Appalling Termination of NIH-Funded Clinical Trials is a Wake-up Call to Federal Health Officials Who Should Know Better
WASHINGTON, D.C. – After the National Institutes of Health (NIH) terminated research grants that funded clinical trials, 383 of the trials funded by NIH grants between February 28 and August 15, 2025 subsequently lost grant funding – affecting more than 74,000 trial participants, according to a study published today in JAMA Internal Medicine. The affected trials, about 3.5% of NIH-funded trials, were disproportionately conducted outside the U.S. or in the northeastern U.S. and disproportionately studied infectious diseases, prevention and behavioral interventions. Dr. Robert Steinbrook, Health Research Group Director for Public Citizen, issued the following statement:
“As was the case with the Trump administration’s abandonment of ongoing clinical trials funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, grant terminations in clinical trials funded by the NIH jeopardizes the participants in the trials, undermines research integrity, wastes federal tax dollars, and defies common sense. Ongoing clinical trials should only be stopped for reasons that are scientifically sound, such as when a treatment is shown to be more effective than anticipated or harmful. Interrupting trials for other reasons betrays the participants and is an appalling violation of clinical research ethics.
“The new study offers a wake-up call to federal health officials who should know better to never repeat these mistakes. They must lessen the damage that has already occurred by promptly restoring all the terminated grants that can be restored.”