RFK Jr. Is About to Ax Some of the World’s Best Scientists at NIH
The National Institutes of Health is in danger of being gutted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Department of Health and Human Services.
The NIH is best known for funding a broad spectrum of research science at universities with approximately $40 billion in annual grants. But it also runs its own government labs, with the main campus in Bethesda, Maryland, with a $5 billion annual budget.
Under this system, a select number of NIH scientists have university-like tenure protections. But the vast majority, some 65 percent, are employed on annual, or multi-year, contracts that require periodic renewal. Until Donald Trump retook the White House, renewals have been routine.
But as part of the new administration’s heedless crusade to slash the size of government, HHS is refusing to re-up these contracts — meaning some of the world’s best scientists will soon be tossed from their posts, with the first departures slated for Saturday.
Sources within the NIH argue this is being done less out of spite than incompetence. They believe Kennedy’s HHS has tangled itself in red-tape, mistakenly deeming that the pro forma renewal of scientist contracts would violate Trump’s mandated federal hiring freeze.
The NIH represents a crown jewel of federal research institutions. Its scientists and clinicians represent many of the best and brightest in their fields, who chose to work for NIH because it offers prestige equal to, or surpassing, the world’s top universities, as well as an opportunity to pursue cutting edge research.
NIH employs contract researchers, many with decades of experience, who pursue cures and treatments for chronic diseases that Kennedy has claimed to prioritize in his Make America Healthy Again agenda — ranging from cancer and diabetes to obesity and dementia. Federal investment in NIH scientists also boosts the private sector, with their discoveries often unlocking advances that turn into blockbuster drugs.
According to those who work for the NIH in-house, the cuts will be devastating — and not only for the scientists cut loose and the labs they run. The firings will very quickly degrade the NIH’s global reputation and ability to recruit.
“NIH has been able to attract, previously, people that are held at the highest esteem, internationally, by their peers,” says one tenured NIH scientist, who spoke to Rolling Stone anonymously for fear of retribution. “It’s an honor to work here.”
“You don’t get a great salary — but you do it because you love science,” he explains — and because the institution has offered a unique combination of “job security and the confidence to explore your ideas.”
“That’s all being eroded,” he says. “No one has a feeling of a sense of security anymore, or that there’s any respect for the research.”
While the first cuts will impact only a few dozen scientists, the losses will grow as others term out of their current contracts. Those remaining are already eyeing the exits. “It’s a snowball effect. It signals the end of research [inside] NIH,” the scientist says. “Who is going to want to join a career like that?”
The job cuts will not only degrade the federal research pipeline but will also precipitate a brain drain. Non-citizen scientists working for the NIH on H1-B visas, for example, will likely be forced to return to their home countries, taking world-class intellects, and intellectual property, with them.
The blunder is easily preventable, but more difficult to unwind, according to the NIH scientist, because the terms of their contract employment mean that those dismissed “can’t be re-employed for a year. They’re terminated from that point. There’s no way back.”
NIH staffers and allies have been leading a letter-writing campaign to Kennedy and members of Congress seeking to prevent the dismissals, which they argue threaten to “inflict severe institutional and reputational damage to the NIH” and to “undermine its ability to fulfill its critical mission.”
The letters insist that the scientists who are about to be discarded are “not bureaucratic waste,” but instead represent “the heart and soul of discovery.” And they warn that the terminations do not appear to be “the result of any deliberate decision,” rather a dark and “unintended consequence of the hiring freeze.”
Rolling Stone reached out to HHS for comment and did not hear back.
In other maneuvers, the administration has already shown its contempt for the mission of the NIH. In fact, the NIH has been a focal point of the Trump administration’s efforts to bring universities to heel.
NIH grants to America’s elite research institutions have long included direct funding for specific scientific projects, as well as “indirect” support, meant to pay for labs and buildings as well as administrative costs. In February, the administration sought to suddenly impose a hard cap of 15 percent for indirect costs on new and existing research grants — a massive defunding of the nation’s research infrastructure, when indirect support of up to 80 percent has been standard. The defunding has been blocked in court for now, with a federal judge imposing a preliminary injunction this week.
The administration’s choice to lead NIH is also scientifically suspect. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford researcher, is best known for his fierce opposition to Covid-19 lockdowns, having promoted a let-’er-rip strategy of mass infection to promote “herd immunity,” despite warnings that such an approach could have increased the American death toll by millions. Bhattacharya is currently up for confirmation, and the Republican-led Senate is expected to rubber stamp his nomination.
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