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The Trump administration has reportedly canceled funding to an ongoing, three-decade study tracking patients with diabetes, despite Donald Trump’s campaign promise to “Make America Healthy Again” and fight chronic disease.
The cuts were made via the National Institutes of Health, which pulled funding for the Diabetes Prevention Program, researchers told Stat News.
The scientists don’t know why the funding was cut, but speculated it might be because Columbia University helps administer funding for the study to research institutions across the country. The Trump administration recently pulled $400 million in federal funding from Columbia, alleging the Ivy League school hadn’t done enough to stop antisemitism on campus.
The Independent has contacted the agency for comment.
The National Institutes of Health, which handed out $35 billion in grants last year, has been hit with multiple cuts since Trump took office, including more than 1,000 employees who were eliminated, as well as individual grants that were canceled because they involved aspects of now-banned diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
The White House has also directed the institutes to dramatically reduce funding for existing grants, too, though that effort was blocked in federal court earlier this month in a lawsuit from 22 states and organizations representing universities and hospitals.
The changes at the health agency have prompted universities to freeze hiring, and some aspiring scientists have been unable to pursue prevision positions funded by the institutes.
“You don’t take these jobs that pay worse and have insane hours and are really stressful unless you care about helping others and taking our love for science and translating that into something that can improve people’s lives,” Connor Phillips, who was interviewing at Brown University for a program researching cerebral palsy, told The Associated Press.
The administration is eyeing changes that could have even more sweeping impacts on the nation’s health.
White House adviser and Department of Government Efficiency leader Elon Musk frequently refers to Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme,” and was considering ending the program’s phone-based services to seniors, before later reportedly abandoning the effort amid media scrutiny.
