Although the second Trump administration has repeatedly battered the scientific enterprise, the proposal the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), under Russell Vought, issued on May 29, 2026, marks a far more dangerous escalation As the editors of the New England Journal of Medicine warn, the proposed rules have “too many objectionable aspects” to discuss fully, yet three are especially alarming: “Funding advice of independent expert scientists would be ignored by political appointees . They could also stop funding midway through the promised grant period. And they would institute new rules, including rules severely limiting foreign interactions” —moves that strike at the core of how modern science turns discovery into real-world gains for entire populations and for people’s everyday lives.
Below is the interview Emily K. Abel, professor emerita at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, conducted with Andrea Sankar, professor emerita, Department of Anthropology, Wayne State University. Andrea has both received grants and awards from and reviewed grants for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the major government agency responsible for biomedical and public health research and the National Science Foundation (NSF),
EKA: First, can you tell us how NIH currently awards grants?
AS: The Director of NIH, who oversees 27 differently focused institutes, establishes funding priorities, which then guide the different institutes, such as the National Institute of Cancer Research and Treatment and the National Institute on Aging. Because the Director is a political appointee, the policies of the current administration influence those priorities. For example, because of 9/11 and the anthrax scare, President George W. Bush’s administration emphasized biotech and bioterrorism; President William Clinton’s administration, while increasing NIH funding in general, focused on AIDS, which was highly visible at the time.
The various health institutes then widely publish their funding priorities and request research proposals targeting those priorities. In response, researchers throughout the country develop research proposals, which they send to the Center for Scientific Review (CSR). That center first checks that the proposals conform to NIH’s specialized style format and then decides which institute should receive them. Proposals that focus on topics not covered in the published funding priorities are termed “investigator initiated” proposals and are also sent to CSR to determine which institute should review tthem
My first research proposal spanned priorities at two different institutes. My doctoral and post-doctoral training was in gerontology with a focus on caregiving. As a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California-San Francisco, I was present when the AIDS epidemic emerged and it quickly became apparent that community and family based care would be important in handling the epidemic. I thus decided to write a proposal to study caregiving for people living with HIV/AIDS. CSR decided to send the proposal to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), which traditionally was clinically oriented but now needed to respond broadly to the everyday world and needs of people with the disease.
After the institute receives proposals from CSR, it creates a review panel, called a “Study Section, composed of researchers from across the nation who have received NIH grants in the past and are experts in the subject and methodology addressed.
EKA: I remember that you participated in a study section. Can tell us what that entailed?
AS: It was a lot of work because you are reviewing detailed proposals for scientific studies. Study section members write extensive reviews for each proposal. They may write up to thirty or forty reviews, three times a year. If the topic is a high profile one, such as COVID, study section members may have to write as many as sixty reviews. Members have to answer structured questions, such as: Can the methodology answer the central research question posed? Is the study scientifically valid? Is it feasible, given the time, resources and funding? Is it scientifically and socially significant? Do the researchers have the required expertise? What training have they had? Have they done similar kinds of research before? Is the study ethical?
Study section members then meet, today usually on zoom, (formerly in-person) to discuss the proposals for two or two-and-a half days. Everyone is asked to vote on each proposal and to assign a score from one to nine --- one being the best, lower numbers indicating less support for funding.
Every member gets a list of all the proposals that will be discussed at the meeting. If there is any conflict, such as the member collaborated with the applicants in the past five years, is from the same institution, or knows the proposal writer personally, the member will be required to leave the discussion and can not have access to the score assigned.
All told, the process takes at least a full 40-hour week, several times a year.
EKA: Did you detect any political censorship?
AS: Not really. But we did have to deal with moral and ethical issues. I remember reviewing a grant proposed by a Christian community organization that wanted to use churches as sites to conduct interventions about AIDS prevention with teenagers. We wondered whether the interventions could harm the teens if the church had been very explicit about its ambivalence about or rejection of homosexuality.
EKA: What do you think about the new OMB proposals?
AS: They will diminish the importance of the scientific review, reducing it to just one, nonexpert voice among many rather than building on consensus decisions. In practice that opens the door to directing funding not on merit but on whether it aligns with shifting political agendas. I’m worried about decisions to fund proposals in this fashion because they reward projects that reinforce a government’s political agenda, such as its hostility towards LGBTQ+, minorities, or women and projects that confront inconvenient realties, such as the impact of pollution on under-resourced communities. I’m equally concerned about the implications of limiting collaborations with researchers around the world. In our work in Rwanda, these partnerships did more than support secondary prevention that limits the spread by HIV + persons to others but also deepened our understanding of the complex challenges people who are HIV positive face in protecting their sexual partners. These insights would be difficult, if not impossible, to create in isolation. How are US investigators going to help end the Ebola epidemic if they are cut off from the global research community? And if cut off, how will they ensure they can protect the American people?
The White House driven OMB proposal is not a procedural tweak; it is a shift from evidence to ideology. If scientific judgment becomes optional and global collaboration suspect, the consequences will not stay confined to grant panels—they will show up in the care people receive and the risks they face. The deadline to respond is July 13. Silence, here, is its own kind of decision.
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