NIH Under Seige

On a cool, sunny, mid-April day, the cheerful redbuds and other flowering trees
amid the sprawling labs on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) main campus
belied the pervasive gloom. Nearly 3 months into President Donald Trump’s
administration, NIH in-house scientists and other workers were reeling from mass
layoffs of colleagues; the removal of leaders; and limits on travel, communication, and
purchasing that have shut the agency off from the outside world, hamstrung experiments, and
crushed the community’s spirits.
On that spring day in Bethesda, Maryland, one senior scientist lamented that two star colleagues
in his institute were heading back to their native China from NIH, abandoning a destination that
had always drawn talent from around the world. “I want to cry,” he said. Another pointed to the
abrupt retirement the previous day of a noted NIH nutrition scientist who said the agency had
censored his publications and interactions with the media.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), billionaire Elon Musk’s quasi-official

White House enforcer, “pops in and out” of online meetings of senior leaders, the scientists said.
Another researcher, who is not a U.S. citizen, mentioned that he has prepared a “deportation
plan,” including a company lined up to ship belongings back to his native country, in case he’s
fired and loses his work visa.

The atmosphere is one of “chaos and fear and frustration and anger,” said a senior scientist with
NIH’s intramural research program who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to protect
themselves and others from retribution. This scientist added: “It’s this feeling of utter
powerlessness and repeated insults.”
A former top NIH official who was forced out believes that’s the intent. “I think the plan is to
sow as much chaos as possible. … I think they want a dispirited workforce at NIH so people will
just say ‘to hell with it’ and leave.”
It’s working. Hundreds of NIH employees took voluntary buyouts offered by the Trump
administration. And at least 25 of the roughly 320 physician-researchers who lead trials of drugs,
cell therapies, and vaccines at NIH’s massive Clinical Center are leaving, as are consulting
physicians, a researcher there told Science.

….Others outside the agency share a pessimistic assessment of NIH. “I don’t think there’s any way
to sugarcoat the last 100 days. The state of the enterprise is chaotic and it’s in jeopardy,” says
Mary Woolley, president of Research!America, a biomedical research advocacy group. “I am
terribly worried,” says molecular biologist Shirley Tilghman, former president of Princeton
University. “It will take years to undo the damage that is being inflicted right now.”

….