision, it is clear that the Trump Administration does not care about America’s well-being. The decision to pull out of the World Health Organization, the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the international treaty to fight climate change and the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the Secretary of Health and Human Services: all of these decisions will have disastrous consequences.