The federal government ensures the medicines we use are effective and safe but does far more than approve new drugs and vaccines. The National Institutes of Health conducts research in its own labs and is the leading funder of critical research and new biomedical professionals in the United States. Medical providers at the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Defense Department also pioneer forms of care, including new cardiac procedures and innovative psychiatric therapies.
By the numbers
Each year, the Veterans Health Administration serves more than 9 million veterans at over 1,300 medical facilities across the country, caring for patients and leading clinical trials.
Private vaccine companies are pulling back from investments, shelving planned vaccines and cutting their workforce in response to new federal policies and changes to the childhood vaccine schedule.
NIH grants to fund scientific research across the country dropped by 15% in 2025, supporting 2,700 fewer projects, including a 31% reduction in research initiatives related to women’s health.
Instability and policy changes for NIH grants have disrupted key opportunities for prospective and early-career biomedical scientists to grow their careers.
Profile · On the Ground
Lead investigator and an assistant professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center
New York City, New York
Kidney failure currently affects more than 800,000 people in the United States, with Black Americans disproportionately accounting for more than one-third of those suffering from this debilitating and often deadly condition.
Scientists say more research is needed to fully understand links between a gene associated with an accelerated risk of kidney disease found in some African Americans and exposure to poverty and environmental factors, and how to reduce the disparate and harmful consequences.
But in March 2025, the National Institutes of Health nevertheless froze funding for a study examining this connection.
As a result of the funding pause, “some potential participants we had identified for recruitment were hospitalized or died,” said Dr. Dinushika Mohottige, the study’s lead investigator and an assistant professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York.
“These devastating deaths highlight the gravity of kidney disease and other chronic diseases, and the urgency of scientific pursuits that accelerate prevention, early detection and evidence-based patient-centered treatment of kidney disease,” Mohottige said.
The NIH objected to continuing the study in part because it focused on race as a factor in health outcomes.
The Trump administration, facing political backlash and lawsuits for cuts to more than 2,000 other NIH-funded research projects, ultimately reversed itself on the genetic-kidney study. But researchers in biomedicine and health say this was just one of a series of on-again, off-again cuts and terminations that have led to consequential losses, from fellowship budgets to hopes among patients looking to participate in clinical trials.
Heather Pierce, senior director for science policy at the Association on Medical Colleges, representing medical schools and teaching hospitals, said the uncertainty of funding for the kidney study of Black Americans is part of a broader pattern in which the administration has been noticeably slow releasing agreed-upon dollars and has restructured awards in ways that create new delays.
“This should be of concern to everyone in the public,” Pierce said. “When research stops, that’s treatment, that’s cures, that’s improving outcomes that we won’t see in the future.”